Page 1 of The Vines Between Us

Chapter One

ALEXANDRE

"Monsieur Moreau, I apologize for interrupting." My assistant's voice crackled through the speakerphone. "There's an urgent call from Saint-émilion. A notary named Bertrand Dupuis. He insists it cannot wait."

The name of the village hit me like a slap. I hadn't heard it spoken aloud in this office—hadn't allowed myself to speak it—in years.

"Take a message." I kept my voice level as twelve pairs of eyes tracked me from around the conference table.

"He says it's regarding your grandfather's estate. There's been a... development."

My grandfather had been dead for three weeks. What development could possibly warrant this interruption?

"Five minutes," I told the room, not waiting for their permission .

In my office, I closed the door and took the call.

"Monsieur Moreau? Alexandre?" Bertrand Dupuis's voice carried the distinctive accent of the region, softening consonants in a way that transported me instantly. "I regret to inform you that there are... complications with your grandfather's estate."

"Complications?" I straightened my tie, a reflex when control seemed to be slipping.

"Yes, the vineyard's ownership is in question. The bank is demanding payment immediately. There are documents you must review. In person."

"That's impossible. I have meetings scheduled through—"

"The estate could be lost, Monsieur. If you don't come within the week."

The vineyard. Lost. The words didn't make sense together. Domaine Moreau had been in our family for four generations. My grandfather's blood and sweat were in that soil.

"I'll be there tomorrow."

After ending the call, I stood at my office window before heading for the nearby metro station. Paris sprawled below, elegant and indifferent. Seventeen floors up, the city became an abstraction—beautiful, distant, like a relationship maintained through careful negotiation rather than love.

My apartment felt emptier than usual that evening.

I'd lived there for seven years, yet as I packed an overnight bag, I realized how little of myself existed in the space.

The furniture was all high-end minimalist pieces selected by an interior designer.

The art on the walls—abstract canvases in muted tones—had been chosen to "complement the aesthetic. " Nothing personal. Nothing alive.

As I packed my suitcase, my phone buzzed with a message from my father.

I glanced at it and immediately deleted it without reading—a ritual I'd perfected over the years.

Three months since our last stilted conversation in person, and still he expected me to jump when called.

Some habits died hard—both his need for control and my instinct to avoid confrontation and the inevitable fear he drove within me.

I owned three framed photographs. One of my mother, taken before time and my father's drinking hollowed her out.

One of my university graduation. And one—kept in my bedside drawer rather than displayed—of an eighteen year old boy with sun-browned skin and eyes that crinkled at the corners when he laughed. Hugo.

I didn't take it out. Didn't need to. That face lived behind my eyelids.

Sometimes, in the quiet moments between midnight and dawn when my defences were worn thin by exhaustion, I'd find myself reaching for that drawer.

I never opened it—not fully. Just enough to know it was still there, like pressing on a bruise to confirm it still hurt.

Because the pain was proof it had been real.

My colleagues called me calculating, meticulous.

They'd never seen how my fingers trembled when a certain song played in a café, or how I'd once walked fifteen blocks in a rainstorm after glimpsing auburn hair in a crowd that turned out to belong to a stranger.

They didn't know I'd declined three job offers in Montpellier over the years, afraid of what might happen if I found myself too close to the Languedoc region, too close to him.

I'd built walls around those summers, sealed it away like wine in a cellar—not to forget it, but to preserve it.

To keep it pure and untouched by the disappointments that came after.

What good would it do to admit that in fourteen years, no one else's laugh had ever sounded quite right to me?

That I still caught myself searching for gold flecks in every pair of brown eyes I met?

That sometimes, in dreams, I could still feel the weight of his slender frame against mine, could still smell vineyard soil and lavender on his skin?

No. Better to keep the photograph hidden. Better to pretend I'd moved on.

Even if the lie tasted bitter every time I swallowed it down.

The TGV sliced through the French countryside the next morning, a blur of green and gold outside my window. I'd booked first class, of course. The extra hundred euros bought me silence and space—the two commodities I valued most.

My laptop remained closed on the table. Four emails from the office had already arrived on my phone, marked urgent. I'd answered two, ignored the others. Let them wait. The vineyard might not.

Domaine Moreau. I closed my eyes and it appeared, not as I'd last seen it fourteen years ago, but as it had been in childhood—enormous to my eight-year-old self, a kingdom of endless rows of vines, cool stone cellars, and the grandfather who'd shown me a gentleness my father never could.

Those summers had saved me. Each June, my mother would put me on the train in Lyon, and for three blessed months, I'd escape my father's drunken rages. At the vineyard, no one shouted. No one broke things. No one called me useless, worthless, nothing.

Henri taught me everything. How to test soil between my fingers. How to prune vines with precise, loving cuts. How to taste wine—really taste it—letting it tell its story on my tongue.

"Wine is truth in a bottle, Alexandre," he'd say. "The vine cannot lie about the soil it grew in, the sun it felt, the rain it drank. Remember that."

I'd remembered. And then I'd left and never returned. Not for holidays. Not for harvest. Not even when my mother called to say Henri was ill. Only for his funeral, a brief appearance at the graveside before rushing back to Paris for a meeting I'd insisted couldn't be rescheduled.

The train announcement jolted me from memory. "Bordeaux Saint-Jean, arrivée dans dix minutes."

Ten minutes to Bordeaux. Then a regional train to Saint-émilion. Then a long walk to the vineyard. To whatever "complications" awaited me.

My phone vibrated. The CEO's name, Philippe, flashed on the screen.

"Alexandre, what the hell is this about you taking emergency leave?" His voice was tight with controlled fury.

"Family emergency. I explained to Claudette—"

"We're in the middle of the Thibault acquisition. You're lead on this, you can't just up and leave whenever you feel like it."

