Chapter Eighteen #2
Scattered across the vineyards, in little fragments, were pieces of her heart that belonged to Emilio.
When he’d bought her mother a house, when he’d flown her doctor over, when they’d seen their child, when he had taken her to bed afterwards, whispering sweet nothings in a language she didn’t understand, she had fallen in love.
If only he’d been honest with her. If only he’d told her about Gia, maybe it would have been enough.
And now tears tracked down her cheeks. She was consumed by grief for what could have been, and the man she so desperately craved.
***
Emilio climbed into the driver’s seat of his car. Not the Maybach, in which he was usually chauffeured everywhere, but a brand-new German SUV which he drove himself. A car that would be comfortably safe to drive his baby around in. A car that would give Jasmine and him some privacy to talk.
If he could get that far.
He set off determinedly towards Jasmine’s brownstone. But, before he’d even crossed the bridge out of Manhattan, he found himself turning round and driving in the opposite direction, towards his office. Just as he had done every day for the past three weeks.
After the call with his lawyer in Venice, Emilio had tried to call Jasmine several times, but she hadn’t answered. When he’d found out she had boarded a flight back to New York, he had made arrangements to leave as well. He’d landed only hours after her and had immediately bought the car.
The next morning, he was outside her brownstone waiting to take her to work.
Waiting for a chance to talk to her. But he’d been denied.
Her driver had been there earlier than usual, and Emilio had watched Jasmine walk down the steps, look at him then turn away.
She’d got into her car and it had promptly driven away.
He’d wanted to be there for her, wanted to try and make her see why he had hidden the truth from her, but she’d rejected him.
Just like everyone else. Except this time, it was entirely his fault.
And when he’d seen her, as strong as she’d been the day she’d first walked into his office, as put together as ever, he’d known he was no good for her. She deserved someone better.
But that knowledge didn’t make it hurt any less.
Didn’t stop him yearning for her or missing her every single moment of each day.
For three weeks he’d sunk deeper into the pit of self-loathing and self-recrimination.
For three weeks he’d grown more desperate for the love of his life that he’d let get away.
And, with Jasmine gone, he had no idea how his baby was doing. His child, that so completely owned his heart. But he’d lost the right to be there for them. Whatever life he’d get with them now would only be what Jasmine allowed him.
He had to stop trying. Stop attempting to drive to her home, the home that had so nearly been his. It was doing them both no favours.
That last little bit of hope that had been keeping Emilio together winked out.
Desolate. That was the only way to describe what he felt. As if part of him had just died and there would be no reviving it.
His phone rang. When Enzo’s name flashed across his watch face, Emilio rejected the call.
Enzo had attempted to call numerous times; each time he’d left a message just asking to talk, but Emilio had nothing left to talk about.
He’d lost his family and the vineyards in one day.
What would Enzo say—that his father had lied to them all for years and had never legally transferred the vineyards to their mother, and had been right not to do so? Emilio didn’t need to hear that.
Walking into the office, he felt nothing.
For the first time this job held no excitement for him.
Perhaps he should leave. There was no reason for him to be at De Luca and Co.
He had no De Luca legacy to leave to his child.
Maybe his time would be better spent solely focussed on the interests his mother had left him.
‘Mr De Luca…’
‘Morning, Rachel,’ Emilio greeted her emotionlessly, hurrying past. It was only when he opened his office door that he registered that she hadn’t said ‘Emilio’ as usual.
There was the reason why: Enzo, in a perfectly tailored suit, sat in his visitor’s chair.
Emilio closed the door. The soft click felt sonorous in his office. In the tense silence.
He wasn’t sure what he felt first. Anger? Hatred? Shock? They hadn’t been in the same room with each other since their mother’s funeral. When they met online for work, Emilio always had time to prepare for his brother’s presence. Today Enzo had given him no choice and no courtesy.
Maybe he was tired of you rejecting his calls.
Maybe Enzo deserved it.
‘What are you doing here?’ Emilio said, sliding his hands into his pockets. He stayed near the door. If he had his way, it would soon be slamming on Enzo’s back. ‘Have you come to gloat?’
‘No,’ Enzo said simply. ‘I’ve come to give you something.’ He stood. In his hand, he held a leather-bound book with an unfastened clasp. He walked to Emilio and handed it over.
