Chapter 3
ALESSIA
My husband is cheating on me.
These are words I never thought I’d say, not until I got engaged to Niccolò Alarico twelve months ago. Since then, it’s been a trickle-trickle-trickle of humiliation.
I didn’t see him for four months after the engagement.
I saw his photographs. Usually with Chiara Jossa. She’s the woman Nico wanted to marry. I learned this from gossip that wasn’t hushed for my benefit.
When he told me he’d not be my husband, not be loyal, I guessed he meant that he’d continue his relationship with Chiara. Those who enjoy rubbing my smallness in my face made sure I heard about how he and Chiara were and continue to be the wine world’s power couple.
The CEO and his PR expert.
“He’s used to women like Chiara. Alessia may be an Alighieri, but look at her? It’s no wonder he keeps a mistress.”
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that it’s a woman’s fault when a man commits adultery, and it’s the woman’s fault when she’s the other woman.
I don’t agree.
I hold no ill will toward Chiara. She’s probably in love with Nico and is doing what she must to keep herself whole.
Chiara made no promises to me in front of God and family to have and to hold, to love and to cherish. She owes me nothing.
But then neither does Nico—not when we both walked into this marriage with an agenda beyond a union that requires us to be together for better or for worse.
I wanted to be the winemaker at Tenuta Pietra Alta, and he wanted to become CEO of the House of Alighieri—and most importantly, this is what Duca Cesare Alighieri wanted.
And my father always gets what he wants.
“For a man like Nico, maybe Alba would be a better match,” I overheard Dario Nunzi, Papà’s CEO for thirty years, who stepped down after his heart attack, to make room for Nico, say.
“Alba? She’s out of control. No. She’ll demand a proper marriage and Nico…look at him, he’s not going to be tied down. All I can expect is that he’ll marry Alessia and make sure there’s an heir.”
I was chosen for Nico because I’m quiet, submissive, and undemanding.
But only fools mistake quietness for weakness. I am not feeble. Papà got what he wanted, yes, but so did I. Without this marriage, he would never have given me the official title of winemaker of Tenuta Pietra Alta, even though I’d been doing the job for years under Matteo.
Marriage, for Papà, is not about love. It’s leverage and alignment.
If I have dreams about convincing Nico to give our marriage a chance—that’s on me.
That’s me being foolish.
How can a man like Nico want me?
He exudes polish and power, and he’s not going to want to tether himself to a farmer who still comes home with soil beneath her nails.
But God, how I wish he did.
I want someone to choose me—not for strategy, not for alignment, not for legacy—but simply because they wanted me. Because if Nico ever truly gave me a chance, I would be a formidable partner to him—in business and in life.
I shake my head at that thought.
I have truly lost my mind if I’m weaving fantasies about a partnership with Nico.
After all, I am a sensible, pragmatic woman.
I do not indulge in romantic fantasies about myself.
I think about vineyards, fermentation curves, acidity levels, and whether the night temperature dropped low enough to preserve aromatics.
I think about the way a vine shows stress before a person notices it—leaf angle, shoot growth, the faintest bronze at the edge of green.
But…our vows may have meant nothing to him…they mean a lot to me.
The wedding may have been a transaction for us both, a means to secure what we each wanted, but to me it’s still sacred.
I stood there and promised something real—even if he didn’t.
The wedding, my only one, was important to me, so much so that I didn’t just put on any wedding dress. I wore my mother’s, delicately restored by skilled hands in an atelier in Milan.
Alba did that for me because she knew how much my mother meant to me—how close we’d been before she lost her battle with breast cancer.
I am most like my mother, Giulia Alighieri.
Hers was a dynastic marriage as well—the beautiful Giulia paired with the rough, unpolished Cesare.
They were happy, I think, for the most part.
I don’t believe my father strayed, though that was likely helped by the fact that he had the most stunning woman in Tuscany on his arm.
Mama was loyal, diligent, and deeply loving. She was my idol. From her, I learned patience. I learned the value of not being the loudest voice in the room. I learned the importance of waiting—of biding my time.
Ask anyone, and they’ll say Alba and Toni are the ambitious ones.
But I know that isn’t true.
I covet the most. Because neither of them would have done what I did—marry a man with whom happiness was clearly not in the cards, simply to secure the terroir my family has nurtured for centuries and make it my own.
Alba wants expansion. Toni wants innovation.
I want legacy.
