Vintage (37 page)

“But I can’t cook,” Christina laughed.

Greg indicated the remains of the beautiful spread on the counter before them.

“Wish I could take the credit, but it was all Ernestina’s work,” she admitted.

“Ah well. You don’t have to be able to cook,” said Greg. “It’ll be like a house party. Each week a different chef will come in and cook his speciality. You’ll choose the wine to go with it.”

“I don’t know enough about wine either!” Christina exclaimed.

“Do you think any of the guys you see on TV really do? We’ll have someone research that, of course. How about your friend Ronald Ginsburg? Now, that would be a coup. He’s America’s most respected wine critic and you have him wrapped around your little finger.”

Christina rolled her eyes.

“I bet he’d come on board. All you’ll have to do is look … lovely… which shouldn’t be hard.”

For some reason, the way Greg delivered that last line made Christina blush quite deeply. Perhaps it was the way he had looked right into her eyes as he said it. She felt as though a spark had flown straight from his eyes into hers and traveled all the way to her stomach. She was suddenly quite deliciously nervous.

“Well,” said Christina in an attempt to cover up how flustered he’d made her. “Perhaps you should get your people to talk to my people.”

Greg grinned. “Get your people to talk to my people” was something they’d said to each other in jest back in New York all those years ago, when they most definitely didn’t have “people” to talk for them.

“I’m really excited about this,” said Greg.

“Are you?”

“Yes,” he said. “Most of all because it means I’ll get to spend more time with you.”

But not that night. Greg had booked himself into a hotel in Yountville and at eleven o’clock he left.

“I’m bushed,” he said. “You have no idea how exhausting it is pretending you know what you’re talking about for three days straight.”

“You could come for lunch tomorrow,” Christina suggested, surprising herself with her directness.

“Wish I could. Got to get back to LA,” he said.

“I understand.”

Christina walked Greg to the door. As they said goodbye he wrapped his arms around her tightly.

“It’s so good to see you,” he said.

Christina went to kiss him on the cheek, but, like Ginsburg, somehow missed as Greg turned. She didn’t kiss Greg on the mouth; however, she caught him on the side of the neck. Stubbly and delicious. And erotic. Greg loosened his hold and kissed her chastely on the end of the nose in response.

Alone again in her kitchen, Christina balled a fist against her forehead as she relived the kiss and her subsequent embarrassment. She felt sure she wouldn’t be hearing from him again in a hurry.

S
ince he was the head of the channel, Greg didn’t have to jump through the usual hoops when it came to setting up a new show. He announced his idea at the
following Monday’s catch-up meeting and by Friday, Christina and Marisa were in Greg’s office, discussing the terms under which Christina would open her beautiful home for the amusement of the American public and hopefully—eventually—the rest of the world. The idea had definitely grown on Christina during the course of the week. Ronald Ginsburg said he would be delighted to be the show’s wine expert and Greg quickly pulled together a dream list of top chefs he hoped would be willing to participate—it was a veritable galaxy of Michelin stars!

Just a couple of days later, Greg flew up to Napa to have dinner with Christina and the first chef on his list: Roddy Smith, an Englishman who had left the shadow of Gordon Ramsay to set up a restaurant in Napa Valley that made Thomas Keller’s French Laundry look like KFC. The restaurant was so ridiculously hot it had instituted a rather old-fashioned booking policy. You couldn’t call to book, you had to write. You had to dine when the restaurant had a space for you, not when you wanted to arrive. And everyone who applied for a table was treated the same. It didn’t matter whether you were a supermodel or you worked in a supermarket. There was nothing you could do to get yourself pushed to the top of the waiting list. That didn’t stop people trying, though. Just that week, someone had enclosed ten crisp new hundred-dollar bills with his application.

But of course, hoping one day for a TV series of his own, Roddy Smith managed to find a little table near the kitchen door for Greg and Christina at very short notice indeed.

Dinner was wonderful. Though when Christina scanned the menu she wondered whether there really would be anything she could eat. The combinations didn’t sound all that appetizing. Like Heston Blumenthal, Roddy Smith
approached cooking like chemistry. His workplace looked more like the laboratory of a mad scientist than a kitchen.

Still, Christina was surprised to discover that she quite enjoyed frozen mashed potatoes. And arrangements were made for Roddy to visit Christina’s house later in the week to take a look at her own kitchen and decide what equipment he needed in order to bring his unique culinary experience to the masses via her show.

“This show really is happening, isn’t it?” Christina said to Greg when Roddy disappeared back into the kitchen to attend to a flambé gone wild.

“It’s really happening,” said Greg.

He offered Christina his arm as they walked from the restaurant to the valet. She linked her arm through his happily and let it stay there as they waited for the valet to retrieve Greg’s Porsche. It took a little while, as it always did when you had a car like a Porsche 911 GT3, Greg observed. “I think the valets have put more miles on that car than I have.”

