Chapter 26
Twenty-six
Elise
By the time I drag myself back to the dormitory, my body aches from head to toe.
It may be Friday, but I’ll be working all weekend.
The straps of my boots have left ridges in my skin, and there’s a sour tang of sweat and crushed leaves clinging to my shirt that even the cool night air can’t erase.
I want nothing more than to collapse on the narrow bed and forget this day existed.
Instead, I find Claire already waiting at the long wooden table near the window with a bottle of Bordeaux breathing beside her and two glasses ready. She looks up, catches sight of me in the doorway, and her smile softens, like she’s been expecting me to fall apart and has the antidote waiting.
“Rough one?” she asks, lifting the bottle in offering.
I nod, too drained for words, and sink into the chair across from her. The stem of the glass feels cold against my fingers as she pours. One sip and the bitterness on my tongue is more than tannins. It’s the taste of defeat, of being brushed aside again and again until I feel invisible.
Claire watches me quietly, letting the silence stretch until I finally groan. “He’s going to grind me down, isn’t he?”
She tilts her head. “Sebastian?”
“Who else? It’s like he’s set on proving I don’t belong in this business. Every task, every glance, he wants me gone.”
Claire doesn’t argue. She leans her elbows on the table, fingers tracing the rim of her glass.
“I think it’s more about him being threatened by you.
He has a good relationship with Sasha, but he wants the master vintner job, and she’s never going to put him there.
And you’re on track to be the master vintner of an award-winning vineyard. ”
Her calm cuts through my frustration, and shame prickles at the back of my neck. “I hate that I’m letting him get under my skin. I came here to gather knowledge, to prove myself, and instead I’m…whining.”
“You’re surviving,” she corrects gently. “And you’re gathering knowledge and experience. Don’t underestimate that.”
I lift my gaze. “Days like today don’t feel like learning.”
“Then reframe it.” Claire’s voice sharpens enough to make me sit straighter. “Take what you came for. Knowledge, practice, confidence. Those are yours to claim. He doesn’t get to dictate your growth unless you hand him the power. Don’t.”
Her certainty pulls me back from the weight pressing on my chest. I close my eyes for a beat, breathing her words in until they settle. Gratitude swells in my throat, thick and unexpected. “Thank you,” I whisper.
Claire clinks her glass against mine. “We’ve got this. One day at a time.” She always says it that way, like a promise carved in stone. A Claire-ism, steady and simple. And somehow, I believe her.
I swirl the wine in my glass, watching the garnet liquid catch the dim light.
“You know what today was?” My laugh comes out brittle.
“Dragging hoses across the cellar floor. Scrubbing barrels until my hands reek of sulfur. Climbing ladders to top wine I’ll never taste.
Out in the vineyard, snapping off shoots until my fingers cramped, and hauling brush like a laborer.
I’m not an assistant vintner, Claire. I’m a cleaner and field worker with a fancier title. ”
Her brows knit, but she doesn’t interrupt.
That alone loosens something in me, gives me permission to spill the truth I’ve been holding back.
“This has made me realize that I know more because I’ve been working at a small vineyard.
We’re never going to be this big. I don’t think we want to be this big. ”
Claire leans back, considering. Then she shakes her head.
“The bigger you get, the bigger the problems. But here’s the thing.
Every moment you spend in those tanks or with those hoses is information.
You’re seeing this place from the ground up.
You’ll know what to change, what to adopt, and what to reject when you go home. ”
I nod. She’s right, of course. The knowledge is there, tucked between blisters and aching muscles. Still, shame prickles. “It’s hard not to feel like I’m wasting my time.”
“You’re not.” Her voice is steady, no room for doubt. “It’s not glamorous, but it’s teaching you. And one day, when you’re back at Paradise Hill, you’ll look at a worker cleaning a press and know exactly what it takes. That’s leadership. That’s dignity.”
I draw in a slow breath, feeling the tightness in my chest ease a fraction. She’s giving me back something Sebastian keeps trying to strip away—perspective.
My grandmother’s voice rises in my memory, soft and firm all at once. “Dignity isn’t given, Elise. It’s kept.” I hadn’t understood what she meant when I was twelve and sulking over being made to set the dinner table. But here, tonight, I do.
