9. Niccolo
— ? —
Niccolo
The brasato is perfect. I know the moment I lift the lid and the steam rises, carrying that rich dark scent of wine and beef and the juniper berries I almost forgot.
This is the best version I’ve ever made, possibly better than my first attempt under Danielle’s watchful eye, and I feel something unclench in my chest as I set the lid aside and check the time.
Four fifteen. I need to leave in five minutes to collect Danielle from the Fontana estate by five - forty minutes away.
Plenty of time to let the meat rest, set out the bread, light the candles.
Everything is ready - the table with its white cloth and wildflowers, the wine breathing on the sideboard, the whole romantic setup I’ve been planning for weeks.
My phone sits on the kitchen shelf where I put it earlier, silenced so I could focus on cooking without interruption.
I should check it, probably. Make sure nothing urgent came up.
Later. Right now I want to enjoy this moment, the rare satisfaction of having done something right.
The knock on the door makes me frown. We’re forty minutes from the city center, and I’m not expecting anyone.
Delivery drivers don’t come out here without advance notice, and everyone who knows about this place knows I’m supposed to be alone.
I wipe my hands on a towel and go to answer it.
Charlotte is standing on the doorstep, and she’s crying.
“Nico.” Her voice is thick, unsteady. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Charlotte? What are you - how did you even know I was here?”
“Your mother mentioned it. Yesterday, at lunch. She said you’d be preparing something special for Danielle.
” Charlotte wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing mascara.
“I wasn’t going to come, I swear, but I was driving and I just kept going and then I was here and I know I shouldn’t have but I didn’t know what else to do. ”
She’s shaking. Actually shaking, her whole body trembling like she’s been out in the cold for hours even though April is mild and the evening is warm.
“What happened?”
“Marco called.” The name comes out like broken glass. “My ex. From New York.”
“I thought that was over months ago.”
“It was. It is. But he called today, out of nowhere, and he said-” She breaks off, pressing her hand to her mouth.
“He said the most horrible things. That I was pathetic for still calling his friends. That everyone in New York knew our engagement was a joke. That he only stayed with me as long as he did because of my family’s connections, and once I wasn’t useful anymore-”
Her voice cracks and she starts crying harder, and I’m standing in my doorway watching a woman I’ve known since childhood fall apart on my front step.
This is not my problem. I have a dinner to finish, a wife to collect, a reconciliation to attempt.
Charlotte Ashworth and her terrible ex-fiancé are absolutely not my responsibility.
But she’s sobbing so hard she can barely breathe, and we’ve known each other for twenty-five years, and I can’t just leave her out here.
“Come in,” I say, stepping back. “Just for a minute. Let me get you some water.”
She follows me inside, still crying, her arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to hold her own pieces together.
I lead her to the living room, settle her on the sofa, and go to the kitchen for water and tissues.
When I come back she’s curled into the corner of the couch, looking smaller than I’ve ever seen her.
“I’m sorry,” she says, accepting the water with trembling hands. “I know this is ridiculous. I know I should be over him by now. It’s been months.”
“It’s not ridiculous.” I sit on the arm of the chair across from her, keeping my distance. “He hurt you. That doesn’t come with an expiration date.”
“Everyone keeps telling me I’m better off without him. And I know I am, I know that, but then he calls and says these things and suddenly I’m right back to feeling like I’m nothing.” She takes a shaky breath. “Like I was never anything to anyone. Just useful or not useful. Wanted or not wanted.”
I check my watch without meaning to. Four twenty-five. I needed to leave five minutes ago.
“Charlotte, I’m sorry you’re going through this. But I need to leave soon - I’m supposed to pick up Danielle at five, and it’s a forty-minute drive.”
“I know. I know, I’m sorry, I’ll go.” She starts to stand and then sits back down heavily, like her legs won’t hold her. “Just - can I have five minutes? To pull myself together? I can’t drive like this. I’ll crash the car.”
Five minutes. I can give her five minutes.
“Of course. Take your time.”
She nods, wiping her eyes with the tissue I gave her. “Tell me about something else. Anything else. I just need to think about something that isn’t him for five minutes.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” She gestures vaguely at the room, the romantic setup visible through the doorway to the dining area. “This is for Danielle? The flowers and the candles?”
“And dinner. Her grandmother’s recipe. I’ve been practicing.”
“That’s so lovely.” Charlotte’s smile is watery but genuine. “She’s lucky to have someone who pays attention like that.”
I don’t say that I haven’t been paying attention, that this whole surprise exists because I’ve been absent and blind and everything a husband shouldn’t be. That feels like too much to explain to someone who’s currently drowning in her own pain.
“Marco never cooked for me once,” Charlotte continues, her voice going distant. “Three years together and he never once made me dinner. I used to think that was normal, you know? That men like us - men from families like ours - didn’t do things like that. That’s what staff was for.”
“My father was like that.”
“So was mine. So was everyone’s. And then you come along, making your wife’s grandmother’s recipes, and I think-” She breaks off, shaking her head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter what I think.”
She starts crying again, quietly this time, tears sliding down her cheeks while she stares at nothing.
I check my watch again. Four thirty-two.
I’m already twelve minutes behind when I should have left to collect Danielle on time.
Another failure. Another moment where I’m choosing something else over my wife.
“Charlotte, I really do need to go soon. Will you be all right to drive?”
“I don’t know.” She looks up at me, eyes red and swollen. “I don’t think so. My hands won’t stop shaking.”
She holds them out to show me, and she’s right - they’re trembling visibly, the water in her glass rippling.
“Is there someone I can call for you? A friend in the city?”
“Giulia. Giulia Marchetti. She’d come if I asked.” Charlotte fumbles for her phone, then stops. “But I can’t ask her to drive all the way out here. That’s an hour and a half round trip.”
