Vintage (11 page)

Stefan Urban, head of Randon’s Napa operation, had recognized Axel’s talent and nurtured it further. Axel had felt his heart swell with pride when Mathieu Randon told Urban that he wanted Stefan to head up the champagne operation and Urban responded, while Axel stood in front of his desk and listened in on the call, via speakerphone. “I’m moving nowhere without Delaflote. Axel is my right-hand man. Damn it, Mathieu. He is my right hand!”

Randon agreed to bring Axel back to Champagne too.

“Would you really have turned down the job if he’d refused to transfer me?” Axel asked his boss later.

“Of course,” said Stefan. “You make me look good.”

Such unequivocal support meant a great deal to Axel and so he was determined to be a good representative of Stefan Urban’s team when he joined the rest of Domaine Randon’s board at the huge oval table in the office on the Champs-Élysées.

The meeting continued until midnight. It was tiring but exciting too. Axel had always wanted to be a part of this world in which he found himself now, where people bandied about seven- and even eight-figure numbers without batting an eyelid, though he found it slightly nerve-racking when Randon went around the table asking each person present to give their opinion.

“What about you, Delaflote? Will Fast Life be a worthy addition to the DR stable? Would you wear Fast Life?”

“I’m wearing their underwear right now,” said Axel, regretting the words even as they came out of his mouth. But, thank goodness, everybody laughed. Mathieu Randon laughed hardest.

“Then it’s done,” he said.

Finally Randon called the meeting to a close. Like obedient schoolchildren, the attendees stood up almost as one and began to gather together their belongings.

“Not you, Monsieur Delaflote,” Randon said to Axel.

Axel paused in packing his briefcase, empty but for his phone and a pen. Randon beckoned him to the head of the table. Axel was aware that every gaze in the room was following him.

“I need a dining companion,” said Randon. “And you’re today’s lucky winner. Bertille, call Le Cochon D’Inde and tell them I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“I’m not Bertille … ” the girl began. A smile from Randon quickly silenced her.

Le Cochon D’Inde was one of the best new restaurants in Paris. Ordinarily, its kitchen closed at midnight, but a call on behalf of Mathieu Randon could persuade most Parisian chefs to stay after hours, even if they knew that the great man would order nothing more than an omelet
when he did arrive. Randon had recently invested heavily in a couple of restaurants and every eager young chef courted his patronage.

Axel’s mouth watered as he studied the menu. He was ravenous. He fancied a steak. But even as he was reading it, Randon plucked the menu from Axel’s hand and ordered for him too.

“The usual. Two omelets. Much too late at night for anything heavier, don’t you think?”

Axel demurred.

There was to be no wine either. The waiter poured two glasses of sparkling water. Axel prayed that his stomach wouldn’t growl as Randon began to speak.

“I’ve heard good reports about you, Monsieur Delaflote.”

Axel nodded. He wanted to say “thank you” but he had a mouth full of bread.

“You may have wondered why you were invited to join our meeting this evening,” Randon continued.

“It had crossed my mind,” said Axel. He had definitely been the most junior person present at the boardroom table that night. “I suppose you wanted someone to represent Stefan.”

“I’ve decided that I want to give you more responsibility.”

Axel raised an eyebrow. He tried to look cool. As though such an honor were inevitable.

“As you know, Domaine Randon began with, and still very much revolves around, my family business in Champagne. Maison Randon dates back to the eighteenth century. It was a favorite of Napoléon. It is the seat of my family and the heart of my empire. So you can imagine how much it concerned me when that heart began to ail.”

Axel nodded.

“That’s why I asked Stefan to bring you across from Napa Valley.”

“Thank you for the opportunity,” said Axel.

“You’ve proved yourself to be worthy of it.”

Randon paused for a moment while the waiter placed their omelets in front of them.

“You’re a Champagne man yourself, Delaflote. You know how proud the Champenois are. You understand the meaning of family pride. Well, I want to reinvigorate my family name. I want to grow Maison Randon. Here is a list of the land I would like to acquire over the next three to five years.”

He passed the list on monogrammed paper across the table to Axel, who read the names written thereon with a sense of rising panic.

“I want you to do due diligence on each of these houses. I want to know how much you think they’re worth. I trust you, Monsieur Delaflote. I know you won’t disappoint me. And people who serve me well are always rewarded.”

Dinner over, Randon offered Axel a ride to the Gare de L’Est in the back of his chauffeured car.

“Damn nuisance to have to catch a train at this time of night. We should get you an apartment in Paris,” Randon commented, peering out of the car window. “I’ll have the personnel department find you something in town.”

“I’m happy in Épernay. It suits me just fine,” said Axel.

“Not with your new job title, it won’t. You’ll need a place here, as well as in Champagne.”

“I’m sorry … ?” Axel began.

“Kill the engine for a moment,” Randon instructed his driver. “Stefan Urban takes a lot of holidays,” he continued. “I’m not entirely sure of his dedication to the cause. Since he seems to enjoy his time off so much, I think it
may be time for him to take a proper sabbatical. And for you to take a promotion. How do the initials ‘MD’ sound to you, Monsieur Delaflote?”

Axel’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”

“We’ll talk about it further in the morning. My office. Nine o’clock sharp. Now get some sleep. By the way,” Randon said, almost as an afterthought, “I do hope you didn’t have to cancel an important assignation on my behalf.”

Axel shook his head automatically. He was absolutely in a daze.

