Chapter Eleven
Achille
I ripped the unneeded vines from their stems and discarded them in the buckets at my feet. All the wine was now aging in its barrels. I would leave it there until December, when it had to be bottled.
The clouds above were gray, the rain threatening as I finished pruning, readying the land for the planting of the next crops.
Caresa had come to my cottage again last night. She had an appointment in town today with her friend so couldn’t be here to help. And I missed her. She had only been out of my sight now for about six hours, but I felt her absence seep into my heart.
As the bucket filled, my thoughts drifted to next year’s harvest. I froze, my eyes staring blankly at the soil beneath my boots, as I wondered what next year looked like. What next month would look like. What would happen when Caresa told her family about us?
I lifted my eyes and ran them over the now-bare vines. I couldn’t imagine not having this, not waking each day to the rich smell of the bustling leaves, or the sun rising over the distant hills.
But I also couldn’t imagine my life without Caresa.
I didn’t understand why this all had to be so hard. I loved her and she loved me. That should be enough.
It had been five days since the night Caresa had come back to me. And every night she had come to me and I had read to her by the fire. We had drunk wine and cooked food and made love all night long.
My stomach fell. Because I hadn’t realized until this week just how much of life I had been missing. I hadn’t realized how lonely I had been. Hadn’t realized why my father had sat staring at my mother’s picture each night when I was growing up—he was only half a heart without her. And although he had me, I now understood how much pain he must have been in. Caresa and I had only been truly together for a little less than a week, yet it brought agony to my heart to think of losing her.
But I let in the light again when I thought of how she had left me this morning, with a soft kiss and a promise to return.
Beethoven played through my headphones while I worked. I lifted the bucket to take it to the heap of dead vines I would later burn, and when I turned, I stopped dead.
A man stood at the end of the row. He was dressed in a suit and looking my way. He waved and indicated to me to take out my headphones. I dropped the bucket of vines and did as he asked.
The prince—I supposed technically he was the king now, but I couldn’t get my head to accept that fact—was in my vineyard.
The minute Beethoven was silenced and the familiar sounds of my vineyard enveloped us, Zeno put his hands in his pockets and strolled toward me. I didn’t know what to think.
“Seems the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.” Zeno stopped a few feet from me. As I narrowed my eyes, wondering why he was here, I couldn’t help but think of Caresa. He didn’t deserve her.
He couldn’t have her.
I waited for him to continue. Zeno smiled and raised his eyebrows. He pointed around the vineyard. “You and your father. Seems whatever ran in his blood runs in yours too.” Zeno tilted his head to the side. “Though you look nothing like him. Your father was short with fair hair. You’re tall and dark. But the winemaker gene was clearly more dominant than his coloring.”
I stayed silent. Zeno laughed and shook his head. “What, Achille? No greeting for your old best friend?” He gestured in the direction of the track beyond the trees. “We used to play on those roads as children, yet you have nothing to say to me now?”
“Prince,” I said coolly.
Zeno narrowed his eyes. “It’s Zeno and you know it. You were the only one who never cared about my title when we were children. Don’t start now.”
“Why are you here?” I asked, not interested in reminiscing about our childhood, or how he was my very best friend and just one day stopped coming by.
“Straight to the point, I see.” He laughed. “Well I guess you haven’t changed all that much.”
“You have,” I snapped back, then shrugged. “Or at least you seem to have. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen or heard anything from you in years.” I picked up the bucket and walked past him. I dumped the vines in the pile I had made over the past few days.
I heard him following behind me. When I turned, he was rubbing the back of his neck as though he was nervous or uncomfortable. When he caught me looking at him, he sighed. “Look, Achille. I know I haven’t shown much interest, or any interest, in the wines or the people here in this vineyard, but I want to start now.”
Shock rippled through me. Zeno dropped his hand from his neck and said, “How is this year’s vintage coming along? Do you think it will be as strong as the last?”
“Stronger,” I replied and headed toward the barn. Zeno followed, his expensive polished leather shoes no doubt being scuffed by the rough dirt.
As we entered the barn, I pointed at the barrels stretching the length of the building. “They are aging now, then they can be bottled. This year was a good year.”
“Good,” Zeno replied.
I motioned to my moka pot. “Caffè?”
Zeno nodded and walked over to the two chairs that sat beside the fire. He sat down in the one that was now Caresa’s. I wondered if he had any idea she came here every day. I wondered if he would even care.
From what Caresa said, I was sure he would not.
I brought the small cup toward him and sat down. It was awkward and uncomfortable. I could talk to Zeno as a child, when he was my friend. But now, as adults living two very different lives, I scrambled for something, anything, to say.
