Page 1 of Vine (Island Love #3)

PROLOGUE

CASPIAN - TWO MONTHS EARLIER

Planning sessions for My Big Gay Adventures were once unforgettable. Like a cool rock band, the three of us—Leigh, Jonas, and me—used to throw ideas around for hours, riffing off each other and vying to come up with the most outlandish suggestion. Skydiving, for example. That crazy idea turned into our first season, aired six years ago. I broke my coccyx, my right collarbone, and my late father’s watch. My battered body eventually recovered. The timepiece perished.

But yay! We were flying! Who cared about cuts and bruises when our little TV show landed on the nation’s radar? Five more seasons were commissioned on the back of that surprise hit. We went from strength to strength. For instance, four years ago (season three), I took a crash course in pastry cheffing, before blagging my way through running the dessert kitchen of a Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris for a week. In retrospect, the intensity placed an impossible strain on both my marriage, to Leigh, and my mental health.

Then Leigh and I got divorced. If it had been up to me, I’d have walked away after the tapdancing (season five), but barring death or a nuclear holocaust, our contracts were as watertight as a duck’s arse. None of us could afford to leave the show until our final pay cheques were safely deposited in the bank, never mind renegue on our contracts and face being sued.

Today, in preparation for season six, the three of us were endeavouring to conduct a sensible, well-mannered business meeting. Tricky when Jonas was not only our producer, but my permanent replacement in Leigh’s bed. So here we were. As if being stabbed in the back by them both wasn’t enough, I was contractually obliged to hang around and let them suck the blood from my fucking wounds.

Jonas’s office had a synthetic odour, evocative of cheap air scents liberally squirted to cover up unpleasant bathroom smells. I refrained from snidely pointing that out, because, as Jonas was so keen to remind me, we were all grown adults. So far, the three of us had behaved as such, although unspoken rancour hung in the air of his cramped lair thicker than a June haze.

With one foot out the door, whatever was thrown at me this year, I’d suck it up. Well, up to a point. I’d graciously declined training as a cage fighter. Having an accident-prone nature and below average height (five feet six inches), combined with the build of an emaciated grasshopper, getting pummelled into a coma wasn’t the sport for me. Granted, if Leigh had been my opponent, I may have reconsidered.

“As long as I’m not stuck in that bloody sauna of a kitchen with that bloody French diva Gaston Soufflé again, I don’t care,” I grumbled. Way too many bad memories.

“I’m not sure any of us want to live through the trauma of that again, Caspy,” Leigh murmured, his voice saccharine sweet. “He wasn’t the only diva in the kitchen, now, was he?”

Fucker.

“I’ll have you know I poured a lot of myself into that seven-layered mango, coconut, and passionfruit mousse.”

The last layer being clinical depression.

Jonas smirked. “And didn’t we know it.”

“Did you?” I accused, rounding on him. “I had the impression you were too busy pouring a more modestly sized portion of yourself into my husband.”

I didn’t need an answer, which was fortunate, because he didn’t deign to offer one. They’d been shagging even back then, except I’d been too blinded by my own sweat and kitchen fat to see it. But hey, at least no one was poisoned or died, though I did slice off the tip of my left little finger. I can still throw together a uniformly crisp meringue.

“Resurrecting an overgrown vineyard it is then,” Leigh concluded, shuffling our newly signed contracts like a deck of cards. I’d always admired his strong, capable hands—less so now that the left one no longer bore a wedding band. “A gentler pace this season. It’s just as well. The latest audience figures show our demographic is ageing with us. And I’m not sure my back would survive another arduous physical challenge.”

Too much sex? I was tempted to ask, but, outnumbered and reining in my general bitchiness, I stayed silent.

Shifting in his plastic chair, Leigh straightened, rubbing his lumbar region. A part of his anatomy I used to delight in rubbing for him. “I blame those racing car bucket seats. I should sue the production company.”

My money was still on sex; these days, during my current drought, my back was about the only part of me that didn’t creak. Though those seats had been bloody uncomfortable. With our ratings soaring, season four saw us learning to drive a Formula 3 racing car. I finished an unexpected fifth at Silverstone. Hurtling at breakneck speeds around a racetrack on four slick tyres did wonders for my depression, replacing it with a hefty dose of adrenaline-fuelled anxiety. Furthermore, by a minor miracle, I emerged from the experience physically intact.

