To the world, the Valentines were perfection.
Their name shimmered across every golden label of Valentine Reserve, the rarest and most expensive wine ever exported from the island of Athela. The family owned not just vineyards, but the soil itself — hills veined with black grapes that drank in the sea wind like old secrets.
Athela was no ordinary island. It was carved in half by wealth.On the east, the city of marble — towers of mirrored glass that caught the sunrise, where the elite Valentine bloodline lived in estates surrounded by guards and imported roses.On the west, the working coast — narrow streets, docks, and the factories that bottled their fortune.
The difference was visible from the air.One side glittered. The other sweated.
And right at the top of that glittering world stood Valentine Holdings:Five-star hotels that reached like monuments — the Grand Livia, Crown Athela, Maison du Verre, and three more scattered across Europe.Art galleries that bought silence.Resorts that washed sins clean with champagne.And the vineyards — always the vineyards.
The business that started it all was still the family's beating heart — the wine trade.It was the Valentine signature, their religion, their curse. Every generation had spilled blood to keep it alive.
Luiz had grown up in those glass towers, watching ships unload barrels worth more than a year's salary for most islanders. He'd seen his uncles toast to "legacy" while servants bowed so low they could taste the marble floors. He'd watched his grandmother negotiate with men who ruled governments.
And yet, when she looked at him — she saw nothing.Not an heir. Not blood. Just a reminder that their perfection had cracks.
Because Luiz wasn't born from her favorite branch of the tree.His father — her stepson — came from scandal, from a woman the island still whispered about. A servant who died before Luiz could even remember her face.
And that stain, to Grandmother Valentine, had never washed away.