Page 24 of My Grape Crush
Too overwhelmed to disagree, I unbuckle with a sigh.“Get us there in one piece, please. I can’t afford to lose you too.”
Chapter Eight
RHYS
I catchglimpses of the lake that disappear and reappear as the highway curves. It looks timeless and mighty. Familiar too, the deep blue waters unchanged from the time my family drove this highway. I was eight. Me, Sawyer and JC were crammed into the back of our Volvo station wagon, roughhousing like caged animals. Dad barked threats to dump us on the roadside until Mom swooped in, offering bribes of popsicles and donuts if we settled down.
Now I’m driving, and Dani is the person in need of settling. She’s chewing so hard on her bottom lip that I fear she might draw blood.
Heather’s agent offered up jack shit for a solution. Since then, Dani’s left panicked voicemails with multiple modeling agencies who, like me, consider eleven a.m. a perfectly acceptable time to start the day.I’m genuinely worried about her well-being when we reach the outskirts of Kelowna. Her hundred-yard stare out the windshield smacks of defeat.
I'm desperate to help but not really sure how.
“Talk to me,” I say. “Let’s figure this out.”
She blows out a heavy breath. “Without mincing words, we’re fucked.”
“Maybe not. Evelyn seemed keen to have you step in.” She had, in fact, pounced all over my suggestion when Dani called her with an update.
“Keen because there is no other option.”
“What are you worried about?” I ask. “Aside from the publicity? I can guide you through the motions. Happy to let you in on the secret that a monkey could pull off my entire existence.”
Finally, a laugh.
“You were born to be on camera,” she states. “My face is as big as a Buick. No angles. And if the camera adds ten pounds…”
She trails off,her throat bobbing with a swallow. Nerves, I can understand. But has Dani not looked in the mirror lately? If anything, Luca will drool over her untapped potential.
I float the notion a second time. “Let me talk to Luca. He is terrified of lackluster results. You are a coup,” I continue, pumping her up. “A triumph of unheralded casting.”
Dani raises her eyebrows ever so slightly. “Thank you for your delusionally generous view of me.”
Generous? Try selfish. I badly want to understand the curious electric charge that went down between us in her place. Several hours together, in the sun, drinking rosé half-naked? I can’t think of a better first date.
“Oh, shit!” Dani points frantically at the approaching off-ramp. “This is our exit!”
Tires screech on the pavement, my radical swerve just missing the barrier. We killed the GPS while Dani phoned every talent agency on planet Earth, but she navigates us from memory to a winding road littered with lakefront mansions. Yvette's multi-acre spread looms behind a stone wall and gate, the house set back from the road, entry via an intercom camouflaged within the rock. Extending my arm out the window, I press the button, and a disembodied voice—posh, welcoming, slurred—says, “Follow the driveway to the end and park.”
We pass the gate onto a vast estate, the stone façade of the gothic mansion gray and imposing. To the left of a plush manicured lawn, bright green ribbons of grape vines stretch as far as the eye can see.
“Disneyland called and said they want their castle back,” I joke.
Dani suppresses a laugh. “Yvette and her husband, Garth, own fifty percent of the vineyards in the Okanagan,” she informs me. “They run Alameda Hills, one of the biggest producers in Canada.”
“What’s she like?”
Dani thinks about that. “‘The Anna Wintour of WineCountry’ is the nicest thing people say about her. Runner-up is ‘Former model turned social climber.’”
I park in front of a five-car garage, cut the engine then turn to face her. “And your take?”
“The finest collection of filler and Chanel?”
“Ah, got it.” Even if you don’t specifically know a woman like Yvette, you know the type.
“I mean, honestly, she’s cool,” Dani repositions, perhaps feeling like she overstepped a mark. “A little high-strung, but what do I know about life as a millionaire?”
“Hello, hello!”