Psychologically, however, on confirming I’d signed up to an open marriage, my nerves shattered for good. So, no broken bones this time, merely a broken heart. And a growing tendency to favour long sleeves.

“I’ll massage it for you later, hon,” piped up Jonas, the smug, husband-stealing wanker. “I don’t think the vineyard thing has been done by anyone on terrestrial telly for a while. And the last Ipsos data showed our viewer demographic is still mostly in the middle income 30- to 40-something age bracket, who consider themselves sophisticated wine drinkers.”

Cheap Prosecco drinkers, more like. As the loving couple exchanged a fond look, my tea threatened to revolt.

“The tap-dancing didn’t help,” mused Leigh, still prodding his spine. “I mastered it, but I’ve not got the right frame to be jigging like I’m Michael bloody Flatley for hours on end.”

Leigh’s finest talent was bringing any conversation back around to himself. Season seven should be a one-man show centred around that. “Jigging,” I snarked. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days.”

Twelve months ago, Leigh and I frostily tap-danced in the chorus line on Broadway, jazz-handing our way through the routine from opposite ends, as far apart from each other as staging and choreography allowed. I discovered I was much better at tap than an open marriage. When the show’s short run came to an end, Leigh marked the occasion by issuing divorce papers. My psychiatrist marked it by prescribing mirtazapine alongside my regular dose of venlafaxine.

And I marked it by rekindling an old teenage love affair between my razorblade and the tender flesh of my inner forearms.

Granted, I should have seen it coming; the real shocker was how long Jonas took to make his move. Nine months of every year spent in the close confines of filming a television series blurred the lines between friendship and sexual attraction. Romantic possibility emerged, mixed with emotional intimacy and a physical proximity—or so they told me afterwards. Totally normal, they insisted, like it had been hypothesised and proven in a scientific journal somewhere. And, as Leigh coaxed me to give the disastrous threesome with Jonas a whirl, open marriages were increasingly common, weren’t they?

“The timing for the vineyard show is good, too,” piped up Jonas, as if our catty exchange had taken place in my head. “Filming for nine months, from January to the grape harvest, which is early to mid-September, depending on the weather. We’ll resurrect the vines, add in a bit about sustainable environmental crap, make friends with some country bumpkins and discover something about our own personalities and hitherto-unknown love of the great outdoors along the way. Another winning formula. Sunday-evening television gold.”

I’d learned quite enough about Leigh and Jonas’s personalities for one lifetime. And Regent’s Park was plenty countryside for this city dweller. But, as Jonas pointed out, vines grew outdoors, which meant we would not be indoors , cramped together in a small room. Like now.

Under the table, I wiped my clammy palms across my jeans. “Isn’t that a bit dull?” I ventured. “Watching vines grow?”

I knew the answer already; reality shows like ours relied on the worlds they were set in. But they relied on the people too. If a fly-on-the-wall show about hillbillies flogging duck callers for a living could be a worldwide hit, anything was possible. Jonas would sell the vineyard dream to weary middle-Englanders sprawled on their sofas at the end of a day trying to make ends meet. Wow, honey, imagine upping sticks to revive a derelict vineyard! Populate it with two attractive presenters, add in a few grumpy local characters , together with a dollop of artificially engineered onscreen drama, and hours and hours of raw footage on a backdrop of pretty scenery for the editor. Bingo.

“Nah, trust me, the audience will love it.” Never one to battle with confidence issues, Jonas.

Even Leigh eyed him curiously. “But… where’s the drama? The bite?”

It was a fair question. For the second season, on medical advice, I took life easier and became a plumber’s mate. My knowledge of standpipes and ballcocks is second to none. I am the only gay man I know able to offer those tidbits of information with a totally straight face. However, despite ticking the boxes marked pretty scenery (we fixed bogs in the swankiest houses in Notting Hill) and local character (an amphetamine-soaked plumber named Daniel) it received our lowest ratings, thanks to an utter absence of tension and conflict.

“Trust,” leered Jonas in that supercilious, creepy way he had. Call me fickle, but I really struggled to see what attracted Leigh. Especially as, when we first met him, Leigh remarked he had a face like an Easter Island statue carved out of a lump of gone-off ham. Not that I had developed a jaundiced view, obviously. “Have I ever let you down?”

