Unfortunately Yours: Chapter 2

Natalie searched blindly in the dark for the button on her sound machine, cranking the symphony of rain and bullfrogs to the maximum level. Julian and Hallie tried to be quiet. They really did. But bedsprings creak at four o’clock in the morning for only one reason—and creak they did. Natalie covered her face with a pillow for good measure and rolled back into the sheets, employing what she called the State Capitals Method. On the occasions her brother and his new girlfriend decided to make love down the hallway in the guest house they all shared, Natalie avoided that troubling imagery by naming state capitals.

Montgomery, Juneau, Phoenix . . .

That was it.

Natalie sat up in bed and pushed off her sleep mask, giving the wine dizziness a moment to dissipate. No more excuses. It was time to bite the bullet and go talk to her mother. It was time to get the hell out of Napa. She’d been licking her wounds far too long, and while she was happy beyond words for Julian to have found the love of his life, she didn’t need to witness it in surround sound.

She threw off the covers and stood, her hip bumping into the nightstand and knocking over an empty wineglass. One of —as if she needed another sign that she’d turned into a lush in the name of avoiding her problems.

Life had ground to a standstill.

Looking out the window of the back bedroom, she could see the main house where she’d grown up and Corinne, her mother, currently lived. That was her destination in the morning. Asking her mother for money was going to sting like a thousand wasps, but what choice did she have? If she was going to return to New York and open her own investment firm, she needed capital.

Her mother wasn’t going to make it easy. No, she was probably waiting right now in front of a roaring fire, dressed in all her finery, having sensed that Natalie was on the verge of humbling herself. Sure, they’d had a few softer moments since Natalie’s return to St. Helena, but just under the surface, she’d always be the Embarrassment to Corinne.

Natalie tossed her eye mask in the direction of the sad, empty wineglass quartet and plodded into the en suite bathroom. Might as well get the talk over with early, right? That way if Corinne said no to Natalie’s proposal, at least she’d have the whole day to wallow. And this was Napa, so wallowing could be made very fashionable. She’d find a wine tasting and charm everyone in attendance. People who had no idea she’d been asked to step down as a partner of her finance firm for a wildly massive trade blunder that cost, oh, a cool billion.

Nor would they know she’d been kicked to the curb by her fiancé, who had been too embarrassed to meet her at the altar.

Back in New York? Persona non grata.

In St. Helena? Royalty.

Snort. Natalie shed her sleepshirt and stepped beneath the hot shower spray. And if she thought her brother doing the deed constituted an unwanted image, it had nothing on the memory of August Cates yesterday afternoon in all his beefcake glory.

If only.

Natalie didn’t have anything to complain about. She was living in a beautiful guest house on the grounds of a vineyard, for god’s sake. But she’d been living off her savings for more than a month now and she could barely open a lemonade stand, let alone launch a firm, with the amount left over. She had privilege, but financial freedom presented a challenge. One she could hopefully overcome this morning. All it would cost was her pride.

The fact that August Cates planned to leave St. Helena imminently had nothing to do with her sudden urgency to leave, too. Nothing whatsoever. That big, incompetent buffoon and his decisions had no bearing on her life. So why the pit in her stomach? It had been there since he approached the table to have his wine judged yesterday. The man had a chip the size of Denver on his shoulder, but he always had kind of a . . . softness in his eyes. A relaxed, observant quality that said But it was missing yesterday.

And it caught Natalie off guard how much it threw her.

He’d looked resigned. Closed off.

Now, drying her hair in front of the foggy bathroom mirror, she couldn’t pretend that hole in her belly wasn’t yawning wider. Where would August go? What would he do now that winemaking was off the table?

Who August Cates?

Part of her—a part she would never admit to out loud—had wondered if she would find out eventually. In a weak moment. Or by accident.

Had she been looking forward to that?

Natalie turned off the dryer with a snappy movement, ran the brush one final time through her long, black hair, and left the bathroom, crossing to her closet. She put on a sleeveless black sweaterdress and leather loafers, added a swipe of nude lipstick and some gold earrings. By the time she was finished, she could see through the guest room window that lights were on in the main house and she took a long breath, banishing the jitters.

The worst Corinne could say was no, Natalie reminded herself on the way up the path that ran alongside the fragrant vineyard. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the barest rim of gold outlined Mount St. Helena. She could almost feel the grapes waking up and turning toward the promise of warmth from above. Part of her truly loved this place. It was impossible not to. The smell of fertile earth, the tradition, the magic, the intricate process. Thousands of years ago, some industrious—and probably bored—people had buried bottles of grape juice underground for the winter and invented wine, which proved Natalie’s theory: where there is a will to get drunk, dammit, there is a way.

She paused at the bottom of the porch steps leading to the main house. Old-world charm oozed from every inch of her childhood home. Greenery spilled over flower boxes beneath every window, rocking chairs urged people to sit and relax, and the trickle of the pool’s water fixture could be heard from the front of the house, even though it was located behind it. A gorgeous manor that never failed to make winery visitors swoon. The place was incredible. But she had more affection for the guest house than the manor where she’d lived from birth to college. And right now, all it represented was the obstacle ahead.

