Chapter 28
ALESSIA
There is a strange kind of tension between Nico and me.
Part of it, I am sure is the incident with my father, but there’s something else simmering under the surface.
But I decide to stop letting my imagination run wild and enjoy my time with my sisters and my husband—my favorite people in the world.
Alba leaves for New York in a day, Toni has to go back to school, and I have work—a whole hell of a lot of it that Lucia is managing while I take a few days off.
We don’t have a lot of time together, so it’s important to make the best of it.
Alba books a table for all of us—by that I mean her, Toni, me, Nico, and Renzo at Enoteca Pinchiorri, tucked just far enough away from the Palazzo to feel like an outing rather than an obligation.
The dining room glows with soft light and like so many Florentian restaurants it requires you to stop rushing and take a breath.
Nico and Renzo arrive after we’re already seated.
They’ve clearly come straight from a late meeting—one of those quiet, closed-door affairs that hum with importance even when no one names it.
I don’t ask.
It’s not that I’m uninterested in the company’s business—I am.
But I have my own responsibility: Tenuta Pietra Alta. I run it. I protect it. I know where my lane is, and I stay in it.
If Nico wants to talk about work, he will. If he doesn’t…then maybe it wasn’t mine to carry in the first place.
I don’t tell him about every fire I put out at the estate either. We both have demanding lives, and we’ve learned—carefully—to share what we can while leaving space to simply be a couple.
Still….
Denial only stretches so far before it thins.
Something is going on. I know it the way I know when the weather is shifting before the sky changes. Nico is holding something back. That knowledge unsettles me, but I refuse to let the thought proliferate into pointless panic.
Nico sits next to me, kisses me, softly, in front of everyone who is important to me.
I blush, foolishly touched.
We’re married. Of course, he can kiss me. Why does this have to feel special? But it does, especially when Toni wiggles her eyebrows, and Alba winks at me.
The evening progresses with ease—I think in large part because we all get along well with each other. Though some of us, I suspect, better than others.
At first, it’s nothing.
Toni leans in to hear Renzo better. He answers her with an attentiveness that reminds me of how Nico talks to me these days.
There’s something unmistakable in the way Renzo angles his body toward her, the way Toni forgets to perform and becomes intensely herself—curious, sharp, unguarded.
I sip my wine and study them surreptitiously.
It’s subtle enough to be deniable, but real enough that once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Interesting.
Nico catches my glance and raises an eyebrow, a silent question in his eyes.
“How well does Renzo know Toni?” I ask softly, for his ears only.
He raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”
“He’s…much older than her.”
“He is.”
“He has a reputation of being a ladies' man worse than yours,” I add with a cheeky smile.
He kisses my nose. “I can’t look away from you, cara. You’re all I see.”
Tears fill my eyes at that praise. Everyone notices. Especially my sisters.
My happiness is so big that it’s ready to leap out of my chest.
I let the incident at Suvereto go. I’m not going to hold onto inconsequential things like that when a man looks at me the way Nico does.
He kisses me then. Soft. Long. Complete.
Alba snaps her fingers. “Cut it out, you two.”
“Hey, I’m too young to see this kind of debauchery.” Toni smiles so wide that her face looks like it must be hurting.
The sommelier arrives, breaking the moment and we talk wine for a moment—vintages, balance, Alighieri wines.
“Nico, your tastes are too expensive,” Alba accuses after he orders.
He flicks the Bulgari earrings she’s wearing. “Alba, tesoro, these tell a different story about who has expensive tastes at this table.”
Alba points to Toni’s bracelet, who raises both her hands. “I only wear what she buys. So it’s not my fault.”
“Except for the Maserati,” Alba accuses.
Toni lifts her shoulders in a helpless gesture. “Alessia gave it to me as a birthday present, what did you want me to do? Return it?”
Nico looks at me, brows furrowed.
“She likes cars,” I explain.
“So, we have you to blame for her reckless driving,” Renzo accuses as he glares at Toni.
I raise a hand. “Toni is a lot of things but she’s not reckless.“
Toni sticks her tongue out at Renzo. “See! You want me to drive like your nonna.”
“My nonna, bless her, is eighty-five and still driving and scaring people in Alba,” he states proudly, smiling fondly at Toni.
Family, I think happily.
Messy. Complicated. Alive.
Perfectly paired with the night.
“Toni, what are your plans once you graduate?” Nico asks, reaching for his glass.
She straightens, a hint of theatrical pride in the movement. “Caro, I’m going to take Renzo’s job.”
