Chapter 12 #2
“The Palazzo will always bow to the vision of the winemaker,” I say, my eyes on her, holding her gaze, keeping her with me. “But the House of Alighieri will never be gaudy, Edam, so I wouldn’t worry about the labels being too pretty.”
I pass the test because the conversation moves on—not away from me, but forward—into hiring for the upcoming harvest.
Edam mentions numbers first. “We’ll need around forty pickers at peak. Fewer for the upper parcels.”
“Allora! Alright! But only if they’re trained,” Alessia argues immediately. “I don’t want speed over judgment. Not this year.”
“Can’t you just contact the company the other Alighieri estates use to bring in migrant workers? I hear they usually bring in good people,” Renzo offers when Alessia makes it clear that the harvest at Pietra Alta isn’t a free-for-all.
Lucia snorts. “We don’t put out a call and take whoever shows up with a pair of hands and a tolerance for early mornings.”
“Alessia is meticulous about who touches her fruit. Just as careful as she is during green harvest. Just as exacting as she is in the sorting room,” Hortensio explains.
My wife rolls her eyes. “You make me sound so difficult.”
“Not difficult but exacting, as you should be.” There’s pride in Edam’s voice.
Renzo and I get a class on how Tenuta Pietra Alta functions.
Most of the harvest crew is returning labor—men and women who’ve worked these rows before, who know the difference between ripeness and rot, between a sun-kissed cluster and one that needs to be left behind.
New hires go through orientation days before they ever touch a vine.
They’re taught what to cut, what to leave, and—more importantly—why.
Apparently, Alessia insists on it.
“She walks them through the vineyard herself. Shows them berry shrivel, uneven veraison, sunburn.” Lucia shows off her boss.
“She teaches them to feel for firmness, to look past sugar and notice tannin maturity in the skins. We pair new pickers with veterans and slow the pace on purpose for the first few mornings so they can learn.”
“And we don’t mix teams between parcels,” Hortensio tells us, like it’s the secret sauce. “Cab Franc stays with its own crew. They know what we’re looking for.”
“That is very exacting,” Renzo states. He’s impressed, and so am I.
“A bad decision made in haste can undo a year’s worth of work,” Alessia quips.
I am struck by how much trust runs here between Alessia and her team.
She doesn’t just demand excellence—she teaches it. Expects people to rise to the standard rather than race past it.
This isn’t management or leadership, it’s stewardship.
By the time the discussion moves on to logistics—housing, transport, staggered start times—I realize something quietly, unmistakably true.
My wife doesn’t just protect the vines; she also protects the people who tend the estate.
And that, more than anything, tells me why Pietra Alta outperforms estates with bigger budgets and flashier names.
Shortly thereafter, Lucia pushes back her chair and says she needs to get back to the vines. Edam follows, and then Hortensio, after he asks Alessia to come by and check some things for him in the cellar.
“That was interesting,” Renzo tells Alessia as we walk back to the courtyard, our impromptu office.
“How come?” she asks.
“You have a very competent team.”
She beams. “They’re great, aren’t they?”
Renzo stops and turns to Alessia. “And, Signora Alighieri, so are you.”
Color rises up her cheeks, and the smile she gives my friend annoys the hell out of me.
“I’m sure you say that to all the winemakers,” she jokes.
Is she breathless? Does she like Renzo? What the fuck?
She makes her excuses and avoids looking at me as she goes back to work.
“I like her,” Renzo says as we watch Alessia walk back toward the vines, sunlight catching in her hair, her ass firm in those tight jeans of hers.
She’s got one hell of a body—strong and lithe, sexy in a different way than a Botticelli but no less appealing.
I scoff. “You like everyone.”
“True,” he agrees. “But not everyone impresses me with their competence.”
“Are you flirting with my wife?”
He grins widely. “She’s something else, isn’t she?”
“She’s my wife,” I reiterate.
“I know, Nico, but she is…remarkable.” He sighs as Alessia disappears from our view.
“Renzo, cut it out.”
He smirks. “Is someone feeling a little possessive?”
Yes, and not only. I am feeling jealous. The realization is so absurd it almost makes me laugh.
“You feeling stupid yet for not paying her attention sooner?” he asks when we settle down in front of our laptops.
I scowl. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely,” he replies. “It’s nice to see you knocked off balance for once.”
“I’m not…off balance, that is,” I mutter.
“Maybe a little threatened by how charming I am?”
I send him a flat, unimpressed stare. “I’m not threatened, and you’re not charming.”
Renzo leaves just before sunset.
