Page 98 of The Wrong Vintage
“Why don’t you head back?” she offers. “We’re almost done here. I’m going to the cellar in a bit myself.”
“I’m staying.” I lean in to kiss her, softly aware that I’m a lucky bastard to have a wife like Alessia. She makes time for me even when she’s busy. Cares for me.
Guilt hits me again, this time sharp—though it has been assaulting me in slow waves every minute of every day since Cesare made his decision to bring a winemaker in from the outside.
A part of me likes this backbreaking work because it keeps me from facing the truth I know I can’t dodge for too long. I am not on Alessia’s team when it comes to her replacing Matteo—and even though there are very good reasons why, I know she won’t see it that way. I’ve gotten to know my wife a little, and she values loyalty above all else. She doesn’t get that from her father; also, she doesn’t expect it—but she does from her sisters, from Matteo, from the people she works with… and now, from me.
You’ll explain it to her. She’s a reasonable woman. She’ll get it.
Alessia wipes sweat from her forehead with her wrist and leans into the next row of vines. She doesn’t know yet how things will play out at the Palazzo. She doesn’t know I stood by and let her fade into the background.
So I bend to the vine, as if by being shoulder-deep in grape stalks I can repent for every moment I stayed quiet. As if hauling these purple-stained boxes can atone for every word I failed to speak.
I take care of her the best I can.
I make sure she eats.
I even make her take a bath to soak her sore muscles.
I hold her when she sleeps for the short time she allows herself to.
By the end of the weekend, I am heartily sick and tired of myself and almost relieved to leave, so I don’t have to look at my wife and wonder, fearfully....
If she’ll be able to keep business separate from our burgeoning marriage.
If she’ll be practical instead of emotional.
If she’ll leave me….
As soon as that thought emerges, I tamp it down. I’m never letting her go.
We’ll figure this out, work through it.
She’ll understand.
She has to.
I lift off Monday at dawn, the helicopter’s blades chopping the cold air like a relentless heartbeat.
I don’t get to take a break from running the House of Alighieri because I’ve finally cracked the code of being a husband. Alessia trails me to the edge of the helipad at the far end of a stone garden, away from the vines, facing the sea, and presses a single, feather-light kiss to my lips.
“Call me tonight,” she breathes.
“I always do,” I whisper.
Her smile strikes like contraband, and I stow it deep in my chest as we slice back toward Florence.
Renzo follows me into my office.
He doesn’t sit.
“You’re not going to like this,” he warns, voice low.
“I rarely do.” I yank at my tie. The silk feels like steel.
He crosses his arms, a wall of cold certainty. “Cesare has his heart set on Davide Fontana. The son of a bitch has already spoken to him—sounded him out, tested his interest.”
My jaw tightens. “Wehaven’t talked to even one of the damn candidates.”
