“To newlyweds,” Il Vecchio says, lifting his wine and eyeing us as if we might flinch. “And to men who finally learn that wives are cheaper than mistakes.” He winks at me. “Don’t tell Lulu.”
She kisses his cheek, planting a lipstick flag he doesn’t bother to wipe away. “He says that but he treats me like a queen.”
It’s way too early to be drinking but clearly not for Vecchio and his wife. And I can hardly object.
We cheers and sip.
The wine is cold and clean with a citrus edge. Lulu takes the opportunity to point out the view and to stand a little too close to Vasso, one hand on his tricep, thumb stroking muscle in what I’m sure she thinks is a subtle way.
He lets it happen, a study in polite immobility, and meets my eyes over her shining head with the blandest expression I’ve ever seen.
An alien simmering joins the tightening in my midriff but I force my emotions off my face and I murder the smile, praying it passes muster.
“Now,” the old man says, lowering into a chair like a ship docking at his favorite port. “Business is not business if it is only numbers. Tell me why I should give you my money and my friendship.” He points the cane between us, back and forth. “Talk to me like I am not deaf.”
“Straight into business, Vecchio?”
He shrugs. “No point pissing around the bushes, eh? But don’t be fooled. It will not be as easy as one conversation and done. This is merely theaperitivo.”
I feel Vasso shift beside me, the slight gather of muscles that says he’s ready to drop the pitch he road-tested in boardrooms from Manhattan to Milan. Instead, he pauses. Looks at me. Raises a dark eyebrow.
It’s a choice, and it surprises me—pleases me—terrifies me a little. Because it might also be a test. One I need to ace.
“Mr.—” I begin.
He snorts. “If you call meMisteragain, I take my money and buy vineyards and more dogs.Vecchio,Enzo,old bastardif I do not listen. Choose one.”
“Vecchio,” I try out, and he nods, satisfied. “You already know what Dillinger Island is as an asset,” I go on. “The deed, the valuations. But what you don’t see on a spreadsheet is what it feels like to arrive there. My grandfather says places have heartbeats. So does your vineyard. The trick is designing experiences that let people hear it.”
He goes very still. Vasso does, too.
“Go on,” Vecchio says.
“I trained in hospitality and experiential design,” I admit, the words dry in my mouth because they’ve lived in the attic of my life for too long. “We can build an emotional moat—moments no one can buy anywhere else. On the island, that’s sunrise lighthouse elopements where couples ring the bell after their vows and the foghorn answers them. Nighttimebioluminescence kayaking with a naturalist who’s funny enough to get invited to Christmas. Chef residencies that start with foraging on the cliffs and end with a single-table dinner in the old boathouse, candles down the center like a runway. A conservation sabbatical for high-net-worths who want todomore than write a check. And I want to pilot a partners’ exchange: we send our best guests here for truffle harvest week; you send your sommeliers to the island to teach a ‘salt and wine’ pairing under the lighthouse. We braid your story with ours so when the trust votes and when your peers sniff at Vasso’s reforms, the narrative’s already written by people who lived it.”
Wind moves through the pergola leaves and makes a sound like a murmur. The old man watches me as if I’ve become a new varietal no one knew would grow here.
“You are not merely decoration,” he says at last, sounding pleased. “Good. I have no patience for decoration.” He shifts, appetite for the idea sharpening. “The lighthouse bell after vows—bellissimo.The rich like to pretend they are priests. And the exchange—my sommeliers are lazy when they stay home. Salt and wine. Hah.” He thumps the cane, delighted. “Rosaria will fatten you with pasta for that alone.”
I feel Vasso’s attention like a hand at the base of my skull. The pitch wasn’t complicated. It was mine. For once, I didn’t filter it through strategy or optics. I just told the truth about a place and what I could do with it.
“Vecchio,” Vasso says finally, his voice the smooth line between admiration and calculation, “that exchange program would dovetail with our environmental promise and guest retention metrics. It also gives your portfolio new oxygen in the U.S. press.”
“Oxygen,” the old man grunts. “Too much oxygen, the fire dies. But a little—” He twirls his fingers. “Pff. Flames.” He leans back and grins, suddenly boyish. “We continue talking andmaybe I’ll give you two weeks to show me something that makes me regret not marrying you myself.”
“Enzo,” Lulu protests, smacking his arm with affectionate scandal.
He pats her knee, then looks back at me with the cool shrewdness that made him rich. “You have a degree,si?”
I nod. “Hospitality and service design. Europe.”
His gaze flicks to Vasso. “Did you know,ragazzo,or did you only want your ring on her pretty finger and the chance to call her yours?”
“I wanted the second part, very much, but I knew,” Vasso says, and his voice does something I can’t name—pride or possession or simply memory rearranged. He glances at me. “She spent two years in Copenhagen. Another year doing post-grad in Spain.”
My head jerks toward him. “How?—”
He smiles like a man who doesn’t apologize for surveillance if he calls it care. “I keep tabs on what matters. And you’ve never stopped mattering to me, sweetheart.”