A moment later, she knocked on the door and heard the sound of footsteps approaching on the other side. The peephole darkened, the lock turned—and then she was looking at Corinne.

“Seriously?” Natalie sighed, giving her stately mother a once-over, taking in the smoothed black-gray hair and perfect posture. Even her wrinkles were artful, allowed onto her face by invitation only. “You’re fully dressed at five o’clock in the morning?”

“I could say the same about you,” Corinne replied without missing a beat.

“True,” Natalie said, sliding into the house without an invitation. “But I don’t live here. Do you even own a bathrobe?”

“Did you come here to discuss sleepwear?”

“Nope. Humor me.”

Corinne closed the door firmly, then locked it. “Of course I own a robe. Normally, I would be wearing it until at least seven, but I have virtual meetings this morning.” In an uncharacteristic move, her mother let a smile peek through before it was quickly quelled. “Your brother has negotiated a deal making us the official wine of several wedding venues down the California coast. He is really helping turn things around for us.”

“Yeah, he is.” Natalie couldn’t help but feel a spark of pride in her brother. After all, he’d overcome his own baggage pertaining to this place and landed on the other side much better off. At the same time, however, Natalie couldn’t ignore the wistfulness drifting through her breast. God, just once, she’d love someone to talk about her like Corinne spoke about Julian. Like she was vital. Valued. Wanted needed. “It’s hard to tell him no when he’s speaking in his stern professor voice. Takes people right back to seventh grade.”

“Whatever he’s doing, it’s working.” Corinne squared her shoulders and moved farther into the foyer, gesturing for Natalie to precede her into the living space and to the right, overlooking the rambling vineyard and the mountains beyond. They took seats on opposite ends of the hard couch that had been there since Natalie’s childhood and was almost never used. Voses didn’t .

They kept moving.

So in the interest of family tradition, Natalie turned toward Corinne and folded her hands on one knee. “Mother.” If she’d learned anything from phase one in the finance industry, it was to look a person in the eye when asking for money, and she did so now. “I know you will agree—it’s time for me to go back to New York. I’ve been in contact with Claudia, one of my previous analysts, and she’s agreed to come on board with my new company. We’re going to be small, more of a boutique firm, but both of us have enough connections to facilitate steady growth. With a couple of smart plays—”

“Wow.” Corinne framed her jaw with a thumb and index finger. “You’ve been making important phone calls in between wine binges. I had no idea.”

Clang. A ding in the armor.

Okay.

She’d expected that and was prepared for it.

Natalie kept her features composed in an attempt to disguise how fast her heart was now beating. Why was it that she could make million-dollar trades without her pulse skipping, but one barb from Corinne and she might as well be dangling from the side of a skyscraper by a pinkie, cold sweat breaking out beneath her dress?

Parents.

, they truly messed up their kids.

“Yes, I have been making calls,” Natalie replied calmly. She didn’t deny the wine binges, because, yeah. She’d definitely done that. “Claudia is working on lining up an investor right now, but before anyone in their right mind gives us money, we’ll need to register a new business name. We need an office and some skin in the investment game, however light.” She tried not to be obvious about taking a bracing breath. “Bottom line, I need capital.”

Not even the slightest reaction from her mother. She’d seen this coming and it burned, even though they’d both been aware this talk was on the horizon.

“Surely you’ve saved money,” Corinne said smoothly, a gray-black eyebrow lifting gracefully toward her hairline. “You were a partner in a very lucrative investment fund.”

“Yes. I was. Unfortunately, there is a certain lifestyle that has to be maintained for people to trust financiers with their money.”

“That is a fancy way of saying you lived above your means.”

“Perhaps. Yes.” Oh boy, keeping her irritation at bay was going to be even harder than she thought. Corinne had come locked and loaded for this conversation. “The excess is necessary, however. Parties and designer clothing and vacations and expensive rounds of golf with clients. Morrison and I had an apartment on Park Avenue. Not to mention, we’d put down a nonrefundable deposit on our wedding venue.”

That last part burned. Of course it did.

She’d been offloaded by a man who’d claimed to love her.

But for some reason, Morrison’s face didn’t materialize. No, instead she saw August. Wondered what he would say about a six-figure deposit on Tribeca Rooftop. He would look so out of place among the wedding guests. He’d probably show up in jeans, a ballcap, and that faded gray navy T-shirt. He would crush her ex in an arm-wrestling match, too. Why did that make her feel better enough to continue?

“In short, yes, I do have some money. If I was simply going back to New York, I could afford to find an apartment and live comfortably for a few months. But that is not what I want to do.” The kick of adrenaline in her bloodstream felt good. It had been a long time. Or maybe while getting lit to mourn the loss of everything she’d worked for, she’d accidentally numbed her ambition, too. Right now, in this moment, she had it back. She was the woman who used to look down at rows of analysts from her glass office and demand they eat their competition’s balls for breakfast. “I want to return better than ever. I want my former colleagues to realize they made a mistake . . .”

