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Beneath the Caviar Sky

Name: Beneath the Caviar Sky
Rating: 5.0 (1 reviews)

MJ Henry

Billionaires | Ongoing

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Before the Fall Griffin Vale never wanted the wine business. He respected it, sure. Grew up breathing in the barrel-soaked air of fermenting cellars and shaking hands with tycoons in tailored suits before he could spell Bordeaux. But his real love? Architecture. Spaces. Silence. He had an eye for beauty most billionaires ignored-the crooked beams of old barns, the way light poured through cracked windowpanes. He wanted to restore things, not sell them. But legacy doesn't care about dreams. His father, Thomas Vale, the larger-than-life titan of Vale Vineyards, had always said, "A Vale leads. A Vale does not walk away." So Griffin stayed. Showed up at boardrooms. Designed a few tasting rooms on the side. Smiled for the cameras. Dated women who fit the brand. Laughed at jokes he didn't find funny. And then it all collapsed. Fraud. Embezzlement. Stock manipulation. Words that painted headlines in gold and blood. His father arrested, the company in freefall. Investors turned predators. The press camped outside his penthouse. And Griffin? Griffin vanished. He took his grandfather's old truck and drove until the cell towers faded and the roads turned to dust. He didn't want to clear his name. He didn't care who thought he was guilty. He just wanted to forget. The Vineyard Riverbend was the kind of place that didn't make it on tourist maps. A family-run vineyard clinging to the last edge of harvest season, its tasting room barely functioning, its staff down to three. Thalia was its heart-unpaid manager, grape whisperer, and single mother all rolled into one. She hadn't planned on hiring anyone else. But when she found him-"Chris"-sitting on the edge of the loading dock, sipping gas station coffee and asking for work, something in her said yes. He was too clean. Too careful. But his eyes were quiet. And he said please. She put him on vine duty. Watched him fumble with shears and blisters. Smirked when he cursed under his breath. But day after day, he showed up. Never late. Never loud. And never asked for more than what she gave. Thalia didn't need another complication. She had enough-an autistic son who spoke with his eyes more than words, a mortgage two months late, and the memory of her father's vineyard dying beneath the weight of unpaid taxes. But Chris wasn't a man looking to be needed. He just needed to be. And somehow, in the way he held silence like a prayer, she found room to breathe. What He Didn't Know Thalia's vineyard sat on land once owned by Reyes Cellars-her father's dream. A vineyard that once competed with the likes of Vale. But twenty years ago, when a brutal drought hit and investors pulled out, her father was forced to sell. To the Vales. The sale broke him. The land was his soul, and when it was gone, so was his joy. Thalia watched him wither, bottle by bottle, until there was nothing left but debts and a bitter name. She swore she'd never trust a Vale again. And now, unknowingly, she was feeding one. Letting him walk her rows. Letting him into her son's world. Into her own. If she knew-if she found out who Chris really was-there would be no forgiveness. No future. But love doesn't wait for the perfect truth. It rises like steam from morning soil, unexpected and slow. And by the time it's visible, it's already soaked through the skin. The Breaking Point When the truth finally cracks open-when Chris becomes Griffin Vale again-it's not the betrayal that cuts deepest. It's the shame in his own voice when he says, "I didn't come here to lie. I came here because this is the first place I've ever felt real." Thalia doesn't scream. Doesn't cry. She just stares, like she's watching something precious rot in her hands. And her son-her quiet, sweet Mateo-who had just started calling Chris "Tío," won't look at him at all. Trust, once broken, doesn't rebuild with apologies. It rebuilds with action. With hands in the dirt. With late harvests and second chances. With showing up. And Griffin? For the first time in his life, he's willing to fight for something that can't be bought. Even if it means walking away from the empire he was born to save. Side Stories & Emotional Layers Mateo Reyes, Thalia's son, doesn't speak much. But he paints. His world is made of color and shadow, of silence and shape. Chris-Griffin-doesn't try to fix him. He just listens. Offers brushes. Buys better paints with the last of his hidden savings. It's through Mateo's art that Thalia sees who Chris really is-not the billionaire heir, but the man willing to sit still long enough for a child to trust him. Then there's Rosa, Thalia's grandmother, who suspects the truth before anyone else. Her eyes are sharp, her tongue sharper, but she holds secrets like vines hold memory. She tells Thalia that love doesn't come clean. It comes messy. Tangled. The way roots grow underground before they bloom. Even Diego, the town's gruff mechanic, has a part to play. He once lost his own family to a corporate buyout. He warns Chris: "If you want redempt

Legend Modern Billionaires

Chapter 5 Harvests and Hindsight

04-30 21:20

Chapter 1 The Fall

Griffin Vale was not supposed to be awake at 3:47 a.m.

Not in his penthouse. Not barefoot on Italian marble. Not staring at a TV screen that kept replaying the same grainy footage-his father, silver-haired and cuffed, being escorted into a black car outside the courthouse.

