“Or we both threaten to walk away. No, we’d need to do both—not threaten—we’d need to actually leave, unless they play this our way. Sure, there’s a good possibility they then just scrap the whole thing altogether, which would mean everything you staked on this project as a way to redeem your reputation and family name might be for naught. But it has to be both of us in this together for there to be any chance for this attempt at collective bargaining to work.”
Now I was the one staring at Bastien, trying to make out if anything I was saying was registering. If he even cared? I believed him yesterday when he told me he’d been just as manipulated by Kate as I was, but with so much at stake for him, that didn’t necessarily mean he was willing to throw it all away.
For Bastien, Heart Restoration Project—where he played the handsome hero—was his chance to change everything. His life. His finances. His stability. And for me, on the outside looking in, this disaster was just par for the course. It wouldn’t help or hurt my reputation any more than every other fake ridiculous show I’d done before.
But for me, for real, telling the true story of Château Mirabelle and its history was the one chance I had to show the world who I was and what I had to offer, beyond my famous name and pretty face.
When his face remained unchanged, I continued, “Right now, they believe the heart of the show is our fabricated relationship because we haven’t given them anything else. They don’t know about all of this”—I gestured to the materials covering the table—“the Adélaïses, Dutch-Paris, the occupation. They don’t know about your grandfather and how his one reckless decision changed the whole course of history for this region. They don’t know anything about how you’ve struggled to become a vintner and how every door’s been slammed in your face. Or how much it would mean to the people of Maubec if we could somehow bring the winery back to life again. They don’t know . . . and if we can bring all the things they don’t know about to them as a beautifully touching narrative wrapped in a big, shiny, inspirational bow, then maybe we can finish this project by telling the story we want, the story the Adélaïses deserve to have told, and the one Maubec can finally be proud of.”
Bastien nodded along as I spoke, taking in every word carefully. He sat silently for a few moments in deep contemplation before finally responding. “Plum, Kate has manipulated us at every turn to get what she wants for the show, and now that she has and managed to convince Claudine and Jack and everyone, what makes you so sure that they would ever trade a sure hit for a possible flop? What if no one cares about the history? About our story? About Château Mirabelle? Then what?”
“I know that is a very real possibility. But I really think we can make them see it, make them understand what all this is.” I gestured again to the photos and artifacts spread around us and then looked him in the eye. “But it has to be both of us. Throughout these past months, I placed my trust in you, and now, I need you to do the same for me. Can you trust me?” Now it was my turn to wait with a held breath.
He tilted his head and set his lips together before responding. “Do you remember that day in the garden at Château du Val d’Été when I told you that you can honor a home by restoring it to its original state or you can honor it by restoring it to its original intention? You are right, if we let Kate win, Château Mirabelle will become nothing more than a cheap spectacle. If we stand together, we can make sure Heart Restoration Project is everything we intended for it to be.”
“You’re saying you’ll walk away from the show—with me?”
“Yes, ma cherie. Okay. D’accord,” he assented.
Even Elliott looked impressed with Bastien’s sincerity. I nudged Elliott playfully and whispered, “Can you see now how a girl could get a little swept away when a guy talks like that?”
“Yeah, yeah, that and the full lips that look like doughy pillows, I get it.” Elliott rolled his eyes.
“Sorry, what did you say about pillows?” Bastien asked, oblivious as ever.
“Don’t worry about it,” Elliott replied. “What you do need to worry about is how the two of you are going to convince Claudine and Jack to get on board with this new direction.”
“Oh, I’ll convince them,” I stated. “I just need you to help arrange the meeting without Kate finding out. And it has to be in the house. In the cellars preferably. For this to work, we need to take them straight into the heart of Château Mirabelle.”
Chapter Forty-One
As Bastien and I stood shoulder to shoulder in the dimly lit, bombed-out cellars of Château Mirabelle, the gravity of the moment weighed upon us like the thick, musty air pinned between the dirt floors and the impressive oak beams up above. We awaited the arrival of Claudine, Jack, and Elliott, well aware of the immense stakes at play. Convincing Jack and Claudine to embrace an alternative vision for Heart Restoration Project—one centered not on a manufactured romance storyline but on the profound sacrifices made by the Adélaïses and others—would be an uphill battle.
But if I could make them see that the château wasn’t just a star vehicle, but the true star of the show—a place where the very walls whispered stories of courage and strength—we might have a fighting chance. No, there was no “if.” I had to make them see. And not because I wanted to stick it to Kate, and believe me I did. This was about something far more significant. It was about honoring the legacy of those who had given so much and ensuring that Château Mirabelle’s true story would finally be told.