"I'm aware. I'll be back in Paris next Monday. One week."

"This is exactly why you weren't made senior partner last round, Moreau. Serious commitment issues."

The call ended. I stared at the darkened screen, seeing my reflection—a successful man in an expensive suit with a hollow look in his eyes.

Thirty-two years old with nothing to show for it but a title on a business card and an empty apartment.

The familiar weight settled in my chest. The never-enough feeling. The perpetual falling short.

The train slowed as Bordeaux appeared. The station's arched glass ceiling filtered sunlight onto the platform where people waited—families, couples, solitary travellers. Lives intersecting briefly before continuing on their separate tracks.

I gathered my things methodically, tucked my phone away, straightened my jacket. Put on the face that had carried me through board meetings and client dinners and empty nights.

But as I stepped onto the platform, the air hit me differently than Paris air. Softer. Warmer. Carrying hints of things I'd forced myself to forget—river water, limestone, distant vineyards ripening under the sun.

I was back. And something in my chest—something I'd kept carefully numb for fourteen years—began to ache.

The regional train to Saint-émilion crawled through the countryside, lacking the sleek efficiency of the TGV. Each kilometer brought memories closer to the surface, unwelcome as rain during harvest.

I stared at my reflection in the window, superimposed over rolling vineyards.

At thirty-two, I barely resembled the boy who'd left at eighteen.

My face had hardened into something purposeful, a mask crafted for boardrooms. The green eyes—my mother's eyes—remained the same, though I'd learned to guard what they revealed.

My phone buzzed with another email. I welcomed the distraction, diving into projections and analyses that required no emotional investment. Numbers were safe. Predictable. Unlike the vineyard. Unlike Hugo.

Hugo.

The name alone sent a physical shock through my system. Fourteen years of careful compartmentalisation threatened to collapse. I'd built walls between then and now, between who I'd been and who I'd become. Yet here I was, watching those walls crumble with each passing vineyard.

That last summer. The air heavy with heat and knowing.

"You're really leaving tomorrow?" Hugo asked, his voice carefully steady as we lay hidden between rows of Merlot vines, the evening sun casting long shadows across his face.

I couldn't look at him directly. "Early train. Seven-fifteen."

"And Paris is..."

"Four hours away," I finished. "Not so far."

We both recognized the lie. Paris might as well have been another planet—one where I'd remake myself into someone my father couldn't touch, someone who controlled his own fate rather than being controlled.

Hugo's fingers traced patterns on my wrist, following veins. "We could make it work. Weekends. Holidays. I could come see you, if that's what you want."

I said nothing. We'd had this conversation a dozen times that summer. Each time, I'd let him believe it was possible. Each time, the weight of unspoken truth pressed harder against my chest.

"You're not coming back, are you?" he finally whispered.

The direct question deserved a direct answer. I owed him that much.

"No."

His hand stilled on my wrist but didn't pull away. "Because of your father? Because of what people might say? Or because of me?"

"Because of me," I admitted, only telling half of a truth. "I can't be who I need to be if I stay."

"And who is that, exactly?"

I couldn't articulate it then—the desperate need to build something unbreakable around myself. Something my father couldn't shatter with his fists or his words. Something that would never leave me exposed, vulnerable, raw.

"Someone successful," I said instead. "Someone who matters."

Hugo sat up abruptly, dirt clinging to his shirt, eyes fierce in the fading light. "You already matter, Alexandre. To your grandfather. To me."

"It's not enough."

"It's everything," he countered, voice breaking. "Everything that actually matters."

That night, we made desperate, clumsy love in the wine cellar, surrounded by bottles holding years we'd never share.

Afterwards, Hugo fell asleep against my chest, his breathing steady while mine came in silent, jagged gasps.

I memorized the weight of him, the scent of his skin, knowing I was already leaving though my body remained.

"Je t'aime," I whispered to his sleeping form. The only time I'd ever said it aloud.

The next morning, I left without waking him. Coward that I was.

The train lurched, jolting me from memory. We were approaching Saint-émilion station. I gathered my briefcase, straightened my tie—armour donned for battle .

I'd come to settle Henri's estate, nothing more. Sign whatever papers needed signing. Sell the vineyard to someone who'd care for it properly. Be back in Paris within twenty-four hours. Simple. Efficient. Painless.

Another lie.

The station was exactly as I remembered—small, sun-bleached, forgotten by time.

No taxi stand waited outside, just a single bench beneath a twisted plane tree.

I pulled out my phone to call for a car, then hesitated, struck by the absurdity.

In Paris, I'd never walk six kilometres.

Here, the idea of not walking seemed equally foreign.

I set off along the road, briefcase in hand, suit jacket slung over my shoulder. The midday sun beat down, indifferent to my corporate attire. Within minutes, sweat trickled down my spine, my polished shoes gathering dust.

Ahead, the medieval town rose from the landscape, honey-colored stone glowing in the sunlight. Beyond it, rolling hills covered with the geometric precision of vineyard rows. Somewhere among them, Domaine Moreau waited. And perhaps Hugo too, if he still remained at Domaine Tremblay.

The thought stopped me mid-stride. Would he still be there? Henri's funeral had been a blur—faces offering condolences while I checked my watch. Had Hugo been among them? I couldn't remember. Didn't want to remember.

I resumed walking, faster now. With each step, I reconstructed my walls. Brick by brick. Memory by memory. Sealing away the boy who'd loved recklessly, replacing him with the man who calculated risks, who never lost control, who kept everything—everyone—at a safe distance.

By the time Domaine Moreau appeared on the horizon, I was fully armoured again. Ready for whatever complications awaited.

Ready for anything except the truth.