“You want to rub it in their faces,” Corinne supplied.

“Maybe a little,” Natalie admitted. “I might have made one huge mistake, but I know if Morrison Talbot the Third had made that bad call instead of me, excuses would have been made. He probably would have been given a promotion for being a risk-taker. They met in secret and voted to oust me. My partners. My .” She closed her eyes briefly to beat back the memory of her shock. Betrayal. “If you were me, Mother, you would want a shot to go back and prove yourself.”

Corinne stared at her for several beats. “Perhaps I would.”

Natalie released a breath.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have the money to loan you,” Corinne continued, her face deepening ever so slightly with color. “As you are aware, the vineyard has been declining in profitability. With your brother’s unexpected help, we’re turning it around, but it could be years before we’re back in the black. All I have is this house, Natalie.”

“My trust fund,” Natalie said firmly, forcing it out into the open. “I’m asking for my trust fund to be released.”

“My, times have changed,” Corinne said with a laugh. “When you graduated from Cornell, what was it that you said at your postceremony dinner? You would never take a dime from us as long as you lived?”

“I’m thirty years old now. Please don’t throw something in my face that I said when I was twenty-two.”

Corinne sighed and refolded her hands in her lap. “You are well aware of the terms of your trust fund, Natalie. Your father might be racing cars in Italy and parading around with women half his age like a fool, but he set forth the language of the trust and as far as the bank is concerned, he’s still in control.”

Natalie lunged to her feet. “The language in that contract is archaic. How can it even be legal in this day and age? There has to be something you can do.”

Her mother let a breath seep out. “Naturally, I agree with you. But your father would have to sign off on the change.”

“I am going groveling to that man. Not after he just blew us off and pretends like we don’t exist. Not when he left you to do damage control after the fire four years ago.”

Corinne’s attention shot to the vineyard, which was lightening in the path of the sun. “I wasn’t aware you cared.”

“Of course I care.

asked to leave.”

“Oh please. You couldn’t have made it more clear you wanted to get back to the almighty rat race of New York,” her mother scoffed.

They obviously remembered that period after the fire very differently. Getting into the semantics of the last time she’d been in St. Helena wouldn’t do her cause any good now. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that.”

Corinne appeared poised to argue, but visibly changed course. “My hands are tied, Natalie. The terms of the trust are set in stone. The recipient must be gainfully employed married for the money to be released. I realize that sounds like something out of Regency England, not modern-day California, but your father is old-school Italian. His parents’ marriage was arranged. It’s glamorous to him. It’s tradition.”

“It’s sexist.”

“Normally I would agree, but the terms of Julian’s trust are the same. When the contract was set forth, your father had some grand vision in his mind. You and Julian with your flourishing families taking over the winery. Grandchildren everywhere. Success.” She made an absent gesture. “When you both left without any intention of joining the family business, it broke something inside of him. The fire was the final straw. I’m not making excuses for him, I’m just trying to give you a different perspective.”

Natalie lowered herself back down to the couch and implored her mother with a look. “Please, there has to be something we can do. I can’t stay here forever.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry that staying in your family home feels like exile.”

“You try waking up every morning to the sound of Julian and Hallie trying and failing to stifle their sex noises down the hall.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yes. They call for the son of God, too, sometimes when they think I’m not home.”

With a withering eye roll, Corinne pushed to her feet and strode to the front window. “You would think your father’s hasty departure would bruise the loyalty of his local friends and associates, but I assure you, it has not. They still have him up on a pedestal—and that includes Ingram Meyer.”

“Who?”

“Ingram Meyer, an old friend of your father’s. He’s the loan officer at the St. Helena Credit Union, but more importantly, he’s the trustee of yours and Julian’s trust funds. Believe me, he will follow your father’s instructions to the letter.”

Natalie’s jaw had to be touching the floor. “Some man I’ve never heard of—or met—holds my future in his hands?”

“I’m sorry, Natalie. The bottom line is that . . . short of convincing your father to amend the terms, there is nothing I can do.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to do that.” Natalie sighed. “Not after how he left.”

Corinne was silent a moment. “Thank you.”

That was it. The end of the conversation. There was nothing more to be said. Currently, Natalie was the furthest thing from gainfully employed. And even further from being married. The patriarchy wins again. She’d have to return to New York with her tail between her legs and ask for a low-level position at one of the firms she’d once called rivals. They would eat up her humility with a spoon and she’d . . . grin and bear it. Pulling together enough money to open her own business would probably take a decade, but she would do it. She’d do it on her own.

“Okay.” Resigned, hollow, Natalie stood on shaky legs and smoothed the skirt of her dress. “Good luck with your meetings this morning.”

Corinne said nothing as Natalie left the house, closing the door behind her and descending the steps with her chin up. This morning, she would head into town, get her hair and nails done. At the very least, she could look good when she landed back in New York, right?

But everything changed on the way back from getting that balayage—and like some weird nursery rhyme from hell, it involved a cat, a rat . . . and a SEAL.