“Hello? Is anyone down here?” Jack called into the tunnel, his voice echoing off the cavernous walls.
“Oui, come down a few more steps, we are here,” Bastien called back.
Seconds later, Claudine, trailed by Jack and Elliott, emerged in the old wine cellar, a labyrinth of stone passages littered with piles of splintered wood from broken wine barrels and glass bottles, all blanketed in thick cobwebs. Crates were strewn about, and metal cogs and other gears that had once belonged to the enormous grape press were scattered in broken and bent pieces across the ground. The walls bore the scars of time, adorned with sparse patches of moss and crumbling plaster, and the low, vaulted ceilings added to the sense of confinement the deeper one descended.
Claudine ducked her head as her eyes darted around the room. “Is it even safe to be down here?”
“Do not worry, we reinforced the structural supports when we repaired the foundation. You will be perfectly safe,” Bastien confirmed.
Claudine breathed a sigh of relief as all three of them shuffled a little farther into the space.
Jack turned to Elliott. “So, Mr. Schaffer, what’s this big surprise you have to show us?”
Elliott motioned for me to step forward and said, “Floor’s yours, Plum.” Then he leaned in close, his warm breath brushing my ear as he whispered, “Remember, be the lion. You’ve got this.”
He stepped to the side, leaving me center stage. Though I should’ve grown accustomed to the spotlight’s glare by now, the white-hot intensity of this moment felt strikingly different. I steadied my voice and began. “I’m sure you’re wondering what you’re doing here? And, more to the point, where here even is? Look around; you are in the place where Château Mirabelle’s story began and ended. Let me explain . . .”
And as I unraveled the long, winding, complicated, and tragic history of Château Mirabelle, Jack and Claudine became increasingly enthralled, their unwavering attention revealing that they had never heard any of this before—because they hadn’t. As showrunner, Kate had been curating the material based on her vision, prioritizing falsehoods over the far more compelling and profound truth, most of which, according to Elliott, had ended up on the cutting-room floor.
The scene of me and Bastien examining the cracks on the cellar walls—cut! The footage of the crew working painstakingly to preserve the Adélaïse family crest—cut! The sequences of René walking me through the vineyard, explaining how the soil was still rich and fertile and how it might be brought back to life—cut! Anything that couldn’t be used to trick the audience into believing Bastien and I were entwined in a messy, passionate, and intense love affair—cut! Everything that might suggest I wasn’t the Plum Everly people had come to expect on TV—chaotic, reckless, aimless—cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Until Heart Restoration Project was nothing more than another cliché reality TV show where genuine moments were thrown away to make room for the manufactured drama.
But it didn’t have to be that way. Heart Restoration Project could be so much more—a show where humanity took center stage. It could be that, assuming I could get Jack and Claudine on board, and by the contemplative looks on their faces, that was far from a sure thing.
“I don’t understand. Why wasn’t any of this backstory included? Elliott, where’s all that footage?” Jack demanded.
Elliott did a double take. Apparently Jack had completely forgotten the conversation in video village where he told Elliott that researching the house’s history was a complete waste of time.
“Sir, as I recall, you weren’t particularly interested in including anything in the show other than Plum and Bastien’s romance,” Elliott retorted as politely as his gruff nature would allow.
I stepped forward. “About that . . . I think it’s only right that you know that Kate manufactured that relationship. She lied to me, and she lied to Bastien. She edited the storyline to make it seem as though we were a real couple.”
“But you were a real couple. We all saw you off camera together. Nobody forced you to spend time with one another,” Claudine fired back, her eyes now darting between the two of us.
Bastien cleared his throat. “I am not proud of my role in any of this. What I did, I did because I believed by being a part of this show, by helping to restore le château, I would somehow make amends for my grandfather’s misdeeds. Kate cast me as her leading man, and I played along because I thought it was what the show needed to be a success. I believed Plum was in on it too. But as I recently discovered, she was not.”
“Is that true?” Jack asked.
“Yes.”
Claudine narrowed in on Bastien and me. “So you two? You’re not? You never were—”
With an open palm, I gestured to explain. “The lines may have been blurry. They may have even been crossed once or twice. But the fantasy Kate was crafting was complete fiction, one I never signed on for. So what I want to do is take the narrative back and give it to the rightful storyteller, Château Mirabelle.”
