Namrita stood to the side of the road with a small clutch of reporters and cameras. The growers’ decisions would decide Sofia’s fate, and no amount of prettying it up in the morning would change that. They’d decided to allow the world to watch her fate unfold.
With one last wipe of her sweaty palms, Sofia stuck the bandanna in her back pocket and said the first thing that came to mind. “This is a crazy idea,” she said, loud in English.
There were a couple of awkward chuckles, as if people were as uncomfortable at her attempting a motivational speech as she was at giving it. Sofia didn’t do this. She didn’t give inspiring eleventh-hour speeches; she left those to her brother.
But facts and figures weren’t going to raise spirits, energize already exhausted people, and convince her growers to follow the rebel queen instead of the selfish but consistent rulers they’d relied on for years.
“Today, in my own office, I was accused of having lots of crazy ideas. And maybe I do. I don’t know.” She could hear the murmured translation for the few workers who didn’t speak English, causing Juan Carlos’s words to bounce back at her. She wanted to bat at them. “¿Sabes que? No. There’s nothing crazy in helping the Monte del Vino Real adapt and thrive rather than allowing it to slip away until it’s another lost village in the mountains.”
She shook her hands at the daunting peaks around her and looked out at the crowd. People watched her hesitatingly. She probably looked like the abuela who had boisterous chats in the pews of the village chapel with people who were not there.
Aish’s dark gaze felt like a touch.
“But what we’re about to attempt, it’s probably crazy.” She motioned her thumb in his direction and addressed head-on one of the concerns of the growers. “Yes, it came from the mind of a rock star.” Sofia pointed at herself. “It was approved by your party-girl princess. The idea was validated by the prince, who’s responsible for some of you having young, vulnerable vines, and we used a billionaire’s plane to fly to Bordeaux to get the materials we needed.” She heard how damning the summary sounded from her own mouth and said her inner thought out loud. “It sounds more like we’re putting on the world’s best rave rather than trying to save this year’s grapes.”
To her surprise, there was true laughter from the crowd. It sounded like relief. It sounded like room to breathe. She pushed onward.
“I’m willing to try crazy if it will save us.” She angled and focused all her attention on the group of growers. That’s truly who this speech was for. “What I’m hoping and praying is that you are willing, too. We have the materials, we have the manpower, we have the equipment.” She motioned to the spotlights stationed at the end of vineyard rows. They would allow everyone to work through the night to save the grapes. “But if you don’t believe in me or this plan, I need to know now so that I can reassign workers. With the help of our interns—” She nodded at them. “We’ll have enough hands, but we’re stretched thin. If you decide to sell to the Consejo, they will supply you with their crews.”
Her hopes began to falter as she saw the growers murmur among themselves. What had she expected, blind obedience? The pride of tradition was the mother’s milk they’d been raised on; of course, they were going to question this untested plan.
A low voice hissed at her. She saw Aish standing at the edge of the truck, his fingers hooked around the bed.
“Tell them why,” he whispered urgently.
“What?”
“Tell them why they should believe in you and this plan.” He was dusty and disheveled from carrying the bolts of fabric off the plane and on to the trucks. The tip of a blue ocean wave could be seen on his wrist.
“He called me a delusional princess,” she called out in Spanish as she straightened and turned back to them. “All of you, you know me, the real me and not the princesa they talk about on the internet, for two weeks if not for my whole life.” Carmen Louisa moved closer to the intern group and began to translate for those who didn’t understand. Aish and Devonte moved closer to the group as well, and Aish tilted his head without taking his eyes off Sofia.
For the first time, she drew strength from all the eyes on her.
“As we harvested together in the fields or argued over blueprints for the winery or you listened to me ‘drone on’ about winemaking—” She gave a nod to Aish, which surprised a few laughs out of the group. “Have I ever seemed delusional to you?”
She’d spent the last two weeks terrified of the needs driving her decisions. But she didn’t have the luxury to doubt herself anymore. It wasn’t the amorphous pressures of public skepticism or her kingdom’s wariness bearing down on her, it was the sun, certain to circle around in about twelve hours and scorch everything in its path. Aish had given her a sure way to fight it, and she had to draw on her training, experience, intelligence, and royal destiny to make sure her people fought with her. For the first time, she was utterly confident that this was the right path.
“I created a multimillion-dollar product used by almost every winery in
