5. Chiara #4
“And while you were doing all that, your wife was being accused of destroying your father’s legacy.” I feel tears burning behind my eyes and refuse to let them fall. “You handled the logistics beautifully. You protected the investigation. You just forgot to protect me.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and I see him struggling with something. Grief and anger and exhaustion, all of it warring behind his eyes.
“I need to find out what happened.” He straightens the creased paper against the edge of the desk, returning to something he can put in order. “Who had access to the cellar. How the contamination occurred. How much of the stock has been affected.”
“That’s not what I’m asking for.” I straighten, pulling my hands from his desk, and stop trying to make the question easier for him. “Do you believe I did this? Do you believe I sabotaged your father’s wine?”
He meets my gaze, and I search his face for the man who held me on the boat, who let me lean against him while the sun went down. I am asking for less than that now. An answer would do.
“I’m going to find out what happened.” He reaches for the notes on his desk, then leaves them where they are. “We need the truth.”
“Yes, we do.” I want the truth badly enough to stand in front of every person who blamed me tonight and make them hear it. “But I’m standing here telling you what I didn’t do. Does that count for anything?”
The silence is worse in this room, with no crowd to interrupt us and no guests waiting for his attention. He can hear me. There is nowhere for my question to get lost.
“Chiara…” He leans across the desk, reaching for my hand as though touch might settle what he won’t answer.
“Please don’t try to calm me down.” I step back before he can touch my hand. If he holds it the way he did before the pour, I might let that be enough, and I will hate myself for it tomorrow. “I need you to answer me.”
He lowers his hand. I watch him struggle for words and want, desperately, to help him find them. But I have already told him what I need. I can’t say it for him.
“I was proud tonight.” I look down at the green silk my mother chose, remembering how pleased I was when he noticed it on the stairs. “Before the wine came out. People wanted to hear what I had to say, and you were there with me. Then they started blaming me, and I couldn’t get you to look at me.”
“I had to stop the service.” His attention moves toward the door, drawn by footsteps passing in the hall. Even now, part of him is listening for another problem.
“I know why you stopped it.” I wait until he looks back at me. “I’m asking why you still can’t answer me when we’re alone.”
The words hang between us, heavy with his father’s letter that he doesn’t know I read.
“I need to go.” He stands, moving toward the door. “I need to speak with the sommelier about preserving the bottles. About what samples we need to send for testing.”
“Then go.” I move out of his way before he has to ask. “But don’t tell yourself you answered me.”
He stops at the door, his hand on the frame. For a moment I think he might turn around. Might say something that undoes the damage of the last two hours.
“I’m going to find out what happened.” He keeps his hand on the doorframe instead of turning back toward me. “When I know the truth, we’ll talk.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m alone in his study with the lamp still burning and his father’s books watching from the shelves.
The courtyard is empty when I finally make my way outside.
The lanterns have been extinguished, the heaters turned off. The stone is cold under my thin shoes, and I pull my shawl tighter around my shoulders against the winter air. My clutch hangs from my wrist, bumping against my hip as I walk.
The herb table is gone, cleared away to the storage room where it will wait for an event that may never happen now. The pouring station has been dismantled, the evidence taken inside for examination. All that remains is the empty space where everything fell apart.
I stand where the first pour happened, looking at nothing. The moon is bright enough to cast shadows, and the estate looks beautiful in that cold light, all clean lines and ancient stone. Beautiful and foreign and hostile.
By morning, people who weren’t even here will have an opinion about what I did.
I think of the journalist who wanted to interview me, her notebook put away until after the tasting.
What will she write now? I answered the accusations.
I made people hear me. I have no idea whether any of them will remember my answer as clearly as Livia’s tears.
My phone buzzes inside my clutch.
I open the clasp and pull it out, expecting Rosalia to ask where I am. The screen shows a message from an unknown number.
You should leave while you still can. The valley will never forgive you. And neither will he.
My thumb stops over the screen. I don’t recognize the number, and there is no name beneath the message. The cold that runs through me has nothing to do with the winter air.
I look up from the phone toward the dark archway that leads out of the courtyard, where the shadows are thick enough to hide anything. Anyone.
For the first time tonight, I am afraid to cross my own courtyard.