The car arrived. The valet hopped out. Greg crossed to the passenger door to open Christina’s himself before the valet could get there.

It was a romantic gesture. But Christina told herself it was just that Greg had impeccable manners. Despite the chemistry Christina thought she’d felt last time Greg visited, nothing had happened between them that night. Likewise when she visited the offices of his company in LA—a meeting followed by dinner
à deux.
Christina decided that she’d misread the signals in Greg’s eyes. She had to conclude that he wasn’t interested in her romantically. He was all business.

And yet, there was the expression on his face as they waited at a stop sign. He looked across at her and smiled. Warmly, uncertainly, as if searching for her approval.

When they reached Christina’s driveway, they got out
of the car and stood in front of the house. Greg started to bid her good night.

“Do you have to drive back to San Francisco tonight?” she asked him.

“I had all my meetings moved from tomorrow morning till the afternoon.”

Christina felt a small bubble of hope rise in her chest.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“My assistant booked me a room at the Villagio in Yountville.”

“You know, you don’t have to stay in a hotel when you come up here. My guest room is always at your disposal,” said Christina.

“I thought perhaps you’d seen enough of me.”

“Not quite,” said Christina.

They both smiled at the delicate double entendre.

“Well, it’s a pretty long drive from here to Yountville in the dark,” Greg demurred.

“I’ll show you upstairs,” said Christina.

Christina led the way. She pushed open the door to the first-floor guest suite. Perhaps subconsciously expecting Greg to stay, she’d had the maid fix the room up just that morning. The linen was always clean of course. A pile of fresh towels was folded on top of the blanket box at the end of the bed. But that morning, Christina also had the maid put a vase of flowers on the lamp table and a bottle of mineral water on the nightstand.

“I think you’ll find everything you need in here,” she told Greg.

“Not quite,” he said, echoing her earlier sentiment.

He took both her hands in his and pulled her against his chest. Christina closed her eyes as Greg’s face drew nearer. Her lips softened and parted beneath his gentle kiss.

Without saying a word, Christina led Greg toward the
bed. He lay her down upon it, somehow pushing the fancy pillows out of the way and onto the floor without pausing in his kiss for even a second. Soon they were stripping each other’s clothes off. Christina ran her hands over Greg’s smooth muscled chest, perfected by hours in the gym. He dipped his head and circled each of her roseate nipples with his tongue.

“You are so perfect,” he said.

As a model, it was a phrase she was quite used to hearing, but coming from Greg it sounded different, more special than ever before. Christina had the strange sensation that she was actually blossoming beneath Greg’s touch. Each kiss he laid upon her skin made her glow a little brighter, become more beautiful still.

Naked at last, Christina pressed her body hard against Greg’s. Her hands moved frantically over his body, as though trying to make a sensory map of him. She kissed his face, his neck, his shoulders. She softly bit his earlobe, making him laugh out loud at the unexpected pleasure. She felt his penis grow hard against her. She wrapped her legs around him so that there was nowhere for him to go but inside.

“Greg!” she called out his name as he made his first thrust into her. He buried his face in her neck as he too relished the moment. Then he lifted himself above her, so that their eyes locked as he moved again and again. The intimacy of their gaze increased the power of the sensation a thousand times.

The following morning seemed more beautiful than ever at Villa Bacchante. Christina wrapped herself in a fluffy white dressing gown and wandered out onto the terrace with her coffee. The terracotta tiles beneath her feet were already warm. She raised her face to the sun.

Greg joined her, wearing nothing but a towel around
his waist. Christina placed a hand in the center of his broad, tan chest and a kiss on his smile.

Making love to Greg—her first lover since the divorce—felt like the end of something. The end of her attachment to her perfect Hollywood marriage perhaps? But it felt like a beginning too.

I
t was September, and Kelly Elson’s second harvest at Froggy Bottom was a rather different affair than her first. This time the friends who turned up for the Froggy Bottom Fandango, as it had become known, were well briefed in the duties they would be expected to perform before the party started. Tents were set up in the bottom field, equipped with proper camp beds so that, when they were able to sleep, the workers would be able to sleep properly. A Portaloo was placed in the vineyard. Kelly and Hilarian drove to the nearest cash-and-carry and loaded Hilarian’s Land Rover with enough food and tea bags to keep an army going.

This time the harvest went like clockwork and the after-party was all the better since it felt as though everyone involved really deserved to cut loose.

As she busied herself around the farm, making sure that everyone was comfortable, well fed and, most importantly, pulling his or her weight, Kelly reflected on a year that had changed her life. She certainly looked different. The hairdo was long gone. As were the clubbing clothes.
Kelly had given up the war paint and the acrylic nails. She had given up on the hair-straighteners too. Her hair had lightened naturally after a summer spent working in the vineyards. It fell to her shoulders in loose waves.