Renzo snorts, amused. “Not immediately…but eventually. You earn that seat. First things first—you design the new House of Alighieri headquarters.”
Toni’s smile shifts—less playful now, more intent. “With production at the core,” she tells us. “Not just offices. Cellars, labs, logistics. Wine moves through a building the way blood moves through a body—if the circulation’s wrong, everything fails.”
She’s studying architecture, but not the kind that chases skylines or glossy facades. Toni’s focus is industrial design—factories, gravity-flow wineries, temperature-controlled cellars, automation systems that respect the product instead of brutalizing it.
She talks about load-bearing walls that can handle full fermenters, about airflow, insulation, drainage, vibration control. About buildings that work as hard as the people inside them.
“I want to design places where wine is protected. Not forced.”
Nico nods slowly, impressed.
Alba and I smile. Our youngest sister has always known exactly what she wants to build.
Alba is the only one who orders dessert because she loves it, and, luckily, she has a metabolism that lets her eat whatever she wants and still fit into all her clothes.
A slice of sfogliatella appears before Alba, the delicate layers still steaming faintly, sugar dusted like fresh snow.
“Oh my God,” Toni cries out before Alba’s fork strikes the crispy pastry.
“What?” Alba asks, already turning, her napkin sliding to the floor.
Toni leans in, breath hot with urgency. “Alessia. Look. Isn’t that—”
I follow her gaze.
At the far end of the restaurant, near the wine wall, a man sits alone at a small table, posture immaculate, presence unmistakable.
He holds his glass with the easy confidence of someone who expects to be watched.
Silver threads his dark hair at the temples, catching the low light.
His jacket is tailored within an inch of its life.
“Him,” Toni whispers. “The Barolo legend, right? They say he turned down Antinori and Gaja.”
“Davide Fontana,” I say in recognition.
I’ve met him a handful of times—conferences, tastings, the sort of rooms where reputations are currency and everyone pretends not to count. He’s undeniably talented. Technically brilliant.
As a man, he’s always struck me as insufferable.
Too aware of his own myth. Too fond of the sound of it.
As if summoned by his name, Fontana looks up.
His gaze lands on our table—and sticks.
Recognition flares. He rises—unhurried, assured, like an aged Barolo opening in the glass—and crosses the room with a smile already perfectly decanted into place.
He comes to our table and nods at everyone.
Nico stiffens, as does Renzo. Something dark and ominous crawls up my spine.
“Alessia Alighieri,” he says warmly, as though we’re old friends. “What a pleasure.”
I force a polite smile. “Davide.”
I introduce him to Alba but before I can move on to the others, he decides to kiss her ass.
“Alba, I have heard a lot about you and your work. Your tasting rooms and restaurants have won awards.”
“Thanks,” she says flatly and goes back to her dessert. She doesn’t like Fontana. No surprise there. Alba doesn’t like pretentious people.
He inclines his head to Toni, then—finally—his eyes flick to Nico and Renzo with great satisfaction.
“We meet again,” he says, glancing meaningfully at Nico. “You were so kind to take the time to speak with me this afternoon.”
I feel it before I fully understand it—the subtle tightening in my chest, the way the room seems to tilt just a fraction off-center, like a chair with one leg shorter than the others.
And then, slowly, as Fontana’s oily confidence spreads across the table, it clicks.
The meeting this afternoon was with Fontana. And I can imagine very well what it was about and why it was hush-hush.
“Of course,” Nico says tightly. “But we can talk again later. We’re having a family dinner now.”
He’s a private man. He doesn’t like public scenes, and he definitely doesn’t like that Davide Fontana has crossed the restaurant to intrude on something personal. He also doesn’t like—can’t like—that I now know what he’s been hiding.
“Ah, yes, you’re married to Alessia here.” Fontana is completely oblivious to the tension that’s rippling across the table like a sudden chill. The man cannot read a room.
Renzo pushes back his chair and rises smoothly, already moving to intercept him. That’s his role, isn’t it? Nico’s right hand.
Nico, the CEO, is interviewing winemakers to succeed Matteo, who is obviously retiring. That much is clear.
But Matteo didn’t tell me, and that is a blow.
Neither did Nico, and that hurts worse.
Why didn’t he? Did he think I’d blame him for hiring a new winemaker? If he hires this idiot, I absolutely will—but that isn’t the point, is it?
The truth is simpler and crueler.
Despite what Matteo wants, despite my years in the vines, despite my results, Papà will never install me as Head Winemaker of the House of Alighieri.
It’s a dream, yes—but not one I believe can exist in my father’s lifetime.