25. Francesca
FRANCESCA
It took a couple of days, but I reorganized the mess my brother had made. Got orders and deliveries back on track, finished the schedule for shipments for both the wine and the guns, and then informed my father of outstanding payments.
I walked into his office, and it was the first time I’d directly interacted with him since I’d returned to the winery.
He was on the phone with someone, his back to me as he stared out the window.
“Tuesday won’t work. Thursday is better.
I’ll send you the details.” He hung up without giving the other person a chance to say anything.
When he turned back to his desk, he didn’t seem surprised to see me there, like he’d managed to hear me walk inside and focus on his conversation at the same time.
There was this awkwardness between us, and an awkwardness that would probably always be there.
He sat behind his desk. “You have something for me, Frankie?”
“I have a lot of things for you.” My family had been calling me Frankie my entire life, and now that Wolfe called me Francesca, it was weird to hear the nickname again.
I felt like it didn’t fit me at all. I used to dislike my name because it was too long, but when Wolfe said it… it was just perfect.
I approached his desk with my folder. “We’ve got a lot of outstanding orders, which means we have a lot of product just sitting in the warehouse. If we don’t get it moved, we’re going to run out of storage space—and lose customers.”
He nodded.
“I’ll talk to Roman and get that organized. Then I’ll meet with Jeremy tomorrow about the vineyard expansion. The fertilizer we ordered a couple weeks ago is supposed to be here this week, and it has a short shelf life.”
“Alright.”
“As for the guns, you have a few outstanding payments.”
“I do?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Rossi was supposed to pay his deposit before his shipment was delivered, but that never took place.”
He gave a quiet sigh.
“You could spin it. Say it was a gesture of trust.”
“I don’t trust anybody,” he said coldly.
“I met with the new distributor from Hungary. We won’t be able to meet that demand unless the harvest from the expansion is a success.
I’m concerned about the soil there. It might be our land, but it’s acres away and on the other side of the hill, so I’m having a specialist come out and do a couple tests. ”
“What will that matter?”
“Because if it’s not viable, we can save ourselves headaches and refunds by knowing now,” I said. “There are a few other outstanding balances, and Thomason said they’ve had some issues in America, so their next shipment is going to be delayed between one and two weeks.”
He gave another sigh in frustration. “Fucking idiots.”
“I don’t think it’s their issue, but a customs problem. They’ve had some changes in the States.”
“I don’t give a damn whose problem it is.”
“They’re loyal enough to be our exclusive distributor, so it would be stupid to give them shit.
They could easily turn around and sell it to our competitors, but because Mary is your third cousin and family is family…
no matter how diluted the blood is, they keep their word to us. So don’t you dare give them shit.”
My father released another irritated sigh. “You were gone for a little more than a week, and it immediately turned to chaos.”
“I’ve been doing it a long time.”
“Leo couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”
“Well, he can’t read,” I teased.
My father didn’t laugh, just continued to look at me with that stare he used to give me, like he was proud of me. It lasted for a couple seconds before he rose to his feet. “I’ll handle Rossi. Give me a list of names from the remaining outstanding balances. I’ll send the crew.”
I already had it written down on a piece of paper, and I pulled it out of the folder and placed it on the desk. “It’s all right here.” I closed the folder and walked out without expecting anything further from him. When I reached the doorway, he said my name.
“Frankie.”
I turned back to look at him.
“Good work.”
It may have only been a week, but since our production was constant, it required continued oversight.
Without anyone monitoring the process, it could quickly get out of hand.
That led me to the warehouse where we stored the barrels of wine and the bottles.
Most of the barrels were purely decorative, and private estates ordered them to place on their property for aesthetic reasons.
The majority of our product was bottled in our production warehouse on-site before it was moved to storage.
We outsourced our deliveries to a trucking company that carried the wine across the sea on the ferry before heading north up the mainland.
I went to each location in the warehouse and did my rounds, keeping up with our current productivity and storage to make sure nothing was missing.
Leo wasn’t involved in any of these aspects.
He was mostly a foot soldier, doing my father’s bidding with Andre and Salvatore.
He was good at that, but he really had no experience actually running anything.
And to be fair, neither did my father.
He used to do these things when I was younger, but once I was old enough, he happily handed it off so he could focus on the big-picture stuff.
I was in the warehouse when my phone rang. When I glanced at the screen, I saw Wolfe’s name.
I immediately answered it. “Hey.”
“Hey, baby. Are you on lunch?”
“No. What time is it?”
“Almost one.”
“Oh wow. I lost track of time.”
“That busy, huh?”
“Between the two different businesses, there are just a lot of moving parts. We’re also expanding the vineyards to produce a bigger harvest next year.”
“Your father is ambitious.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I take you to lunch, then?”
“I would love to, but I have so much stuff to do here.”
He didn’t show his disappointment. “Then I’ll see you when you get home.”
“Sorry. It’s just a crazy first week. It’ll go back to normal soon.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “Tell your father you aren’t working weekends anymore.”
“I—I can’t do that—”
“Yes, you can. Don’t forget your worth, baby.” He hung up.
After I finished up at the production site, I returned to the house. My father pulled up in the car with his men, like they’d just finished their rounds of collecting payments from the people who had slipped through the cracks.
I noticed Leo wasn’t with him.
Andre walked up to me with a big briefcase. “Here’s the cash.”
“Uh, thanks.” I took it from him and immediately felt the weight. I would deposit this into one of the safes on-site, where it could be washed into the wine business at a later time.
My dad took the heavy briefcase from me without saying a word, and the two of us walked upstairs to the second floor. We had safes hidden all around the villa, so if anyone came to rob us, they would only be able to find so many.
