“So, you’ve madesomedecisions at least,” she teases.
I let out a long breath. “It’s confusing. I’m in love with my husband and I’m scared that he’s never going to see me as I see him. He’s never going to want what I want.”
“Which is what?”
I let out a sad laugh. ”Everything. Love. Loyalty. Family. Children.”
“And you don’t think he can give you that?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit.
She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Alessia, have faith, I think Nico will surprise you.”
28
ALESSIA
There is a strange kind of tension between Nico and me.
Part of it, I am sure is the incident with my father, but there’s something else simmering under the surface.
But I decide to stop letting my imagination run wild and enjoy my time with my sisters and my husband—my favorite people in the world.
Alba leaves for New York in a day, Toni has to go back to school, and I have work—a whole hell of a lot of it that Lucia is managing while I take a few days off.
We don’t have a lot of time together, so it’s important to make the best of it.
Alba books a table for all of us—by that I mean her, Toni, me, Nico, and Renzo at Enoteca Pinchiorri, tucked just far enough away from the Palazzo to feel like an outing rather than an obligation.
The dining room glows with soft light and like so many Florentian restaurants it requires you to stop rushing and take a breath.
Nico and Renzo arrive after we’re already seated.
They’ve clearly come straight from a late meeting—one ofthose quiet, closed-door affairs that hum with importance even when no one names it.
I don’t ask.
It’s not that I’m uninterested in the company’s business—I am.
But I have my own responsibility: Tenuta Pietra Alta. I run it. I protect it. I know where my lane is, and I stay in it.
If Nico wants to talk about work, he will. If he doesn’t…then maybe it wasn’t mine to carry in the first place.
I don’t tell him about every fire I put out at the estate either. We both have demanding lives, and we’ve learned—carefully—to share what we can while leaving space to simply be a couple.
Still….
Denial only stretches so far before it thins.
Something is going on. I know it the way I know when the weather is shifting before the sky changes. Nico is holding something back. That knowledge unsettles me, but I refuse to let the thought proliferate into pointless panic.
Nico sits next to me, kisses me, softly, in front of everyone who is important to me.
I blush, foolishly touched.
We’re married. Of course, he can kiss me. Why does this have to feel special? But it does, especially when Toni wiggles her eyebrows, and Alba winks at me.
The evening progresses with ease—I think in large part because we all get along well with each other. Though some of us, I suspect, better than others.
