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“Absolutely. Anytime I look at her pieces, I feel everything she wants me to feel. That’s impressive because I’m not an emotional man. But she makes me feel love, beauty, peace, heartbreak…with just paint and a canvas. I’m sorry she’s not interested in taking over the family business, but her destiny lies elsewhere.”
“I know. Her father and I always dreamed both of our children would want the business so we could see them all the time. But of course, they have their own lives.”
“Vanessa wants to be close to you, whether she’s working at the winery or not.”
“Yes, I noticed that.” She smiled. “She was so eager to get out of here when she first moved out, but now she seems to miss her roots.”
“She does. She wants to settle down her and start a family. She’d live right next door to you if she could.”
She smiled wider. “You have no idea how happy that makes me…”
“You should hear the way she talks about you and Crow. She shows you nothing but respect and affection. Anytime I’ve ever tried to undermine you, she’s told me off for it.” I kept up my transparency, wanting them to trust me to always be truthful.
“I appreciate your honesty…”
“But I see why she feels that way. It’s a beautiful place, and I see the way all the Barsettis love her. She has a family, a community of people who adore her. Sometimes it baffles me that she’s still fighting for me even though her entire family hates me, especially when she could have another man in a heartbeat.” Vanessa could have any man she wanted. All she had to do was flash her pretty smile, and they would fall at her feet.
“Vanessa had never had an intense relationship with a man before you came along. Whenever she told me about the men she was seeing, it was with forced enthusiasm. There was always something about them she didn’t like, even if they checked out on paper. But when she met you…I’ve never seen her be so passionate about anyone. Honestly, you make me uneasy, but I trust my daughter…trust that she knows what she’s doing. She’s a smart woman and doesn’t put up with bullshit. Therefore, you must not be bullshit.”
“I’m not.”
She started to walk away. “You know how Crow used to be at your age. You know how our relationship used to be. It wasn’t a fairy tale. He wasn’t Prince Charming. But I fell so deeply in love with him that I didn’t have a choice but to spend the rest of my life with him. I’ve never had any regrets about the decision I made. I accepted him for exactly who he was, all the darkness and all the light. How can I tell my daughter to leave you when I didn’t leave my husband?”
I appreciated her bluntness. “I couldn’t agree more.”
“But I still feel a warning in my heart when I’m around you, like this could be a big mistake. You’ve wanted to kill me…” She turned around and looked me in the eye, like she was searching for my vengeance. “I killed your father…and you’ve wanted to kill me ever since.” She was challenging me, luring me out into the fields where we could speak openly about the divide between us.
I used to want to stab her the way she stabbed my father. This woman took everything away from me. My inheritance was given to someone else. My mother had to become a whore to support us. We were punished for a crime we never committed.
“Will you ever be able to look past that?” she whispered. “Look past what I did?”
Her beauty masked her coldness. She was a powerful woman just like Vanessa, the kind who didn’t show fear even if she was terrified. Vanessa got her strength from her father as well as her mother. I could see it. “I already have.”
“Because I’m not sorry about what I did. Your father did terrible things to me. He didn’t just rape me but beat me for the hell of it. He let his friends take turns with me then injected me with drugs to wake me up when I passed out from the pain.”
I flinched at the announcement, feeling pity for this woman even though I hardly knew her.
“He got what was coming to him, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I loved watching him die on the floor, his blood spilling everywhere. Ever since he died, I’ve slept like a baby.”
I held her stare, surprised I didn’t feel any rage at her words. Knowing the same thing happened to my mother had changed my perspective on women. I didn’t want them to be used for their bodies, treated like livestock rather than humans. I couldn’t rape Vanessa because of that reason, because it was innately wrong.
