He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, his shoulders sagging. “I do.”
“Then why are you busting my balls?”
He shrugs. “Got no other balls around to bust.”
Despite everything, I smile. “Let’s try to be fair about this. Between Alessia and Fontana….”
“They stand equal in skill,” Renzo says, tilting his head, thoughtful now. “He has the bigger international profile, though.”
“But she has something he never will.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “The Alighieri blood.”
“The soul of the House of Alighieri,” I correct.
Alessia is already a force. But Cesare doesn’t care about genius. He cares about control—and for now, I have no choice but to give it to him.
“But”—I take a steadying breath as the decision settles—“for now, we stay the course.”
Renzo leans back in his chair. “And we keep our jobs.”
“Yes.” I scrub a hand over my face. “I need to convince Matteo to talk to her. To tell her. She’ll be devastated when she finds out he’s dying.”
Renzo groans. “Imagine how much worse it will be when she finds out that he’s dying, and you and I are bringing in some Piedmont hotshot to take his place and become her new boss.”
Talk about a clusterfuck.
23
ALESSIA
Harvest doesn’t slip away on silent heels; it bursts forth in a riot of sound—boots pounding on flagstones, voices bright with laughter, and a bone-deep weariness that tastes of triumph.
Once the last stained bins are scrubbed until their metal sides gleam, and stacked neatly against the barn wall, and the fermenters purr in the corner like contented beasts, the entire estate exhales.
Crews who have subsisted on four hours of sleep for weeks at a stretch finally slow their steps. Heavy leather boots are kicked off, Bluetooth speakers crackle to life and turn up, and someone strikes a match to a fire pit—even though the air still holds the late-afternoon warmth—because here, tradition is law.
The harvest celebration never bows to formality.
Long, rough-hewn oak tables are dragged into the courtyard between the cellar’s cool stone arch and the pergola heavy with dormant vines.
A tangle of fairy lights is strung overhead, their amberglow transforming the deepening twilight into something gilded and jubilant.
Platters materialize as though conjured by sorcery (or the estate chef): porchetta carved in thick, succulent slices; ivory beans swimming in rosemary-scented olive oil; and vegetables kissed by flame until their skins bear the smoky fingerprints of char and earth.
And a whole lot of fresh focaccia to dip into the goodness of all those sauces.
We open precious bottles—not the critic’s allocations polished to showroom perfection, but the vintages that whisper our history. Dusty bottles from hidden corners of the cellar are drawn forth, their labels smudged from decades of handling.
Gentle hands, callused and true, wipe each one clean.
The crews deserve these wines.
They shivered through pre-dawn chills, stood up to the mid-morning sun, shoulders ablaze from endless sorting lines, hands stained purple from fruit handled with reverence.
I drift among them, wine glass in hand, catching each person’s name on my lips.
“Grazie, Sergiu…Salute, Florin.”