I have a choice to make. Leave Charlotte here alone in this state, unable to drive safely, while I go collect my wife for the romantic evening I planned. Or help an old friend get home and arrive late - maybe very late - to pick up Danielle. The right thing to do is obvious.
“I’ll drive you,” I say, standing. Charlotte’s apartment is on the near outskirts - twenty minutes from here, maybe less. “We’ll call Giulia from the road, have her meet us at your apartment. Your car can stay here tonight - we’ll figure out getting it back tomorrow.”
“Nico, you don’t have to-”
“I know. But I’m not leaving you here like this.” I grab my keys from the side table. “Come on. The sooner we go, the sooner I can get back.”
She stands, unsteady, and sways slightly. I catch her elbow to keep her from falling, and she leans into me, pressing her face against my chest as a fresh wave of tears hits. I glance at my watch - four forty now.
“Thank you,” she says, muffled against my shirt. “Thank you, I’m sorry, I’m such a mess.”
“It’s all right.” I put a hand on her back, rubbing gentle circles the way I would comfort anyone in pain. “It’s all right. I’m here.”
We stand like that for a moment - her crying against me, me waiting for the storm to pass - and then she pulls back, wiping her face, and we head out to the car.
It’s only when we’re on the road, Charlotte sniffling quietly in the passenger seat while she dials Giulia’s number on her phone and puts it on speaker, that I remember my phone.
Still on the kitchen shelf. Still silenced.
I could ask Charlotte to call Danielle for me, let her know I’ll be late.
I should do that. But I tell myself the dinner will make up for it - she’ll see everything I’ve prepared, all the effort, the flowers and candles and her grandmother’s recipe, and she’ll understand.
The romantic gesture will smooth over the delay. It always does.
It’ll be fine. I’ll be back in an hour, maybe ninety minutes if traffic is bad. I’ll collect the phone, drive to the Fontana estate, apologize to Danielle for being late. She might be annoyed, but she’ll understand once she sees what I’ve prepared. She’ll understand.
***
It takes longer than I expect. Charlotte falls apart again in the car, sobbing so hard I have to pull over twice because I’m worried she’ll make herself sick.
Giulia doesn’t answer the first time I call, or the second.
By the time we reach Charlotte’s apartment building, it’s past five thirty and I still haven’t reached anyone who can stay with her.
“I’ll be fine,” Charlotte says, but she’s crying again, and her hands are still shaking, and the thought of leaving her alone in an empty apartment to spiral further into despair goes against everything I was raised to be.
“Let me come up. Just until Giulia calls back.”
We sit in her living room - me on a chair by the door, Charlotte on the sofa wrapped in a blanket - and wait. I try Giulia again. No answer. I try two other names Charlotte gives me. One doesn’t pick up; the other is out of town. By six fifteen, I’m pacing.
“Charlotte, I really have to go. I’m already over an hour late.”
“I know. I know, I’m sorry.” She’s calmer now, the crying mostly stopped, but she looks exhausted and hollow. “Go. I’ll be all right. I’ll call someone else.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Go be with your wife.”
I’m out the door before she finishes the sentence, taking the stairs two at a time, my mind already on the drive ahead.
Back to the vacation house for my phone - twenty minutes.
Then to the estate to find Danielle - forty minutes.
I’ll be there by seven fifteen, maybe seven thirty.
Late for the romantic dinner I planned, but not ruinously so. We can still salvage the evening.
The drive back to the vacation house feels endless.
I keep checking the clock, calculating and recalculating, wondering if Danielle tried to call, wondering if my mother mentioned where I was, wondering why I didn’t just put my phone in my pocket like a normal person.
When I finally pull up to the vacation house at six forty, the evening light is golden and soft and the place looks exactly as I left it - peaceful, romantic, waiting for a moment that’s not going to happen tonight.
I find my phone on the kitchen shelf. Five missed calls.
All from Danielle. And one text message, sent at three forty-seven.
Please call me. I need you.
Three forty-seven. Almost three hours ago.
I call her back immediately. It rings once, twice, three times, then goes to voicemail.
I call again. Same thing. Again. Nothing.
Something is very wrong. The drive to the estate is a blur of winding roads and growing panic.
I try Danielle three more times. I try the estate’s main line.
Nobody answers. By the time I turn into the long drive at seven twenty, the last light is fading and my hands are gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles ache.
The house is quiet when I let myself in. No staff in the foyer, no sounds from the kitchen, no indication that anyone is home at all.
“Danielle?”
My voice echoes off the marble. I take the stairs two at a time, heading for our bedroom. The door is open.
The room is empty. Her overnight bag - the small one she always takes when we go to the vacation house - is missing from its usual spot in the closet. The photograph of her family that sits on her nightstand is gone. I check the bathroom, the sitting room, the small study she claimed as her own.
Empty. All of it empty.
Back downstairs, moving faster now, checking the parlor and the library and the morning room where she sometimes reads. Nothing. No one. The kitchen.
I don’t know why I go there - instinct, maybe, or the memory of all the times I’ve found her cooking when she couldn’t sleep - but that’s where I find it.
Her wedding ring. It’s sitting on the counter, right in the center, positioned with obvious care. Not dropped or forgotten.
Placed. Left for me to find. I pick it up. The gold is cool against my palm, lighter than I remember.
She’s gone.
My wife is gone, and her ring is in my hand, and I don’t know what happened but I know it’s bad - worse than bad, catastrophic, the kind of thing that doesn’t get fixed with apologies and romantic dinners.
I stand in the kitchen holding everything I’ve lost, and the silence of the empty house presses down on me like a sentence I haven’t finished serving.
What did I do? What did I miss?
The ring sits in my palm, asking questions I can’t answer.