He carried it to my desk and entered the code to open the case and reveal the cash. Then he shifted one of the dressers to the side to expose the hidden safe in the floor. He turned the dial to unlock the door before he opened it. “There you go.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He started to head out.
“Dad?”
He turned back to look at me.
“I’m not working weekends anymore.” I didn’t ask because it wasn’t up for debate.
I had a family now, a man waiting for me at home who wanted to be with me.
Leaving the house at seven in the morning and coming home at six every night wasn’t the kind of life I wanted to have with him.
So I wanted weekends off—and maybe even a half day on Friday.
My father held my stare for a moment before he gave a nod. “Alright.” Then he walked out.
When I came home, I could smell a home-cooked meal in the kitchen.
The mansion wasn’t as homey as his Palermo house or my villa at the winery, but it was starting to grow on me.
I definitely liked how secure it was. Anyone could walk up to my house at the winery, but Wolfe’s home was inaccessible to the public.
The stone wall was five feet thick and twelve feet high, and the front gate was made out of iron.
With mature landscaping around the grounds, it felt like a whole world of its own.
“I’m home,” I called out, unsure if he was within earshot or on one of the higher floors.
“In the kitchen, baby.”
I set my things by the door and slipped off my shoes before I headed into the kitchen.
Instead of seeing the food being kept warm, Wolfe was actively cooking…
in just his sweatpants. He was bare-chested and barefoot, like he was warm from standing over the hot stove.
He quickly flipped the chicken in the pan before he set the spatula aside and turned to me.
“You made dinner?” I asked with a smile.
“I’m a man of many talents.” He walked over to me and bent his neck to kiss me, hooking his arm around the small of my back. His big hand moved to my ass in my jeans and squeezed it.
I loved it when he grabbed my ass. No man had ever done it like he did, with a raw possessiveness.
He turned back to the stove. “Set the table. I’m almost done.”
I grabbed the plates and utensils and a bottle of wine for us to share. I set the table with everything and then watched him dish up the meal over white rice and sauteed vegetables. The plate was steaming hot when he served it.
“Not as good as anything you make, but it’s decent.”
“It looks great.” The chicken had a lemon glaze over the top, and the white rice was fluffy.
The veggies were a combination of brussels sprouts, asparagus tips, broccoli, and mushrooms. I cut into my chicken and dragged a piece through the sauce before I popped it into my mouth. “Wow, this is good.”
We ate our dinner together in silence for a while, both of us enjoying our food while we exchanged looks across the table.
“I told my father I wouldn’t work weekends anymore.”
“And?”
“He said alright.”
“Attagirl,” he said before he took another bite. “We can leave for Palermo on Friday when you get off work. You think you can sneak away early?”
“Probably. My father doesn’t pay a lot of attention to me.”
“Good.”
“How was your day?”
“Long.”
“Why was it long?”
“I worked out and then worked on the house.”
“Worked on the house?”
“Yeah, just needed to do a couple things.”
The house seemed in perfect condition to me so I didn’t know what he needed to do, but the topic was outside my wheelhouse. I didn’t know how to use a hammer unless it was to bash someone’s skull in. “I feel bad that I’m at work all day while you’re here by yourself.”
“I’m fine, baby,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Unless you like the break…” I teased.
He smirked. “Not in the least.”
“Because I’ve kind of been all over you since I got kicked out.”
“I like having you all over me,” he said seriously.
“I just feel like we went from being a secret to being together all the time—a drastic change.”
“I like being together all the time,” he said. “I miss you when you’re gone.”
He did not look like a man who would ever say those words to anyone, but he said them to me.
“But I’m happy you’re back at the winery. And soon, I’ll be there too.”
He lay with me in bed, my leg hiked over his hip while I wore one of his t-shirts. He kneaded my ass with his fingers as he stared into my eyes, his look shifting from one of my eyes to the other from time to time. “How are things with Leo?”
“We haven’t really talked since that conversation in my office.”
“Then maybe he’s over it.”
“Things have been so busy. He probably hasn’t had much time to think about it.”
“I wish your father would drop his prejudice so I can help.”
“That would be great, honestly.” Wolfe had the experience and autonomy to handle stuff on his own. Whereas my brother needed a lot of direct instruction to make things happen. “Maybe this experience will make him see that.”
“He’s too stubborn for that.”
“Yeah, probably.” I’d washed off my makeup before bed, but he continued to look at me the way he did across the table when we were out to dinner.
He had this depth to his gaze, like I was all that he could see.
Being fired and kicked out of my home had been devastating, but merging my life with Wolfe had deepened our relationship to a whole other level.
It was too soon to talk about marriage because we’d only been together a couple of months… but was it too soon?
I already felt married to this man.
“What do you want to do in Palermo?” he asked quietly.
“I want to go back to that gelato place.”
A slight smile moved over his lips.
“And hook up on your boat again.”
A quiet chuckle escaped his lips. “Below deck this time.”
“No… I like feeling the sun on my skin when we make love.”
“I’ll need to take you to a nude beach since you’re clearly into that.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t like to show my body to other people.
I just like to love you wherever I want to love you.
” I liked kissing him when we stood in line for gelato.
I liked touching his thigh when we lay on the beach together.
I liked it when he squeezed my ass when we walked down the sidewalk together.
It was our world, and everyone else was just living in it.
Our relationship had mostly taken place inside my little villa in the heart of the winery, and once it’d been allowed to expand, it had grown into something so much more.
“How about now?” He started to move over me, his hand sliding farther up my shirt to lift it over my stomach.
We’d already made love when we’d first come up the stairs.
I’d washed my face and changed afterward, getting ready for bed.
But a plain face and a baggy shirt didn’t deter his desire for me at all.
“With you, anytime works for me.”