I push back from the table, heart pounding—not with fear, but clarity.
“So, when he fires Nico,” I say slowly, “it won’t be because he refused to hire Fontana.”
“No,” Alba agrees. “That would look vindictive.”
She meets my gaze, grim and certain. “This way, Papà gets to look responsible.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” I declare.
“No, we can’t.” Alba smiles mischievously. “But to thwart Papà, we need to know his exact plans.”
We both look at Toni.
She flutters her eyelashes. “I already sent Papà’s EA a coffee date invite.”
Toni can slip into every corridor of power with her easy laugh and pointed questions because people underestimate her, think she’s innocuous.
She is not!
Her phone beeps, she grins. “And he accepted. I’m taking him out for drinks. Campari, obviously.” She adds dramatically, “The man will be putty in my hands.”
We spend another couple of hours planning, giggling, and laughing while drinking the wine Matteo crafted so lovingly three vintages ago.
We go to bed with a clear plan for how to proceed—even if our heads are pleasantly fuddled with fermented grape juice.
I wake up an hour after the alarm goes off—while my sisters are ensconced in their rooms, sleeping off the hangover I’m going to have to go to work with.
“Cristo! What happened to you?” Lucia says, shocked, when she sees me in the courtyard at seven a.m., all but mainlining coffee.
“Alba, Toni, and I drank a bottle of grappa, then a bottle of Matteo’s Riserva, and then…something else I can’t remember.”
Lucia purses her lips, valiantly stifling a smile. “Was this you grieving over Matteo, or…?”
I wave my coffee cup in the air. “Yeah. Let’s go with that.”
Matteo would’ve been proud of our scheming. I’m sure of it.
“Toni came last night,” she notes, raising both eyebrows.
I chuckle. “She came with intel!”
Lucia’s eyes widen with curiosity. “What?”
I wrinkle my nose as I continue, “Papà is planning to fire Nico because he wants me to be the head winemaker.”
Lucia claps. “He does? You’ll take over Matteo’s job?”
I groan. “Didn’t you hear the part about Papà wanting to fire my husband because he doesn’t want me to be head winemaker?”
Lucia winces. “TheDucacan be…well, no offense, pigheaded.”
“None taken.” I drink more coffee. “Okay. Let’s get to work. We need a plan for winter pruning.”
Lucia grimaces. “Ah, Alessia, I think you should go back to bed and let me handle today. We can do strategy work when you’re not running on a mixture of alcohol and caffeine through your veins.”
I glare at her for a moment and then decide that she’s right and nod, which is a mistake because my head feels like it’s going to split in two.
“And take some ibuprofen,” Lucia further suggests.
