Chapter 22 #2
Fontana owns vineyards around the world, so he’ll take this job not for money but vanity. The head winemaker of the House of Alighieri would be a gigantic notch on his winemaking bedpost.
“How does Matteo feel about him?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
Renzo’s expression tightens. “They respect each other. Fontana’s been on panels with him. Taught at the same enology programs. Same philosophy about restraint. About letting the vineyard speak.”
A chill settles in my chest.
“He looks good on paper,” Renzo finishes quietly. “Old-school pedigree. International gravitas. Male. Unthreatening to Cesare’s sense of order.”
Everything Alessia is not—at least in her father’s eyes.
Renzo is furious, just as I am. He wants Alessia. He’s fallen half in love with her—not sexually, but as a winemaker. He thinks she walks on water.
“Fontana is a marquee name,” I state wearily.
“I tried to bring up Alessia…and seriously, I thought he’d punch me,” he says through gritted teeth. “I don’t get the man. She’s his daughter.”
“Cesare’s old school.” I collapse into my chair. It’s nine in the morning, and I’m already exhausted. Not from work—this is emotional depletion.
“Cesare’s an old asshole,” Renzo corrects me.
I let out a harsh laugh. “I want her to succeed Matteo, Renzo. You know that, don’t you?”
He lifts his hands in a what the fuck do I know gesture. “You don’t seem interested in fighting for her.”
That grates. Renzo knows how tight the noose is around my neck. Hearing this from him feels like a betrayal.
“I need to consolidate my power before I can fight to change the entire fucking system.” I swallow the anger burning up my throat. “And he’s guarding the winemaker role like a dog with a bone.”
The pressure of the past weeks is grinding me down.
My wife lives in Bolgheri.
I live here.
We both have demanding, relentless jobs, and finding time to be together feels like a logistical puzzle we’re always losing.
I miss her constantly.
She misses me, too.
It’s a half-life—this distance. And when we are together, it feels like a race to make up for what we both know is coming next.
More absence.
More missing each other.
I can’t ask her to give up Pietra Alta.
I don’t want to give up my job, not after how much work and effort it has taken, not just from me but from those who worked at Cantina Alarico to get us here.
“I know.” Renzo sighs, dropping his head. “It’s just…it’s wrong, Nico. What he’s doing is colossally unfair. Just because Alessia is a woman, he thinks she can’t be the head winemaker.”
I lean forward, knuckles white on the armrests. “It’s more than that. Cesare believes, and maybe rightfully so, that an external hire signals evolution.” I bark out a laugh with no humor in it. “The truth is that but for Alessia, we’d both be jumping with joy if we could get Fontana.”
“Si,” Renzo agrees, his mouth twisting like he’s tasted something rotten.
“We have to separate the personal from the professional.”
He cocks an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Rich, coming from the man who married a woman to climb the corporate ladder.”
I slam my palms onto the oak desk, the crack echoing through the room. “Renzo, that’s not only unfair, but it’s—”
“I’m sorry,” he cuts in, hands flying up in surrender. “That was a cheap shot. An unfair one. It’s just that”—he lets out a long breath, shaking his head—“Toni told me some things about them growing up that upset me.”
Pressure clamps down behind my sternum. “Like what?”
“You know Alessia practically raised Alba and Toni.”
“I know they’re close.”
“Alessia was thirteen when their mother died. While other girls were at sleepovers, she was making sure her sisters ate, studied, and survived. She stood between them and the world like a human shield.”
“Where was Cesare?”
He slashes a hand through the air. “Cesare checked out. Physically present, emotionally extinct. Threw money at staff and called himself Father of the Year.”
My stomach drops—not only because I ache for the young Alessia who lost her mother, but because she never told me.
The insecure part of me wonders if that silence means there’s something broken between us. But the sensible part knows better. That’s just who Alessia is.
She doesn’t display her scars or parade her pain. My wife doesn’t demand to be seen. She does the work—and she’s been doing it since she was a child.
And suddenly, the weight of what I’m allowing to happen—what I’m failing to stop—feels unbearable.
“We have to be patient,” I say, more to myself than to Renzo. “Cesare is powerful. If I fight him head-on right now, I will lose.”
He shoots me a sideways glance sharp enough to light a fuse.
I flip him off. “Stop being dense. You know this.”
He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, his shoulders sagging. “I do.”
“Then why are you busting my balls?”
He shrugs. “Got no other balls around to bust.”
Despite everything, I smile. “Let’s try to be fair about this. Between Alessia and Fontana….”
“They stand equal in skill,” Renzo says, tilting his head, thoughtful now. “He has the bigger international profile, though.”
“But she has something he never will.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “The Alighieri blood.”
“The soul of the House of Alighieri,” I correct.
Alessia is already a force. But Cesare doesn’t care about genius. He cares about control—and for now, I have no choice but to give it to him.
“But”—I take a steadying breath as the decision settles—“for now, we stay the course.”
Renzo leans back in his chair. “And we keep our jobs.”
“Yes.” I scrub a hand over my face. “I need to convince Matteo to talk to her. To tell her. She’ll be devastated when she finds out he’s dying.”
Renzo groans. “Imagine how much worse it will be when she finds out that he’s dying, and you and I are bringing in some Piedmont hotshot to take his place and become her new boss.”
Talk about a clusterfuck.