I want roots sunk so deep no one can ever pull them out again.
So, I will bide my time as Mama taught me. I will work harder than anyone expects, and I will prove myself to be the ideal successor to Matteo Rinaldi, the enologo, the head winemaker of the House of Alighieri, who has held that position since Papà took over the company.
Matteo has been my mentor from the beginning—quietly preparing me to show my father that a woman can be not just a capable winemaker, but a superior one.
He is the father I never had—a man who believes in me. He insisted I learn not only how to make wine, but how to grow it; that I understand vineyard cultivation as intimately as fermentation, that I become a true vignaiola—a winemaker who also tends the vines—not merely an enologa.
He made sure I worked every job on an estate—from pruning and canopy management to harvest logistics, cellar sanitation, barrel selection, and blending—until there was nothing I hadn’t done with my own hands.
He’s taught me how to smell a stuck fermentation before it becomes a catastrophe, and how to read a vineyard like a book.
A shout carries down the row. “Alessia!”
I turn and smile as I see Matteo approaching from the end of the block, stepping over uneven ground with the ease of a man who’s like me, of the vine.
He’s in his sixties with a sun-leathered face, thick gray hair, and the kind of intense calm that comes from watching enough vintages fail and survive to know panic is just wasted energy.
And he’d know, as the head winemaker for the family, over all the estates, not just Pietra Alta.
“You’re cutting heavy,” Matteo scolds when he reaches me. He doesn’t greet me with affection, but with assessment. This is his version of love.
“It needs it,” I reply, stepping aside so he can see the row. I brush a cluster with my fingers. “The bunches are too compact. If we don’t thin them now, the berries won’t ripen evenly.”
He crouches to study the spacing between shoots. “You’re dropping too much fruit before veraison?”
His concern is valid. Veraison is that brief turning point when the grapes soften, deepen in color, and the vines begin the slow work of ripening.
But for me, there is no hesitation.
“I’d rather sacrifice yield than compromise concentration.”
He grunts, which is as close to approval as Matteo ever comes. “What’s your target?”
“Five tons per hectare,” I answer without hesitation. “No more than five and a half on the lower parcels if the soils hold.”
His brows lift a fraction. We both know last year we pushed closer to eight.
He studies the row again, running his thumb over a berry, splitting it lightly to check the seeds. “And alcohol?”
“Fourteen, maybe fourteen-two if September stays dry.” I tilt my head and think about it for a moment. “But balanced. I’m watching acidity closely. If nights hold below eighteen degrees, we’ll preserve enough freshness to carry the structure.”
He straightens slowly. “And if the heat spikes?”
“I’ll drop another pass before veraison,” I reply confidently. “I’d rather lose ten percent of the crop than end up correcting in the cellar. No watering down.”
Silence settles between us, thick with appraisal. His lips twitch into a travesty of a smile. “You’re thinking ahead.”
“I’m thinking about twenty years from now,” I correct because I know he expects me to. “Altèra isn’t a wine for next spring. It’s a wine someone will open when they’re celebrating something that took time.”
He nods and smiles widely.
I passed a test.
Everything is a test with Matteo.
“Wine is made with scissors as much as barrels.” He takes a bunch in his hand and turns it slightly. “You have a good head for wine, Alessia.”
Praise from Matteo is rare, and I cellar it like a prized vintage, saving it for the moments I doubt myself.
He looks down the row at the crew. “How are you sleeping?”
He doesn’t ask how the work is. He knows how the work is. He watches it in my posture, in my choices, in the way I walk the rows. He asks about sleep because it’s the only question he can ask without saying the word marriage.
“Matteo,” I protest. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Alessia,” he snaps.
My hands still, the shears pause midair.
In this way, he and my father are alike. They don’t cajole, they order.
“I sleep fine, Matteo,” I mutter, frustrated. “I sleep alone.”
“Idiota!” he swears. “He’s still not been here?”
“He’s busy with the merger.” I’m not defending Nico…or maybe I am, who the hell knows anymore.
He gives me the look he reserves for lies that insult him.
I stare down at the bucket. “What is it you want me to say?”
Matteo’s mouth tightens. “You’re due in Florence tonight.”
“I know.” I force my fingers back into motion, snipping, dropping, snipping again.
Matteo’s sigh is so small it barely disturbs the air. “You need to talk to Nico about…that woman.”
Not going to happen. Ever!
I straighten. “Matteo, let’s not discuss this any further.”