Nope, just shagged my husband.

“Where is this vineyard?” I asked in a disinterested fashion. Southern California would be nice. Or Margaret River. Somewhere warm all year round. And in a country big enough to put distance between me and love’s wet dreams on my days off.

“France.”

Big enough. A bit chilly in January, mind. I kept my expression neutral as Jonas continued in his dry, lawyerly voice. He wasn’t a lawyer; he was a middling, frustrated producer. Until My Big Gay Adventures climbed up the ratings, his biggest hit was an advert for low-fat cottage cheese, although listening to him talk, you’d think he was Shonda Rhimes. This week, in an endeavour to elevate his pallid features into something more interesting, he’d acquired new blue-framed spectacles. The specs had now become the most fascinating thing about him. Nudging them up his nose in an ostentatious manner, he checked his notes.

“We considered a very pretty vineyard just outside Cape Town, but the vineyard we’ve taken the lease on in France looks easier to turn around. And the bigger vineyard next door will take over the vendage —the grape harvest—in September, so all we need to worry about is getting the grapes to that point. But—this really sealed the deal—it’s only been neglected for eighteen months. And, of course, you and Leigh both speak French.”

We did, I acknowledged, with a slight nod. The three of us met while taking a year out of French degrees, working at a school in Lyon to solidify our language skills. Leigh and I fell in love speaking French. We used to whisper sweet nothings to each other while Jonas pretended to look busy. Back in those heady, youthful days, anxiety and depression only happened to other people. If Jonas had the gumption, I’d imagine he’d picked France to rub it in, but the guy wasn’t that creative—a fatal weakness in an aspirational television producer.

“And the French vineyard was considerably cheaper.”

Aah. Now we came to the crux of it. Despite our reasonable ratings successes, the viewing public’s passion for ordinary folk taking on extraordinary challenges had waned somewhat over the last couple of years, reflected in the television company’s ever-decreasing budget allocation.

“Where in France?” Anywhere but Lyon.

“An island called Ré, a couple of miles off the southwest coast.”

“Never heard of it,” I answered shortly.

“It’s not very popular with British tourists, so I wouldn’t expect you to,” Leigh explained, like I was five. Had he always been so condescending?

“And it’s very small.” Jonas jiggled his spectacles. “It’s only about eighteen miles long and a couple of miles wide.”

“There is a bridge to the mainland,” added Leigh. “Although the vineyard is towards the far end of the island, and travelling back and forth to the mainland is quite tedious. And the road toll is expensive.”

Damp tendrils of claustrophobia trickled down my spine. Since starting venlafaxine, my sympathy towards menopausal women’s hot flushes had increased a hundred-fold.

Oblivious, Leigh tapped his pen against the paperwork. “As well as doing the vineyard stuff, Jonas thinks we can incorporate some wildlife aspects into the programme too. Birds and shit. The whole island is pretty much a huge fucking nature reserve as far as I can tell.”

Birds and shit. That was supposed to sweeten the pill?

‘Never work with children or animals’ was bandied about a lot in showbusiness. A stupid axiom, in my opinion. Children, for instance, didn’t trot out asinine corporate bollocks such as grab the low-hanging fruit and let’s touch base offline . Or, like Jonas, have a desktop calendar declaring the only person you can truly rely on is you : what a fucking nightmare that would be if it ever became a reality. Or send abrupt texts saying, your share of the house sale is only thirty percent because my parents helped us with the deposit .

Some children were even too young to talk at all, and when they did, they asked cute questions, like, Can you do the funny voice again, Uncle Caspian ? Or why is the sun yellow ? Not awkward ones, like is it okay if I take the oak dining table as it was a wedding gift from my mother?

Dogs, thank fuck, didn’t talk, period. I was very fond of dogs. As long as someone threw them the occasional bone, they were more than content with having their ears stroked and emitting lethal farts at bad moments. Cats were even more superior, being independent and totally uninterested in praise, perfect colleague material. And when cats deigned to open their eyes and notice you, like the privilege was all yours, you could retaliate by chucking them out the front door for the night. If I did that to Leigh, HR would become involved.

