Chapter 31 Nico
NICO
My wife won’t take my calls, and she won’t respond to my messages. Hell, I’m not even sure if she’s reading them.
Alba told me that Alessia is processing and that I should give her space.
I’m not that man—the one who just sits on his ass, waiting for things to happen. I go after what I want, and I get it. This whole stay patient and give her time nonsense is killing me in fifteen fucking ways.
So, it’s no surprise that my mood is vicious.
Even Renzo is giving me a whole lot of berth even as he says things like, “You need to make up with Alessia so I don’t have to kill you for being a motherfucking asshole.” In all honestly, his language is progressively getting more colorful.
Fall is giving way to winter in Tuscany, and every morning when I go for a run after a sleepless night, I go past the Palazzo as dawn’s first rays gild its stone walls.
The marble balustrades glow amber, and tourists cluster below, lenses lifted, framing arches and cornices in hopeful shots. They don’t see what happens inside—lives auctioned over porcelain demitasses of espresso, PowerPoint slides, and muted tension.
This should feel like home, after all these halls bear my title.
My desk, my kingdom.
Instead, I drift—untethered.
I’ve always loved running a company.
But now? I could fucking walk away.
I could, and I would if it meant my wife would look at me again the way she did before—with her heart in her eyes.
I destroyed that. I shattered us, and I am in so much pain that most of the time it’s a miracle that I can stand straight.
I want to curl into a fetal position and sob.
Yeah, me? Niccolò Alarico wants to ugly cry because he hurt the woman he fell in love with, and he doesn’t know how to make it right.
“Did you get any sleep?” Renzo asks as we walk to a staff meeting.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” I snap.
“Cristo! Nico, you need to sort this fucking thing out with Alessia before you have a coronary.”
I glare at my friend. “Mind your own business. Do you have the numbers for the Napa estate?”
“Yeah, I have the numbers,” he replies tightly.
“Are they any good?”
“Nico—”
“There, you do your fucking job as COO, and I’ll do my job. Stay the fuck out of my personal life.” I am loud enough that three people turn to look at us as we walk the hallways of the palazzo.
“You’re being a downright stronzo,” he informs me before he storms away.
Well, fuck you, too, stronzo!
Right now, I don’t know how to calibrate, and I always have before.
Business is business, and emotions, well, they’re a waste of time, aren’t they? I don’t dabble in that bullshit.
But that was before Alessia. Now, I’m an emotional wasteland missing my wife like I’ve lost a fucking limb.
I settle into conference rooms cooled by whispering vents.
I talk over slides as my EA presses “advance” on strategy decks with glossy charts.
I spar over distribution margins with executives whose suits creak when they shift in their leather chairs.
I talk. I decide. I function.
But my thoughts are never far from Alessia.
Renzo is all but ready to throttle me after a meeting where I was an officious asshole, his words, to staff whom I accused of being incompetent.
Spoiler alert, they weren’t.
“I have about three people on my team who are ready to quit because you’re being an asshole,” he throws at me.
I give him the finger.
He shakes his head and takes a seat across from me.
Mid-afternoon sunlight slants across my walnut desk, illuminating the speckles of dust floating above a half-drunk espresso. He thumbs through a thick folder, eyes flicking to me.
“She’s still not talking to you,” he says.
I don’t lift my gaze. I tap a pen against my planner. “She’s busy.”
Renzo exhales, a soft snort. “She was busy during harvest and you both were on the phone like fucking teenagers.”
I snap my laptop shut—with more force than the machine deserves. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Tell the truth,” he says, voice flat but sharp. “You fucked up.”
“I tried. She isn’t listening. She hates my ass and fucking hell, Renzo, I can’t sleep without her.”
Renzo bursts out laughing.
“What is so funny?” I ask, annoyed.
“You,” he says cheerfully. “It’s a damn pleasure to see you like this, and I’d enjoy it a whole hell of a lot more if you weren’t terrorizing the staff. Nico, you’ve got to get a hold of yourself, amico.”
“I lost her, Renzo.” I run a hand over my face. “I love her. How am I supposed to live without her?”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re both so fucking dramatic.”
“I didn’t stand up for her, and she can’t forgive that.” I lean back, hand falling across my face. “I thought I was protecting her.”
“You were protecting yourself.”
I give him a withering look. “Yeah, I know. Can you tell me something new? Maybe something helpful for the love of Cristo?”
“My longest relationship lasted four weeks so, I’m not the—”
“Speaking of relationships, what the fuck is going on between you and Toni?” I demand, and it feels damn good to turn the tables on him.
He freezes and that tells me more than anything he could say, which when he does is bullshit I can see through.
“I’m mentoring her.”
“Is that what we’re calling it these days?”
He gets up. “Don’t be fucking ludicrous. She’s a child.”
I cock an eyebrow, enjoying this a hell of a lot more than I should, but it’s nice to have someone else in the hot seat. “The person you were all over, calling her cara, my friend, is no child.”
He slams the palms of his hand on the table. “She’s your sister-in-law, you don’t talk about her like that.”