“I’m sorry about your father,” I said eventually.
Zeno’s hand stilled as he brought his cup to his mouth. He cleared his throat. “Thank you.” He shifted uncomfortably on his seat. “Sorry about yours too.”
I nodded my head in thanks and took a sip of my own coffee. Zeno was studying the barn. “You really did it,” he said. He must have seen my confusion, because he added, “The Bella Collina merlot. You used to talk of being its head winemaker one day. And you did it.”
“I made my first vintage at sixteen, Zeno.”
“You did?” I saw the realization appear on his face. “2008,” he murmured. He shook his head in disbelief. “You were the difference? You’re the reason why it changed? For the better?”
“That was the year I took charge,” I said. “Though my father guided me for many years to come . . . until the day he died.”
Zeno finished his coffee and placed the cup on the floor beside his chair. “My father would have loved you to have been his son. He loved wine, all wine, but especially this wine, your wine.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
I nodded. “The king would come to see us frequently. This was his favorite part of the vineyard.”
Zeno sat back, deflated. “He should have left this business to someone like you. Not me.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I can make wine. I know nothing about the sale or promotion of it.”
“But you see,” Zeno said, “that is all I have been asked about since I have been meeting with the buyers. They wanted to know that I understood how everything worked. I didn’t. I don’t.” He sat forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s why I’m here now. I want to know the winemakers that produce the wines. I want to understand the business.” He sat up straighter. “You produce our most famous wine, Achille. And . . . and I knew you once. We were best friends. So I wanted to start with you.” He gave a short laugh. “I have recently been told that I should start living for the business instead of by it. Let’s just say that the message got through.”
“The workers will appreciate you taking an interest.”
Zeno nodded, then got to his feet. “I’ll leave you to it.” He walked out of the barn, and I followed behind. As Zeno walked past the paddock, Nico and Rosa trotted over. He went to them. Nico gave Zeno his attention for about a minute before walking off, but Rosa stayed close.
Zeno patted her neck, then moved toward the gate. Just as he reached my garden, he stopped in his tracks. He glanced at me over his shoulder with a strange expression on his face. “That gray horse? Is she an Andalusian?”
“Yes,” I replied, wondering why he seemed so curious about her breed. I had never known Zeno to care about horses in his youth.
An unreadable look flashed across his face. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
Zeno’s eyes tightened, his shoulders tense, but he placed a smile on his lips and shook his head. “No, I just remembered something that’s all. Something particularly interesting.”
With that Zeno walked away, but I didn’t move. I didn’t like that strange look in his eye as he left.
Feeling the rain beginning to fall, I finished as much of my work as I could before the heavens opened. By the time I had arrived back home, a storm raged outside. I knew if it held up, Caresa wouldn’t be able to come here. She was out today until late, and I didn’t want her to have to walk to me in the rain.
I lit my fire, made myself something to eat and then walked into my bedroom. I sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the nightstand. My reading was better now. The things Caresa had taught me had helped me more than anything had in my life. I still struggled; I knew that. Writing was still hard. The pen in my hand never felt right, but I practiced every day. It was . . . improving, but not great. I would never dare write anything to her yet. But maybe one day.
I opened the drawer and saw my father’s letter inside. I took it out and laid it on my lap. My hands were damp, and my heart fired a canon in my chest when I looked down at the envelope, and after focusing on it for a while, saw my father’s writing.
I saw and read my father’s writing.
I choked on a sob when, for the first time, I understood what these once-jumbled letters said. They spelled my name. On my lap, before me, was my father’s writing, spelling my name.
“Papa,” I whispered, running the tip of my finger over the cursive lettering. “I read my name,” I added, as though he could hear me. “I’ve . . . I’ve met someone, Papa.” I smiled through the tears that filled my eyes as I brought up Caresa’s face in my mind. “She taught me that I wasn’t slow after all. My brain just works differently to most. And she’s helping me, Papa. I can read some now. It’s slow going, and at times I get frustrated, but I can see the words better. Caresa has helped me learn to read.”
I brushed the falling tears from my cheeks, and the letter in my hand shook. I wanted to read it, I wanted to finally know what was inside, but . . . I took a deep breath. I wasn’t ready yet. I knew that. The letter was long, and my reading wasn’t perfect yet. When I read my father’s last words to me, I wanted to be able to read them without having to concentrate on each and every word.
And if I was being honest, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. This letter was the final thing my father would ever say to me. Even though he’d been gone for all of these months, I treasured this letter. Because after this . . . there would be no more him. He would be truly gone.