“Apparently,” interjected Jonas, “in the summer months the place is packed with rich Parisians fleeing the city to their second homes. And posh yachting folk. Can’t move without bumping into an oversized straw boater. Business types everywhere you look, wearing deck shoes and draped in cashmere. Guzzling Aperol Spritzes and slurping oysters. Very chic.”

“ Ooh la la ,” I offered flatly. Maybe Jonas and Leigh would entice one of them to spice up their sex life. Could I nonchalantly crack open a window? Above my left elbow, taunting me, a newly scabbed razor cut had started to itch. The urge to pick at it through my shirt grew. “And in winter?”

He shrugged. “No idea. Dead, I should imagine.”

“We start filming in January,” added Jonas helpfully.

Fucking marvellous.

Of course, Jonas spoke excellent French too, though it didn’t matter. He would be on the other end of the camera. As miserable as sharing nine months on an island with the pair of them sounded, the location held merit. Two English guys bumbling their way through befriending French locals while patching up a pretty vineyard was decent television.

And, in front of the cameras, Leigh and I were still a good team. Whatever Jonas’s many and varied shortcomings, thrusting a young gay couple in at the deep end of a variety of physical and practical challenges had been a successful Sunday night format. Middle-class thirtysomethings lapped us up. I had the sass, Leigh had the brawn, and we were in love. Moreover, we were sensibly dressed and married, the acceptable face of queer culture—not a drag queen, alternative pronoun, or rainbow unicorn in sight. Just a moderately attractive, witty couple cheerfully making lightweight television programmes. The sort of gays you might safely invite over for supper. We hadn’t so much as exchanged an on-screen kiss.

And, for a while, none off screen either.

“What accommodation have you arranged?” I directed this to Jonas. A crucial detail. Immersing ourselves in the job for nine months was our USP. I hadn’t simply joined that plumbing company and pretended to be one of the lads for a three-week stint of filming, I’d bloody crawled around the back of toilets and hoovered out clogged drains for nine whole months.

“We’ll be dotted about.” His eyes flicked down to the paperwork. “For the camera crew, I’ve negotiated a long-term lease on a couple of static caravans in a nearby holiday park. One of them has a storage shed, ideal for equipment.” Looking shifty, he rubbed his nose. “And in keeping with our… ah… pared-down ethos, the vineyard comes with a small house attached, so the three of us will be accommodated there.”

Even more fucking marvellous.

“There is a little gatehouse too, isn’t there?” interjected Leigh with a note of pleading in his voice. You and me both, mate . Although no prizes for guessing which of us would be slumming.

“Two gatehouses,” Jonas responded. “Both tiny. One hasn’t been inhabited for years—I think it’s in need of some attention. The other did have a long-term tenant; I’m not sure if they are still there. But the main house is plenty big enough for all of us. A little shabby and dusty, but nothing a vacuum cleaner and some elbow grease can’t sort out.”

He smiled brightly. “Bring your flowery pinny, Caspy. We could make it your first job.”

“Great.”

I passed the next few minutes enumerating in my head all the ways to inflict a slow and painful death on Jonas. Now I could add strangling him with a sinewy vine into the mix, or drowning him in a vat of sour grapes. I’d let Leigh live, if only to remind myself what an utter fool I’d been.

If I still owned a functioning watch, I’d have checked it. There was at least another half an hour to go. A woman was supposed to be coming along to join us, an expert viniculturist . Basically, a grape farmer. She was running late. To my right, Jonas distractedly rubbed his nose again. Did Leigh know about his coke habit? My gut told me no. My ex loathed any form of drug use. Perhaps it was only reserved for when Jonas sat across the table from me.

Catching my eye, Leigh threw me a tight smile. It was not reciprocated. I’d preserve my limited quota for when we were on set. He’d keep doing it anyhow, like he was Switzerland, stuck in the middle of a conflict not of his making.

“Listen, Caspy,” he began, in a wheedling tone.

“It’s Caspian to you, from now on? I think I’ve mentioned that a few times now?”

Leigh sighed, that single long exhale somehow conveying all of this was my fault. My blood pressure crept upwards, and a dull thudding started in my temple. It didn’t take much. Under the guise of folding my arms, I viciously pinched the itchy scab.

“Whatever, Caspian. None of us wants to be here, but we’ve got to get through it. Nine months of low-stress filming at a vineyard. Maximum. And then we can walk away from each other for good. Nine months, that’s all.”