I look at him puzzled for half a second and then laughter splutters out of me. “And you’re calling me a love sick fool?”
“I have work,” he replies and walks away brusquely, slamming the door of my office on his way out.
I wonder how Alessia will feel about Renzo and Toni in a relationship.
Are they sleeping together?
Am I supposed to do something because Toni’s like a sister to me, too?
I wish I could talk to Alessia about this. She’d know what to do. But when I call her she doesn’t pick up and the rejection cuts straight to the bone, each and every time.
Since I have no wife to talk to or spend time with these days, after work I wander through Florence without aim.
The city’s walls glow as streetlamps blink on.
I smell warm bread from nearby ovens, centuries of history seeping from every crack in the pavement.
Tourists linger by the Ponte Vecchio where an amateur violinist struggles through O Sole Mio, each bow-stroke cringing against the river’s gentle lapping.
I should drink it in, bad music and all, instead, my heart is in Bolgheri where red earth clings beneath boots, gnarled vines reach for the sky without a whisper of apology, caring only for sunshine and patience, and my wife stands strong, unbowed, never asking me to rescue her but expecting me to stand with her, which I didn’t.
My phone rings. I answer immediately when I see it’s Matteo.
“How are you doing?” I say in greeting.
“Circling the drain.”
“Cristo, Matteo!” I choke out a laugh.
“She called you yet?” I ask because I warned him that motherfucking Davide Fontana decided to show off in front of the Alighieri sisters, spilling the beans about Matteo’s health.
“No. She’s probably very angry.”
“You called her?”
“No.”
“Why?” I ask perplexed.
“She’s probably very angry. It’s better to give her time.”
I sigh. “Matteo, you’re dying, you don’t have time.”
He chuckles, his voice laced with fatigue and wry pride. “I know. And now she knows. She’ll call me. I think in a day or two. She only found out a couple of days ago. And I’m not dying for a while.”
“She won’t talk to me.”
“She’s hurt.”
“I know,” I whisper.
We veer away from the difficult and move onto the wine talk and trade notes on fermentation curves, maceration times, the gamble of a warm autumn.
But ultimately, we come back to Alessia because she’s what tethers us to one another.
“I should’ve fought harder for her.” He sighs deep enough to stir dust in my chest.
I stop in the middle of the street. “With Cesare?”
“Yes.” His laugh has no humor. “Cesare is my closest friend, and yet I can’t sway him, not on this. I told myself patience was a strategy—wait for Cesare to loosen his grip. But I’ll have to wait until he dies, and I’m running out of time.”
My jaw clenches. “Why do you fear him?”
“Because he’s powerful. He can change lives.”
“I have enough money that I could live my life without working, hell my kids could. So why am I still afraid of losing my job?” I ask him even though I know the answers are within me.
“Money is not power, and the CEO of the House of Alighieri, like the head winemaker of the company, has power.”
“So we’re chasing power?”
“Holding on to it,” he drawls. “But you don’t have to make my mistakes. Be braver than I was, Nico.”
“Even if it costs me everything?”
“What’s more important to you? Your wife or your job?”
“Alessia,” I say immediately.
“You have your answer.”
I do, and so the next morning at work, I shift tactics as I plan without fear of losing the job that I thought I sold my family’s company—which I built into a powerhouse—and my own marital freedom for.
I scrutinize approvals.
I stall sign-offs.
In meetings, I ask Cesare—politely, persistently—to explain decisions I once accepted without question.
After a meeting, Renzo confronts me. “What are you doing?”
“Working to dismantle the existing power structure,” I tell him honestly and then add, “If I lose my job or rather when I lose my job, I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
He gives me a measured look. “Don’t be an asshole and don’t insult me. If you lose your job, you and I can both book that ticket to Bali and enjoy a month off on the beach.”
I grin.
“Will Toni be joining us?” I ask, amused,
“Vaffanculo,” he swears and walks away.
Cesare is also noticing the changes. “Who’s next if not Fontana?” he presses every time he sees me.
He didn’t like it that I nixed Davide Fontana, but when I told him what the asshole pulled, Cesare didn’t press further.
No one, including Cesare, likes a showoff who spills secrets, and Matteo’s health situation was one, told to him only because he was interviewing for an important job and only after he signed a fucking NDA, not that we were going to challenge him and make it a public issue.
Four weeks after the debacle, as I like to call it, I get a message from Alessia.
I’m alone in my apartment, pouring a wine my wife crafted three vintages ago.
Alessia: I’m going to see Matteo this Saturday. Will you come along?
I reply immediately, autocorrect making a mess of my reply, so I have to retype several times before I can send it.
Me: Yes. I’ll come to Pietra Alta on Friday.
Alessia: Come on Saturday morning.
Subtext: You’re not welcome to spend the night here.
Me: I’ll be there.
Alessia: Thank you.
Me: Please don’t thank me, cara, not for this.
And that’s where the conversation ends.
I pick up my glass and swirl the wine, watch the legs slide down the sides, and smell the aroma rise—wild berries, crushed thyme, a hint of oak.
An absolutely perfect blend.
No one does it better than her.