Page 11 of The Wrong Vintage
“You’re worried about your wife,” she says coolly.
“I’m worried about the company’s reputation,” I evade.
Chiara regards me for a long moment and then she nods. “Fine. I’ll manage the optics.”
She turns to leave, hand on the handle, then pauses.
“Nico,” she says without looking back.
“Yes?”
“No one expects you to be loyal to a wife you married as part of a business partnership.”
Then she’s gone, her footsteps fading along the Palazzo’s old stone corridors, and I find myself wondering—belatedly—if I’ve been giving Chiara the wrong signals that suggest I want to cheat on my wife. At all. Or especially with her.
So, this is what I get for being foolish enough to think that just because the world pairs Chiara and me together, she wouldn’t mistake the fiction for fact because she of all the people knows the truth.
I’ve kept it professional between us, haven’t I? There have been dinners, yes—but always about work. If we walked out of a hotel together, it was because we had both stayed there for business, in separate rooms. I have not crossed a line with her. Not emotionally, and certainly not physically.
ButI deliberately ignored the way she’s been portraying us because it felt like freedom. It felt like telling my wife, Cesare, and the world at large that I was not some horse bought and broken to heel by marriage.
3
ALESSIA
My husband is cheating on me.
These are words I never thought I’d say, not until I got engaged to Niccolò Alarico twelve months ago. Since then, it’s been a trickle-trickle-trickle of humiliation.
I didn’t see him for four months after the engagement.
I saw his photographs. Usually with Chiara Jossa. She’s the woman Nico wanted to marry. I learned this from gossip that wasn’t hushed for my benefit.
When he told me he’d not be my husband, not be loyal, I guessed he meant that he’d continue his relationship with Chiara. Those who enjoy rubbing my smallness in my face made sure I heard about how he and Chiara were and continue to be the wine world’s power couple.
The CEO and his PR expert.
“He’s used to women like Chiara. Alessia may be an Alighieri, but look at her? It’s no wonder he keeps a mistress.”
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that it’s a woman’s fault when a man commits adultery, and it’s the woman’s fault when she’s the other woman.
I don’t agree.
I hold no ill will toward Chiara. She’s probably in love with Nico and is doing what she must to keep herself whole.
Chiara made no promises to me in front of God and family to have and to hold, to love and to cherish. She owes me nothing.
But then neither does Nico—not when we both walked into this marriage with an agenda beyond a union that requires us to be together for better or for worse. I wanted to be the winemaker at Tenuta Pietra Alta, and he wanted to become CEO of the House of Alighieri—and most importantly, this is what Duca Cesare Alighieri wanted. And my father always gets what he wants.
“For a man like Nico, maybe Alba would be a better match,” I overheard Dario Nunzi, Papà’s CEO for thirty years, who stepped down after his heart attack, to make room for Nico, say.
“Alba? She’s out of control. No. She’ll demand a proper marriage and Nico…look at him, he’s not going to be tied down. All I can expect is that he’ll marry Alessia and make sure there’s an heir.”
I was chosen for Nico because I’m quiet, submissive, and undemanding.
But only fools mistake quietness for weakness. I am not feeble. Papà got what he wanted, yes, but so did I. Without this marriage, he would never have given me the official title of winemaker of Tenuta Pietra Alta, even though I’d been doing the job for years under Matteo.
Marriage, for Papà, is not about love. It’s leverage and alignment.