Reluctantly, Emilio accepted it. It was odd to see their almost identical hands connected by this small object. Looking at Enzo was always like looking into a mirror. Apart from their eyes, they were so similar—the same height, similar builds—yet their lives had been so vastly different.
‘What is this?’
‘Mamma’s diary.’
Emilio’s eyes snapped to Enzo’s in shock. Shock that part of his mother still existed. Shock that Enzo had shared it at all. And then he realised he had seen it on her bed that last day he’d spent with her.
‘I’ve come for a few reasons, Emilio. The most important of which is to apologise. I just want to talk.’
Emilio wanted to say no. He wanted to send his brother away and never think of him again.
But he had called and begged Jasmine for a chance to talk, to apologise, the night she left.
It ate at him that she hadn’t taken those calls.
His conscience wouldn’t let him get away with the hypocrisy of denying the same chance to his brother.
‘Sit,’ he ordered. To his surprise, his brother obeyed without question and without snarkiness.
‘Will you join me?’ Enzo asked with no hint of arrogance. ‘Please.’
Emilio took a deep breath and sat in the chair next to Enzo’s, turning it to face him.
‘I meant what I said. I do want to apologise.’ Enzo looked away. Looked ashamed. ‘After Gia, and again when I found out you wanted the vineyards, I wondered why you were so set on ruining Perlano for me.’
‘Did you ever consider that I just wanted to make some of it mine?’
‘Not at first.’
‘But then?’
‘Then I met someone.’ Enzo’s face softened. He smiled so gently. Emilio understood what that feeling was like, and he ached all the more for Jasmine. ‘She helped me see a lot of things more clearly.’
Enzo looked at Emilio then. There was sincerity in his eyes and Emilio noticed how open his usually closed-off brother was being.
Enzo was usually cold; he’d been unmoved at their mother’s funeral but he wore no mask now.
‘And I needed the help, Emilio. I wasn’t the brother you needed when you needed me.
I didn’t fight for you when you needed me to, and I’m sorry. ’
Emilio didn’t know how to respond. This was the last thing in the world he’d expected. Was he supposed to say everything was fine because of a few words?
We need honesty…
He heard Jasmine’s voice, so this time he chose to listen.
‘You’ll never understand, Enzo.’
‘Then explain it to me.’
Emilio laughed. How did he explain twenty-nine years of neglect?
Enzo shifted forward in his seat, as if he possibly wanted to offer comfort, but he held back and Emilio didn’t know how to respond to that uncertainty from his brother.
‘Emilio, I promise to listen. I will try to understand. I have many years to make up for, but we need to start somewhere. So, please, explain it to me.’
‘You were never bothered that Mamma favoured me.’
‘No, I never was.’
‘You were so indifferent to me because you were so sure of your place. You had both our parents’ attention, their love that you didn’t even see the point of getting upset.
I didn’t have that. I spent every single day knowing I was invisible.
Papa wouldn’t even look at me at dinner.
Do you have any idea what it’s like to know that you would only ever receive attention if your big brother died? ’
There was horror on Enzo’s face. Tears welled in his bright-green eyes. ‘No.’
‘You have never had to earn anyone’s affection, Enzo. You’ve never known what rejection is like.’ Emilio couldn’t remain seated any longer, not when everything was boiling up in him. He couldn’t control what he felt now even if he’d tried.
‘Did you celebrate?’ he asked viciously, surrendering to the impulse to pace the office.
‘When you learned of our father’s deception?
It got you everything, as usual. I was the one that was there for Mamma.
I was the one that stuck around. I saw her die.
I stayed for the funeral and comforted people who would never know how I felt. ’
Enzo scrubbed his hands down his face and shook his head in denial. His eyes scrunched closed. It took a moment for him to collect himself and, when he spoke, his voice was low. Scratchy.
‘Just because the vineyards are mine doesn’t mean you have no right to them. We both have memories there, Emilio. It’s equally in our blood. Look, we can’t change the past, but we can choose a different future. Maybe we can start with you looking at that diary.’
‘What?’ Emilio didn’t want to read the diary now, not in front of his brother. He wasn’t sure when he would be ready to reopen the wound of losing his mother.
‘Not the whole thing, unless you want to. But look at the page I’ve marked.’
Emilio stared down his brother. Enzo could not possibly be serious, but it didn’t seem that he was going to back down on this.