My phone buzzes in my pocket anyway.
I ignore it at first. But when it vibrates again—then a third time—I know it’s Alba. She doesn’t call once. She storms.
I step out of the row and answer, pressing my earbuds into my ears while I wipe my hands on my jeans.
“He was seen with her again,” Alba says without preamble, her voice sharp enough to cut glass.
My sister is in Rome.
There was an Alighieri event last night—one I had not been invited to. My husband went, and on his arm was the company's head of PR, Chiara Jossa. He’s known her all his life and brought her along from Cantina Alarico when he merged his family winery into mine—and took over as CEO.
“They work together.”
Alba exhales hard. “They weren’t hiding it, Alessia.”
I stare out over the vines, their leaves shivering faintly in the breeze.
“I’m working.” My voice barely carries.
“I know you are.” Alba's next words come quieter. “You're killing yourself out there while he's being photographed with another woman who is rumored to be his mistress.”
I swallow. The cut clusters at my feet bleed faintly onto the dirt, already forgotten by the vine they once belonged to.
“It doesn’t matter.” My chest tightens around the lie, because itdoes.
I may not be in love with Nico, but he’s my husband, and I care for him. He may not be in love with me, but I deserve the respect he’s not giving me.
Alba makes an angry sound. “People are talking. And Papà pretends not to notice while privately blaming you for being…absent.”
“I can’t run off to every event, Alba. I have an estate to prepare for harvest.”
I picture Nico in Rome—tailored suit, effortless smile, Chiara on his arm like a memory he never let go of. I picture myself here, dust-streaked and sunburned, deciding which grapes are worthy of the future.
One marriage.
Two disparate lives.
“You’re invited tonight,” she reminds me sharply.
I sigh. It’s less an invitation, more a summons from Nico and my father.
I’m to be in Florence by seven tonight for the anniversary of the launch of Valdoria, the first wine to get a hundred points by Robert Parker in the eighties, putting Alighieri on the wine map of the world.
The party is being held in Florence at the Palazzo Alighieri, where my father lives.
Where Nico lives.
Alba has apartments there that she shares with Antonella, our youngest sister. But Toni’s hardly ever there as she’s finishing up her master’s in architecture atPolitecnico di Milano.
“I have to go,” I tell Alba. “We’re behind schedule.”
She sighs, frustration and helplessness tangled together. “I hate that you’re being made to pay for his freedom.”
“Alba, let it go. I have.”
“You have something to wear for tonight?” she asks.
I laugh softly. “I’m sure I have something appropriate in my closet.”
