"No problem." She smiles and pats her shoulder, which has a large tote hanging from it that I didn't notice earlier. "I have everything I need."
"Fine," I mutter with zero grace.
Alessia isn't at the house when we land, which isn't surprising. She's somewhere in the vines, busy as fuck. Harvest has a rhythm. You don't interrupt it unless something is on fire.
I text her, though, and let her know that I'm at the house, sitting outside under her favorite pergola, working. The weather is pleasant. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect. Good weather for harvest.
In any case, I know she likes to be done with picking, latest by noon, and then spends the rest of her day and half the night in the cellar.
Me:No rush,cara. I'm here. I'll be here through the weekend.
I am lying, though, because there is a rush. I want to see her. I have missed her badly.
All these emotions are so fucking new and unique. I've never experienced them before. Not being with her is like having a limb missing. I've heard people say that's what love feels like, and I always thought it was hyperbole. I was wrong.
"Isn't there an office here?" Chiara complains.
I insist on working at the long wooden table beneath the pergola—the same one Alessia drinks her morning coffee at, the same one where she reads lab reports and eats standing up during harvest.
"Thisis the office," Renzo tells her as he opens his laptop.
Chiara looks at me, waiting for me to say something, but I don't. I don't give two fucks what she thinks. I want to work here, close to the vines where I can watch for Alessia. I don't want to sit in some office with a window.
I open my email program and ignore her.
She waits for nearly five minutes, huffs loudly, and then spreads out printed decks like she's laying claim to territory.
"Okay, so…let's do this." Chiara looks pointedly at our laptops.
We smile tightly.
“Can you both, please, not work on other things while we discuss this?” she snaps.
We both sigh and close our laptops.
I'm not able to focus because I want to see Alessia, and Renzo isn't either, because he's knee-deep in pricing Excel sheets. But the strategy presentation is important—has to be, since we let Chiara wheedle her way into Bolgheri.
Chiara walks us through the revised messaging for theVendemmiaGala—how we frame the pricing freeze as accessibility, how we emphasize stewardship over profit, andultimately how we reassure distributors without sounding apologetic.
She's good at her job. No doubt about it. I should be more attentive, but I'm not. I nod in the right places and ask the right questions, but my eyes keep drifting—to the path between the vines and the house.
Every few minutes, I catch myself listening for footsteps.
I've sat in boardrooms during hostile takeovers without breaking concentration. I've negotiated contracts that could sink companies. And yet here, under a pergola that smells faintly of rosemary and crushed fruit, I can't keep my attention where it belongs.
Renzo notices, amused. "Nico, you have an opinion about the narrative?"
I give him a tight-lipped look that says everything I don't say out loud. The son of a bitch knows I'm distracted, and he's enjoying it.
"What areyoursuggestions?" I drawl.
He grins. "We should stagger the storyline throughout the evening." He taps the printout of a slide. "I think we need to let the narrative breathe."
"Agreed," I say. The asshole threw me a lifeline because I have no idea what he’s talking about.
Chiara leans forward. "Nico, are you even looking at slide fourteen?"
"I am," I reply confidently. I am absolutely not, because all I can think about is Alessia—somewhere out there in the vines, hair tied back, hands stained, body running on caffeine and sheer will.