The ticker at the bottom of the screen flickered like a dying heart monitor:

BREAKING: VALE VINEYARDS CEO INDICTED ON MULTIPLE COUNTS OF FRAUD, EMBEZZLEMENT.

He muted it. Not because he couldn't stand to hear the anchors dissecting his life, but because the silence let him hear something far more terrifying.

Nothing.

The place was too quiet. His phone had stopped buzzing hours ago, after his PR team gave up. The elevators hadn't chimed. His doorman-Frank, who always slipped Griffin Sunday paper clippings about vintage architecture-had gone home early.

The world had pulled away from him like a receding tide, and all that was left was the mess.

He looked around.

Every piece of furniture had been chosen by someone else. The navy suede sectional for a magazine spread. The wall-sized wine fridge for brand synergy. The Japanese bonsai that was probably already dying because he hadn't watered it once.

A stranger's life, and now even the strangers were leaving.

He didn't cry. That would've made it feel human.

Instead, he walked to the fridge, poured himself a glass of water, and stood in front of the window that overlooked the city. Even at this hour, Manhattan glowed like it didn't know how to rest. It made him feel small, and small was a feeling he didn't know what to do with.

His phone lit up on the counter. One last message. From his sister.

They think you knew.

He stared at the screen. No salutation. No punctuation. Just six words that burned through every layer of curated distance he'd wrapped around himself over the years.

They think you knew.

He hadn't. Not really.

But he hadn't asked, either.

He'd shown up for meetings. Signed documents. Smiled for Forbes. Designed a sleek new Napa tasting room that Vogue called "a cathedral of opulence." All while Thomas Vale had siphoned money through shell companies, falsified inventory numbers, and bought back shares with stolen cash.

Griffin hadn't known. But he hadn't wanted to know, either. And that, in the court of public opinion, was guilt enough.

So he made a decision.

Not with fanfare. Not with drama.

He packed a duffel bag. Grabbed the keys to his grandfather's old pickup truck-somehow still parked in the secondary garage-and left everything else behind.

No goodbye notes. No burner phone. No coordinates sent to lawyers or lovers.

He drove.

Twelve hours and seven gas stations later, he found himself in a place the GPS couldn't name.

The roads narrowed into dirt. The sky got bigger. The noise in his head got quieter.

It was somewhere near the border of memory and myth-a town too small to market, with a single blinking light and a wooden sign that read: Riverbend-Population 4,108.

Griffin parked behind a shuttered diner and slept in the truck. No one bothered him. Not even the local cop, who drove by once, gave him a long look, and kept going.

The next morning, he woke to the scent of soil.

Not just dirt. Soil.

Richer. Deeper. The kind of scent that hinted at growth, at fruit, at something waiting to be coaxed from the earth.

And that's when he saw it.

Vineyards. Or what was left of them.

Half the vines were overgrown. The trellises looked like they hadn't seen maintenance in months. But the land still held shape. Purpose. A rhythm.

He followed a gravel path until he reached a faded wooden gate. There was a sign, barely legible under a coat of flaking paint:

RIVERBEND VINEYARDS

Below it: Help Wanted. Seasonal. Cash Pay.

His chest tightened. He hadn't lifted anything heavier than a glass of Cabernet in years.

But something pulled him forward.

Thalia Reyes didn't look up when she heard footsteps. She was elbow-deep in crates of late harvest Muscat grapes, muttering under her breath about the storm rolling in.

"Hi," a voice said. Male. Polished, but tired.

She did look up then. And what she saw didn't match the voice.

Tall man. Jeans too clean. Shoes all wrong-Italian leather, city shoes. But his eyes... his eyes were quiet. The kind of quiet that came from some deep, unspoken grief.

"Name's Chris," he said. "Saw the sign. I'm good with my hands."

Thalia raised an eyebrow.

"You ever pruned a vine?"

"No."

"Ever lifted a lug crate?"

"No."

"Ever worked twelve hours without a break, through bugs and heat and your spine screaming betrayal?"

He gave a faint smile. "Not officially."

She wanted to say no. She had enough problems-staff quitting, grapes moldering on the vine, her son's school threatening expulsion again. She didn't need another project.

But something about him made her pause.

He didn't have the look of a runaway. But he felt like one.

And Thalia, despite every reason not to, had always had a soft spot for people trying to outrun ghosts.

"You get ten an hour, cash," she said. "Break your back, break my gear, you're gone. Got it?"

He nodded.

She pointed to the row closest to the edge of the property. "Start there. Watch your footing. The snakes sun themselves by the roots this time of year."

He blinked. "Snakes?"

She didn't answer. Just smirked and turned away.

By noon, his hands were blistered. By three, he'd nearly sliced open his thumb. By five, he was limping from bending the wrong way too many times.

But he didn't stop. Didn't complain. Didn't look at his phone.

Because he didn't have one.

Because Griffin Vale had disappeared.

And Chris? Chris was nobody.

And for the first time in a long, long time, that felt like something worth being.