“What’s the name?” I ask, feeling suddenly possessive, like I need to know what to call the thing I’ve already started cooking for.
Alessia glances at Giovanni. “Working title is Vigna Torre,” she says, nodding toward the stone tower on the hill. “But we haven’t decided on anything yet.”
“Primo Raggio,” I say before my brain catches up. First ray of sunshine.
Both of them look at me. Heat climbs my neck. “Sorry. Not my job.”
Alessia’s smile goes slow. “Primo Raggio,” she repeats. “It tells you what it is without hitting you over the head with it.”
I take another sip and set the glass down, and when I look up, he’s watching me with a look I don’t want to define here with a stranger around, so I break the stare first and reach for a cherry like a coward.
I pinch the top, twist, split, pop. The pit is smooth and cold in my fingers. The wine and the cherry kiss and laugh at each other like cousins who haven’t seen each other since August.
Giovanni doesn’t look away from me. “We’ll keep it on the list,” he says, voice even, like this is just business and not a small flicker of something shared. He tips his chin toward the glass. “Either way, it’s yours for dinner if you want to cook to it.”
“I do,” I say, and I mean it in more ways than one.
“If you could cook anything with it tonight,” she says, “what would it be?”
“Lamb shoulder,” I say without thinking. “Low and slow with anchovy and rosemary pounded into a paste with garlic and lemon peel. Cannellini beans on the side, soft but not beaten, finished with the lamb juices and chopped herbs. Salad of puntarelle if I can find it, faint anchovy in the dressing to carry the flavor throughout, crisp.”
Giovanni hasn’t moved much, but I know he’s listening. He doesn’t miss anything.
The table is almost empty—two heel ends of crescentine, a smear of mortadella mousse, a lemon wedge that’s wrung dry. I’m notempty. A current has come back to life under my skin, that thing that moves my hands before my head and says: go. Make. Feed. Fix the world one plate and fork at a time.
I stand up too fast, and the chair legs scrape. “I have to go to the market,” I say. “I can’t wait.”
Alessia’s smile turns lighter. “Good sign.”
Giovanni rises. “Thank you,” he tells her.
“Prego,” she says, then to me, “If you cook the lamb, I need to know how it turned out.”
“If I cook the lamb, I’ll bring you some,” I say.
We step back into the cool air of the cellar. The smell of oak and steel lingers. Outside, the air is cool and fresh. I’m a little surprised that the sun is still so high in the sky. I expected it to be darker.
“Albori,” I say as we walk. “It suits.”
Giovanni nods once. “It does.”
“Market,” I repeat, because now I have a list forming in my head and the only cure is a basket and a vendor who doesn’t roll his eyes when I squeeze each tomato.
He opens the car door.
I tuck the knife roll on my lap again, and for the first time all day, I feel sure of something.
Chapter Twenty Four
Giovanni
I told her she wouldn’t cook while we were here.
That lasted until the car door shut outside the market.
Now it’s late afternoon, and my kitchen looks like a produce stand collided with a butcher’s block in the best possible way.
Bianca moves through the room like it's hers. Hair pinned up, sleeves pushed to her elbows, a thin sweater that keeps trying to slide off one shoulder, drawing my eyes to the delicate skin.There’s flour on the heel of her hand, lemon zest under a thumbnail, and a knife in her grip that says don’t argue.
