manager will let you know if you’ve been hired.”
It was all up to this man who would have the weekend to check out her references. He spoke with authority. There was an aura of sophistication about him that let her know he had a position of importance at Fontesquieux and had likely worked here long enough to have met Antoinette at the bistro.
“Merci, monsieur.” She got up, aware of him watching her as she walked past the people standing in line, and left the tent. The younger man outside giving out applications flashed her a smile, but she looked away and headed for her car, not wanting to encourage him.
When she got behind the wheel, she was still feeling shaky from all the sensations bombarding her. It might be a long shot, but now that she suspected she’d met the man who could be Alain’s father, she’d do everything possible to get to know him. When she sensed it was the right moment, she’d show him photos of Antoinette and Alain, including the birthmark. If he was the father, she couldn’t imagine him not wanting to see his child.
Of course, if she didn’t get hired, then she needed to find innovative ways to cross paths with him, starting tonight. She planned to seek out dinner at the bistro Claire had told her about. Maybe he’d be there... Just imagining his handsome features left her breathless.
Having finished the interviews, Dominic Laurent Fontesquieu stopped in the midst of fastening his briefcase full of applications. He couldn’t resist taking another look at the Fournier application.
The woman with translucent green eyes and natural silvery blond hair had robbed him of breath. Her deportment and stunning beauty had captivated him. As Dominic studied the particulars on her application, her image swam before him again.
Age: twenty-seven.
Home address: La Gaude.
Cell phone...
Email address...
Employed full time at La Metropole Pharmacy.
Driver’s license.
Own car.
Bank account.
Covered by social insurance.
Degree in pharmacology from Sophie Antipolis University in Nice.
No experience picking grapes.
He tapped the paper against his jaw. What was missing here? Only everything else about her life that might answer the question of what prompted her to apply for this temporary work.
This mysterious, gorgeous, educated woman suddenly appears at the vineyard out of nowhere, wanting to know what it’s like to help with the harvest for a few weeks?
Dominic didn’t buy it for a second. He put the application in the briefcase with the others before leaving the tent, unable to get her off his mind. He was so attracted to her, it shocked him.
Vetting would-be workers was one of his brother Etienne’s jobs as director of the vineyard so he usually oversaw the vendange hiring. But he’d been struck down by a nasty flu bug for the better part of a week and their grandfather Armand had rung Dominic’s apartment in the south wing of the chateau and demanded that he fill in for his brother.
Little had Dominic known that the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on in his life would be among the applicants. He’d wanted to catch up with her after she’d left and take her to dinner to get to know her better. But that had been impossible when other people needed to be interviewed.
Frustrated, he headed for his office in a building on the estate behind the chateau. He left the applications for his assistant, Theo, to deal with until Etienne recovered and drove the short distance to the chateau. Once he reached his apartment, he took a quick shower to cool off.
Until today he’d never found a woman whose looks turned him inside out in just one short meeting. In fact he’d doubted if such a woman even existed. But this afternoon, a pair of translucent green eyes had caught him completely off guard.
Throughout the eleven years he’d been away from home in Paris, he’d enjoyed several intimate relationships with beautiful women. But he’d never experienced this instant, intense, earthy kind of attraction to a woman, not even when he’d been a teenager. And he sure as hell hadn’t seen a woman like her show up for work at the vineyard before.
After putting on a robe, he went to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. While he ate, he phoned Etienne with an update and told him not to worry, Dominic would continue to cover for him and told him to get better. After hanging up, he needed a distraction. He turned on the TV to watch the news, but nothing helped get his mind off Nathalie Fournier.
She was on some kind of mission. He was certain of it. Though a pharmacist, maybe she had an ambitious streak and did freelancing undercover for a newspaper or a wine industry magazine to make extra money.
He wished his cousin Raoul was home so they could talk. They were closer than brothers and always confided in each other. But Raoul and his father, Matthieu, the comptroller of the company, were in Saint Tropez at a vintners’ conference and they wouldn’t be back until Sunday night.
Any conversation would have to wait until Monday. And then what, Dominic?
Maybe some politician was paying a lot of money for her to get an exclusive on the vineyard. Was it hoped that her digging would turn up something she could expose concerning the migrants who worked at the Fontesquieu vineyard? No one would suspect her under the guise of a pharmacist, of all things.
He supposed anything was possible and didn’t like what he was thinking. Half a dozen ideas of what she might be up to percolated in his mind, as his domineering grandfather was always guarding against trespassers.
Dominic’s thoughts turned to his autocratic grandfather who’d been born with a divine right of kings syndrome. He felt a bleak expression cross over his features. The austere man’s dictatorial personality had forced the whole family to live under his thumb. He’d forced arranged marriages for all his six sons and daughters, and insisted they all live and work together at the massive chateau, determined to keep it all in the family.
Armand had screwed up more lives than Dominic dared count. Under his tutelage, Dominic’s own father and mother, Gaston and Vivienne, had put unbearable pressure on him and his siblings to marry certain moneyed, elite people they’d picked out for them. At eighteen, Dominic had refused to be told what to do.
No one in the family—including his parents—had had a good or happy marriage, souring Dominic’s taste for the institution. Early on he’d made up his mind to study business and carve out his own future. It had been imperative he get away from the family dynamics to survive. His dreams had gone far beyond being a vintner and he’d left home for Paris under the threat of being disinherited, but he hadn’t cared.
He’d begged his brother to go with him, but Etienne had held back, too unsure to challenge their father and grandfather. Their older sister, Quinette, had already been married off.
Ultimately,