Low-stress? That was a fucking joke. “They hand out shorter prison sentences for armed robbery.”

Jonas tutted, like the prissy gay he pretended he wasn’t.

“I really wish you wouldn’t be like that.” Leigh shook his head tiredly as Jonas threw him a despairing what can we do? kind of look. And sniffed wetly. Wanker. The biggest wankiest wanker in central London.

“Well, I really wish you two hadn’t committed adultery in my fucking marital bed, but hey, we can’t always get what we want, right?”

Jonas banged on the table. “For heaven’s sake, Caspian. Get over yourself. Try to gain some bloody perspective.” Perspective? Even now, two years later, he still maintained he’d done nothing untoward. “Why are you so obsessed with conforming to standards of moralistic, heterosexual prudery, Caspian ? Why shouldn’t we have sex with our friends?”

Because I loved him, and I thought he was mine.

Loved: past tense. Honestly. 100 fucking percent. Didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, though.

“You can,” I drawled. “Have sex with all your friends. Fill your boots.” Next to the odious desk calendar, a framed photo of the happy couple gurned back at me, Jonas’s arm possessively slung around Leigh’s shoulder. I recognised the Parisian restaurant from series three in the background. “Make hay while the sun shines, Jonas. Hump as many of them as will have you. Leigh won’t mind, will you, Leigh? Open relationships are in vogue, apparently.”

Like siblings squashed together in the back seat during a long car journey, the three of us knew better than anyone how to push each other’s buttons. Raising my brows at Jonas, I gave a deliberately loud sniff against the back of my hand. Childish, but satisfying.

He shot out of his chair. “For fuck's sake, Caspian! Do you think I want to work with you on another bloody series?” As he banged again for good effect, his voice soared a few decibels. “Do you imagine Leigh does? Can’t you move on and at least try to be a teensy bit professional? It’s only for another nine months. We know you hate our fucking guts—message received loud and clear! You don’t have to keep reminding us!”

I shoved back my own chair. “Oh yes I bloody do.”

This meeting could go to fuck. The contract was signed. I’d barely glanced at it. No doubt it was a carbon copy of the ones I’d signed for all the previous series. “I think you lost the right to stake out the moral high ground a long time ago, mate.”

Not to be outdone, Leigh slammed his own chair back. All three of us were yelling across the table, spittle flying everywhere. Not the most intimate bodily fluid shared between us, but unwelcome, nonetheless.

“Oh yeah? Setting up your own camp there, are you?” Leigh’s square-jawed handsomeness twisted into something ugly. “Don’t be too hasty. If you’d have paid our marriage more attention, we might never have been having this conversation. You’re not so perfect yourself, Casp. That Formula 3 season turned you into a fucking stress monster, and you know it.”

“You didn’t mind so much when it won us the National fucking TV Award, though, did you? My number one bloody fan, all of a sudden.”

“You were just supposed to look competent, not try to win the whole bloody thing.”

“And you were just supposed to be my co-driver, not shove your dick in Jonas’s arse!”

All colour drained from under Leigh’s fake tan. He’d fallen silent, too, which was unlike him. Jonas's crushing silence was equally atypical. And a welcome draught ghosted across my sticky shirt, almost as if someone had finally, blessedly, opened a window. Or even the office door.

I turned my head to look. A serious, youngish woman loitered in the doorway, unsure whether to enter. And who could blame her? Emma, presumably, the tardy viticulturalist.

Leigh pulled himself together first, holding out his arms in an effusive greeting. He hardly knew her, but he’d always been able to switch personas on a pinhead. Funny how little things rankled after the love had gone.

“Ah, Emma, I was hoping you’d be able to pop by. Welcome to the show!” Normal handsomeness returned as he smiled at her in that genuine, endearing way he always had, even before fixing his crooked teeth, back in the days he reserved it solely for me.

“Welcome,” I parroted, my stomach sick. Turn around and run for your life. “Great to have you on board!”

Leaping to his feet, Leigh clasped her hand. “Yes! Welcome on board the good ship My Big Gay Adventures ! I can’t wait to set sail!”

Warmth blossomed under my shirt sleeve as my fingers prised the fresh scab from the wound. A trickle of heat meandered down my arm. Yes, the love had most definitely gone, but Christ, it had been determined to drag my sanity with it.