“Of course not.”

“Good,” said Randon, nodding approvingly. “Because as every man should know, love is the enemy of success.”

C
hristina and Bill hadn’t seen each other in almost a month. Since their anniversary, Bill had been spending most of his time in New Mexico filming an action movie called
Kings of the Stone Age.
It was about a paleontologist who foolishly believes the modern scientific community’s view that the dinosaurs were made extinct before humankind evolved, but is suddenly transported back in time to a world where dinosaurs and man co-existed. And all the girls wore fur bikinis … 

“This shoot is pure hell,” Bill assured Christina whenever they spoke on the phone.

“Are you lonely, honey?” Christina asked.

“Very.”

Christina didn’t know that Bill was so lonely that he had generously agreed to share his Winnebago with model/actress twins Misty and Lisa from Dallas.

Each phone conversation would end in exactly the same way.

“I miss you, baby,” Bill would tell Christina.

“I miss you too,” she’d tell him back.

But the truth was, Christina didn’t have all that much time to miss her husband. The
Hello!
magazine anniversary spread and the gorgeous publicity stills released from the Maison Randon commercial shoot seemed to have reminded the fashion world that Christina still existed. She was on a small roll. Marisa had her fully booked for a month: editorials and commercials back-to-back, culminating in her own swimsuit calendar shoot in Baja. Every supermodel had to have her own swimsuit calendar.

It was while she was in Baja that Christina caught up with a very old friend … 

Christina was kneeling in the sand, having Evian water sprayed on her thighs and décolletage to make her skin glisten for the camera, when the commotion began.

“Hey!” one of the shoot’s bouncers shouted at a couple who were trying to walk by. “You can’t come through here. The beach is closed.”

“You’re shitting me. You can’t close the fucking beach,” the man shouted. “This is public property.”

“Not today it’s not,” said the bouncer.

“Says who, asshole?”

The makeup artist who had been making Christina glitter paused to watch the fight. The stylist and the hairdresser craned over Christina’s head to see what was happening.
The photographer’s assistant let the reflector he had been holding aloft droop to the sand. Even the photographer was distracted.

Christina was furious. How had members of the public gotten so close to her in the first place? She stood up and pulled on a dressing gown. The shoot team seemed to have forgotten that she was topless. Not that she would be showing any nipple in the calendar. She would have her arms folded tastefully across her chest.

Christina strode over to the water’s edge, where the bouncer and a small, skinny white guy in voluminous board shorts were scuffling while the entire team watched. Christina addressed the shrieking girlfriend.

“Will you please take your boyfriend and go back to whichever skanky low-rent all-inclusive resort you came from? We are trying to work.”

“Fuck you,” said the girl. “Who do you think you are anyway?”

Christina’s mouth dropped open. The girl squared up to her. The circle that had formed around the men fighting shifted their attention to the altogether more exciting possibility of a bitch fight.

Christina stood firm but felt her legs turn to jelly. The last thing she needed was a single scratch on her perfect form.

Meanwhile, the bouncer finally subdued the girl’s boyfriend, trapping him in a neck-lock and knocking off his sunglasses to reveal his famously mismatched eyes.

“Oh my God!” the stylist shrieked. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

Rock god, to be precise.

Christina Morgan’s chin dropped farther still when she recognized her ex-boyfriend, Rocky Neel.

“Christina Morgan!” Rocky shook his head affectionately
inside the bouncer’s armlock when he saw her. “My oh my, haven’t you grown.”

Christina quickly ensured Rocky’s release and he spent a jolly half hour signing autographs for the shoot team, including the bouncer, who was suitably mortified at not having recognized his victim. Together with his band, Cold Steel, Rocky Neel had been one of the biggest-selling rock artists in the late nineties. His star was somewhat out of the ascendant these days but Cold Steel could still sell out an international stadium tour. They’d just released their second “greatest hits” album in five years.

That night, Rocky and Christina dined together on the private terrace of his oceanfront suite at the exclusive Santa Maria spa and resort. The girl Rocky had been promenading with on the beach that afternoon was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh her? She’s just a friend,” Rocky claimed. “I sent her back to Los Angeles. And you?”

“Happily married,” Christina assured him. She fluttered the fingers of her left hand and Rocky gamely pretended to be blinded by the bling.

“Ah yes. To the film star. I saw the eight-page spread in
Hello!
How come I didn’t get an invite to the wedding, eh?”

“Didn’t want to walk down the aisle in front of
all
my ex-boyfriends.” Christina smiled.

“Not even me?”

“Especially
not you,” said Christina as he turned on that old Rocky twinkle. “Are you kidding? Bill would have had a seizure.”

“That’s good to know.”

Rocky went to pour more chilled white wine into her glass. Christina put her hand over the rim to stop him.

“Uh-uh. I’m working tomorrow,” she told him. “Can’t risk having puffy eyes.”

“As I remember,” said Rocky, “you look rather lovely even when your eyes are puffy and bloodshot … ”

“My eyes are never bloodshot!” Christina swatted him on the hand. “Rocky Neel, you haven’t changed at all.”

“Oh no, I’ve definitely changed,” Rocky assured her. “After I had that near-death experience I realized that there’s more to life than material success. I’d been living like a maniac. You know how it gets, Chrissy babe. I had six houses, twenty-four cars—OK, twenty-three, after the crash. But while I was in hospital, I realized that none of it matters. A man’s got to have some spiritual fulfillment too.”