She was in her element. Confident. Capable. Brilliant.
When she finished, the room was quiet for a moment. Thomas’ expression was unreadable.
Then he smiled.
“This is exactly what we needed,” he said. “Better than I hoped. Isabel, this is exceptional work.”
Her face lit up. The change was subtle—a softening around her eyes, a lift at the corners of her mouth—but I saw it.
I wanted to cross the room and pull her into my arms. Instead, I caught her eye and let myexpression communicate what I couldn’t say in front of everyone else.
I’m proud of you.
She ducked her head, but not before I saw her smile widen.
“I think this calls for a celebration,” Thomas said, pushing back from the table. “Bas, grab that bottle we’ve been saving.”
We moved from the study to the living room, where the afternoon light filtered through tall windows and cast long shadows across the hardwood floor. Bas returned with a bottle of Whitmore’s reserve Pinot Noir and poured some for everyone except Isabel, who accepted sparkling water with a grace that had become second nature.
“To the 1934 Society,” Thomas raised his glass. “And to the team who created it.”
We drank. Isabel’s cheeks flushed pink, and she leaned into my side when I slipped my arm around her waist.
“I’ve been doing some research,” Bas said, swirling his wine. “Isabel, are you aware that Miremont’s first bottling was in 1934?”
She blinked. “I had no idea.”
Bas exchanged a glance with his father. “What if we created the society together? Combined our histories—Whitmore with Miremont.”
“That’s a great idea. There are several other wineries in the valley that were either founded then or reinvented themselves after the end of Prohibition,” Thomas added. “I’m sure they’d want to be part of something like this.”
I watched Isabel process the suggestion, witnessed her mind work through the implications. A society that spanned multiple wineries. A collaboration that could put Miremont on the map before we’d even produced our first vintage.
“It could work,” she said slowly. “We’d need to restructure some of the membership tiers, create a framework that allows each winery to maintain its identity while sharing the benefits of the collective brand.”
“That’s why you’re the marketing director,” Bas said with a grin. “We just throw out ideas. You figure out how to turn them into something viable.”
The conversation continued, but I found my attention drifting. To Isabel, animated and engaged. To the ring hidden in my pocket. To the question I’d been rehearsing for weeks, waiting for the right moment to ask.
After the meetingwound down and we’d said our goodbyes, I drove back to Miremont alone. Isabel and Bas had a meeting with one of Whitmore’s distributors that would keep her occupied for another few hours, which gave me time to think.
The house restoration was coming along faster than anticipated. The renovation crew, made up of currentcaballerosandViejos, had finished the kitchen last week, and the master bedroom was nearly complete. The nursery—that soft yellow room with the painted vines—had been cleaned, the artwork restored, and the old crib replaced with a new one that met modern safety standards. Every day, it looked a little more like a home.
I walked into the sitting room where the portrait of Anaïs hung and took the velvet box from my pocket.
The ring inside had belonged to my grandmother on my mother’s side. It was a simple gold band with a single diamond that caught the light and threw tiny rainbows across my palm. My mother hadgiven it to me a few weeks ago, pressing it into my hand with tears in her eyes.
“Yourabuelawore this for sixty-two years,” she’d said. “It brought her joy. Let it bring Isabel the same.”
I’d been waiting for the perfect moment to give it to her. To first find the ideal setting that would make the proposal worthy of the woman I wanted to spend my life with.
I’d imagined a dozen scenarios. A sunset over the vineyard. A private dinner in the newly restored dining room. A trip back to that bar in Paso Robles where everything had started between us. Each idea seemed right for a moment, then wrong the next. Too staged. Too predictable. Tooperfected.
But maybe perfect wasn’t the point. Maybe real was.
I closed the box and held it in my palm, feeling the weight of everything it represented. A promise. A future. A commitment that went beyond words.
The sound of trucks in the driveway brought me back to the present. I tucked the ring in my pocket and went downstairs.