And then Kingston rises in my mind—his steady belief in me, the way he sees more than I think I show. He would tell me this work matters, even if it doesn’t feel like it. He would want me to stand tall, not crumble. I tuck that thought against my ribs like armor.
Claire nudges my glass again. “So. Tomorrow, you go back, and you take what’s yours to take. Don’t wait for him to hand it over.”
My mouth curves. “You make it sound simple.”
“It is. Not easy. But simple.”
Last night, I went to bed with Claire’s words rattling around in my head, and I wake this morning with a different kind of feeling in my chest, not just fatigue but resolve. If Sebastian wants me stuck on the bottom rung, fine. I will turn the bottom rung into my classroom.
As I step into the cellar, the air bites cold against my skin.
I’ve walked through these halls for weeks now, but today, I make sure I notice more—the way the barrels line the walls, how the workers slip smoothly between them, speaking in a shorthand I’m only just beginning to catch.
Their banter is quick, a mixture of French slang and vineyard jargon, but instead of shrinking from it, I lean in. Every phrase is a clue.
Scrubbing doesn’t feel meaningless anymore.
I notice where the barrels swell dark with rinse water, how the sulfur stings my nose before it fades to clean wood.
When I drag a hose across the floor, I pay attention to its weight, the give and pull as I guide it from one barrel to the next.
Even in the vineyard, the smallest chores teach me something—the snap of a sucker breaking clean from the cane, the resinous scent of cut shoots sticking to my gloves, the way the brush piles crackle in the sun.
Each task leaves its mark, as if the land itself is whispering lessons I’m only just learning to hear.
I study the vineyard, memorizing the way the shoots lift toward the sun when they’re healthy. A twist in a leaf here, a sag in a cane there—they start to form a language, one I can almost translate.
And when Sebastian’s back is turned, I take chances.
A question murmured to Luc about sulfur levels in the rinse water.
A glance toward another worker, pointing at a cluster beginning to overgrow until he nods.
They don’t indulge me much, but enough. Enough to confirm I am learning. Enough to keep me from drowning.
Every bit of information becomes a mental note for Paradise Hill. I imagine standing in our cellar, teaching our team how to adjust water flow with precision, how to catch a sour note in the air before it becomes a problem.
When I return to the dormitory that evening, as usual, my clothes are damp with sweat, and the green scent of crushed shoots clings to my hair.
I should shower, but Claire is at the table again, waiting with a plate of cheese and bread, and something in me gravitates toward her before I can think better of it.
I drop into the chair opposite her, pressing my palms flat against the wood. The words tumble out before I can stop them. “Today was better. I still had the grunt work, but I noticed things that probably happen at home, but never paid attention.”
“See?” She smiles. “I told you you’d learn from the menial work he pushes off on you.”
We sit for a while, and she tells me about the Christmas holiday advertising they’re working on. Eventually, I have the energy to climb the five flights to my room and back down again to shower and get ready for bed.
The dormitory is quiet at night, the hum of the old radiator filling the gaps where voices used to be. From the fifth floor, I can see the sprawl of the vineyard lit by scattered lamps, the vines stretching like dark veins under the moon.
I balance my laptop on my knees, cursor blinking in an empty email. My notebook lies open beside me, scrawled with messy observations. Shoot thinning. Early canopy work. Barrel topping regularly. Useful details, but not what I want to send him. Not tonight.
I start typing.
Kingston,
I need to be honest with you. Until now, I’ve only written you the bright pieces—the sun on the river, the pride in learning something new, the details that make me sound strong. I wanted you to be proud of me. I wanted to be proud of me. But that hasn’t been the whole truth.
The truth is, it’s been brutal. Sebastian cuts me down at every turn.
I can’t tell if it’s because I’m a woman or because he expected me to end up in his bed instead of on the cellar floor.
Maybe both. He dismisses me in front of others, acts as if my questions are foolish, makes me feel like I don’t belong here. Some days I wonder if he’s right.
I haven’t told you because I didn’t want you to worry, or worse, to think I can’t handle it.
But there have been mornings I’ve sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my boots, wondering if I could make myself get up and face it again.
There have been nights I’ve cried into my pillow, choking the sound down so no one would hear.