Page 137 of The Wrong Vintage
My wife won’t take my calls, and she won’t respond to my messages. Hell, I’m not even sure if she’s reading them.
Alba told me that Alessia is processing and that I should give her space.
I’m notthatman—the one who just sits on his ass, waiting for things to happen. I go after what I want,andI get it. This whole stay patient and give her time nonsense is killing me in fifteen fucking ways.
So, it’s no surprise that my mood is vicious.
Even Renzo is giving me a whole lot of berth even as he says things like, “You need to make up with Alessia so I don’t have to kill you for being a motherfucking asshole.” In all honestly, his language is progressively getting more colorful.
Fall is giving way to winter in Tuscany, and every morning when I go for a run after a sleepless night, I go past the Palazzo as dawn’s first rays gild its stone walls.
The marble balustrades glow amber, and tourists cluster below, lenses lifted, framing arches and cornices in hopeful shots. They don’t see what happens inside—lives auctionedover porcelain demitasses of espresso, PowerPoint slides, and muted tension.
This should feel like home, after all these halls bear my title.
My desk, my kingdom.
Instead, I drift—untethered.
I’ve always loved running a company.
But now? I could fucking walk away.
I could, and I would if it meant my wife would look at me again the way she did before—with her heart in her eyes.
I destroyed that. I shattered us, and I am in so much pain that most of the time it’s a miracle that I can stand straight. I want to curl into a fetal position and sob. Yeah, me? Niccolò Alarico wants to ugly cry because he hurt the woman he fell in love with, and he doesn’t know how to make it right.
“Did you get any sleep?” Renzo asks as we walk to a staff meeting.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” I snap.
“Cristo! Nico, you need to sort this fucking thing out with Alessia before you have a coronary.”
I glare at my friend. “Mind your own business. Do you have the numbers for the Napa estate?”
“Yeah, I have the numbers,” he replies tightly.
“Are they any good?”
“Nico—”
“There, you do your fucking job as COO, and I’ll do my job. Stay the fuck out of my personal life.” I am loud enough that three people turn to look at us as we walk the hallways of the palazzo.
“You’re being a downrightstronzo,” he informs me before he storms away.
Well, fuck you, too, stronzo!
Right now, I don’t know how to calibrate, and I always have before.
Business is business, and emotions, well, they’re a waste of time, aren’t they? I don’t dabble in that bullshit.
But that was before Alessia. Now, I’m an emotional wasteland missing my wife like I’ve lost a fucking limb.
I settle into conference rooms cooled by whispering vents.
I talk over slides as my EA presses “advance” on strategy decks with glossy charts.
I spar over distribution margins with executives whose suits creak when they shift in their leather chairs.