“Try not to screw it up,” he advises.
“Screw what up?” I ask in mock innocence.
“See, that cockiness is what’s going to get you into trouble,” he warns. “If you’re not careful, she’s going to find someone more…just more.”
I flip him off with affection.
I go looking for Alessia and am told by Lucia that she’s in the cellar and gives me directions to get there.
The space is cool and dim, barrels stacked neatly in rows, the air heavy with yeast and oak and promise.
She’s bent over a clipboard, hair loose now, a smudge of something dark on her wrist. Dirt?
“Renzo left.”
She looks up, confused. “Okay.”
“You and he seem to have gotten along quite well.”
Now, she looks like I just dropped a puzzle into her lap. And I’m starting to feel like a moron.
Maybe because you’re behaving like one?
“You were…laughing.”
Cristo!
Her mouth curves like she’s being cautious. “Is that a crime?”
“No,” I blurt out. “It’s just—” I stop myself. Reset. “You seemed comfortable with him.”
Nico, anytime now, shut the fuck up.
“I was comfortable,” she replies evenly. “He seems nice. Charming. Very likable. Don’t you agree?”
Yes.
No.
What?
“You talked with him…differently?”
Dio! You’re not even making sense to yourself.
“I talked to him just the way I talk to any colleague.”
“You don’t flirt with Matteo,” I blurt out, before I can stop myself.
Her eyebrows lift. “Matteo is old enough to be my father.”
“And Renzo isn’t?”
What the fuck are you doing, Nico?
Confusion shadows her expression. “What’s this about?”
I have no fucking clue!
“It’s just…you’re my wife, and it’s unseemly for you to be flirting with my…ah, friend.”
She sets the clipboard down with deliberate care. “What’s unseemly is you deciding what my behavior means when you don’t know anything about me because you haven’t been here.”
I take a step toward her. “I’m here now.”
“Isn’t that nice for you?” There’s anger in her tone as she moves closer. “And I didn’t flirt with Renzo. I spoke to him. The way adults do.”
I move. There’s only a step between us. “I didn’t like it.”
She doesn’t retreat. “Why?”
The cellar hums around us. Barrels creak faintly as the temperature shifts.
“Because,” I force out, my voice low, “it made me realize how easily someone else could see you. How easily I could lose ground I haven’t even earned.”
She gasps. “You’re jealous?”
“Yes.”
She blinks, shocked, and then her lips set mutinously. “You don’t get to be jealous, not after what you’ve put me through.”
“I know,” I agree. “That doesn’t make it go away.”
For a moment, we stand still—too close now, the space between us charged and fragile.
I want her. Desperately. I’ve never wanted a woman more.
She sees it. “This is a bad idea,” she murmurs.
“Yes,” I confess as I pull her to me, a hand on her waist, the other in her hair.
I kiss her.
It’s not the careful acknowledgment of obligation from our wedding. Nor the soft touch of last night.
This kiss is devastating in its intensity.
Her hands come up, grip my shirt as if she needs the balance.
I hear the soft whimper she tries to swallow, the way her body curves into mine like she’s made for me.
I deepen the kiss—slow, thorough, reverent.
When we break apart to catch our breaths, her eyes are dark, unfocused.
“Alessia.” Just that. Her name.
“Nico…I”—her eyes fill with emotion—“can’t.”
I can. I want. So fucking much.
I rest my forehead against hers.
“We’ll take this slow,” I promise her.
“I wasn’t flirting with Renzo.”
I chuckle. “I know. I’ve never been possessive, cara, but I am about you. It’s a new emotion, one I don’t know how to handle.”
I’ve never been this honest with anyone before. I’ve never laid myself bare—left myself without any armor or protection.
She cups my cheek and looks into my eyes. She goes on tiptoe and kisses me, just a touch of lip to lip. “I also don’t know how to handle how I feel.”
She gives so easily. Doesn’t hold back. Guilt fills me up. I have hurt this woman, and I can’t fathom why I did that.
“I’m so sorry, Alessia,” I say.
She puts her fingers on my lips. I kiss them. “Let’s leave the past in the past.”
She means it, too. I know that in my heart. She’s not like the other women I know who say they’ll let something go, only to bring it up again and again. No, Alessia is not like that. She’s honest. She’s giving. She’s tender and gentle. And she’s my wife.
“Grazie.”
“Want to taste some wine from last year?” she asks, excitement in her eyes. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll even let you try the hundred percent Cab Franc.”
I continue to hold her, enjoying the feel of my hands on warm curves.