We all fall silent.
The restaurant continues its choreography—waiters gliding, glasses clinking, conversations flowing.
But the air now crackles with an invisible current.
The future has arrived uninvited, taken a seat at our table, and poured itself a drink—patient, inevitable, and watching us all with hungry eyes.
“I’m sorry.” Nico’s voice cracks around the words, the syllables brittle, as if they might snap and scatter if spoken any louder.
The apology is hushed but still manages to thin the surrounding laughter into a threadbare murmur before smothering it altogether.
My grip involuntarily tightens around my napkin, its texture stiff and unyielding. “For what?”
“Cara, your father wants us to find a replacement for Matteo,” Nico continues. His eyes are on me—I can feel their weight even without meeting them. I don’t look up. I can’t. I don’t know what I’ll see there, and I’m afraid I might know exactly what it is.
“And he won’t consider you,” Renzo interjects.
A pulse of heat rises to my cheeks, breaking out in gooseflesh along my arms despite the warm restaurant, the words striking, featherlight but reverberating deep.
“I know that,” I say almost defiantly. “We all know that. So, why the secrecy?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Nico replies softly.
“But you’d have to eventually—when Matteo died, and you hired a new winemaker,” I challenge, still not looking at him.
Alba reaches out to grab my hand. “Alessia, he?—”
“Not now, Alba,” I cut her off, pulling away from her.
I love my sister, I do, but she knew about Nico interviewing winemakers to replace Matteo, knew and didn’t tell me. I can’t deal with that violation while I’m dealing with the certainty of losing a father figure as well as the man I’ve come to love, the man who deceived me, lied to me, didn’t tell me something this important.
Nico’s eyes fill with emotion. “I wanted?—”
“To keep me in the dark for as long as possible?” I offer, interrupting him, bile rising inside of me, spreading bitterness.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he finally admits.
“Yes, you did, Nico, you chose not to. Just like you chose not to stand up for me with my father in Suvereto. All your choices are rooted in shoving conflict under the carpet, and now we have an elephant-sized one buried under the fucking carpet and you’re acting surprised that the floor is buckling.”
Nico opens his mouth—maybe to explain, maybe to apologize again, maybe to reach for me—but whatever it is, it comes too late. The damage isn’t loud anymore. It’s done its work quietly and efficiently, the way rot does.
I rise so sharply that my chair scrapes across the flagstones, a jagged cry in the hush.
Alba reaches for my wrist, her fingers brushing my sleeve.
“Alessia—”
“I can’t.” I’m not being dramatic. It’s a statement of fact, like announcing the weather. I don’t trust my voice with anything more.
Nico rises halfway, instinct pulling him after me. “Cara, please—just give me a minute.”
I finally look at him then.
That’s the mistake.
Because his face is full of emotions—regret, fear, calculation, love tangled with strategy—and I realize with a sick clarity that I no longer know which one will win when it matters. Maybe he doesn’t either.
“You think you can fix this in a minute?” I demand.