Visions of his last few hours filled my head, and I couldn’t breathe . . .
I walked to his bed and sat on the edge. The cancer had ravaged his body. He had always been small, but now his slight frame was withered and weak. His dark eyes that had always been so bright were dull and tired. He could barely lift his hand to hold onto mine.
His breathing was slow and labored, and the doctor had told me it would be soon. My father hadn’t wanted to die in hospital. He had wanted to come home and pass on to the next life on his land. This land was everything to him.
He was everything to me.
His hand trembled in mine as I held it tightly.
He coughed. “How did . . . the work go today? Is . . . everything almost . . . ready for the planting in the . . . spring?”
“Yes, Papa,” I replied, reaching out to prop his pillows higher under his back when he began to cough and struggle to breathe. “Everything will be good. I have planned everything just as you taught me. We will bring in a good harvest this year.”
My father’s eyes seemed to glaze with sorrow. “You will bring in a good harvest, Achille. This year it is all down to you.”
A pit carved in my stomach and a hole burrowed in my heart. I nodded my head when my words failed me. I didn’t want to lose him, I didn’t want to say goodbye, but he was too sick. I didn’t want him suffering anymore.
I looked at the picture my father held in his other hand, tucked safely against his side. My mother. My mother smiling to the camera as she stood next to her horse. She had just won a dressage championship, and anyone could see in her face that she was happy.
“She will be the one to greet me,” my father said, clearly seeing me staring at the picture of the woman I never knew. “There is no one else who I would have welcoming me home but her.” My father smiled, tears filling his eyes. “I imagine heaven to be much like our small vineyard at Bella Collina. A place where I can still tend the vines as your mother rides in the paddock behind me, dancing her horse to the sound of Verdi.”
I squeezed his hand; my sorrow was too much of a barrier for my words. My father tuned his face to me. “And I will tell her of her son. I will tell her of the man he became and how proud she should be of him. How proud I am of him. A good man who has a big heart. A man who is kind and caring, and the best winemaker I ever knew.”
“Papa,” I whispered sadly.
“It is true, Achille. You have surpassed anything I could have taught you. You are more talented and natural at this life than any man I’ve ever known.” My father shifted and gripped my hand as tightly as he could—his touch was nothing, proving how weak he truly was.
“Achille, when I am gone, you must go out more. You are tied to this land just as surely as I am, but I also had your mother and you. This life is hard at times, and you have the ability to love so deeply. There is a woman out there for you, son. Your split-apart, the woman your soul will remember, the one you will love your whole life.” He tugged me closer. “Promise me, Achille. Promise me you will live.”
“I promise.”
“And learn to read and write. Challenge yourself to learn. You love literature. You love books. And I think . . . I think I have sheltered you too much. I should have insisted you got the help you needed. I should have insisted the king came through on his word.”
My father coughed again, but this time, true fear ran through me. It was worse than before, and I could see him fighting to stay conscious. But he never let go of my hand. Even as his eyes rolled, fighting sleep, he said, “You live a lonely life, Achille. And that is no way to be. When . . . when you find her, be sure you fight for her. Promise me . . . promise me . . .”
“I promise,” I choked out, and that answer brought a smile to my father’s face. As his eyes closed, for what would be the final time, he whispered, “Your mother will smile when I tell her that, son . . . your mother will smile . . .”
As I came back to the present, tears were streaming down my face. A few hours later, with me sitting by his side, my father had taken his last breath and joined my mother, his missing half.
I had sat with him awhile after that, unable to move from his side. I knew when I moved that it would mean he was truly gone. And I wasn’t sure I could face the world without him in it. I wasn’t sure what our small cottage would feel like without his music, his coffee, his voice reading aloud from his precious books.
Then, weeks later, my father’s attorney brought me a small inheritance check from a pension I didn’t even know he had, and a single handwritten letter.
The letter I was still too scared to read.
Taking a deep breath, I stared out at the torrential rain beyond the window. I placed the letter back in its drawer to read another day. I stood from the bed, my father’s passing still so clear in my mind, and hated the silence that filled my empty cottage. Every day, for the last five days, I would work, then Caresa would come to me at night.
I was no longer alone.
Yet today, I felt it. The storms and rain came harder in this region during this time of year, and there was a good chance of snow toward Christmas. Caresa and I had decided that on days like today, she should not come to me so late at night. As I checked the window again, seeing the rain had not yet let up, I knew she wouldn’t.
But I needed to see her. The memory of my father’s last hours, and Zeno’s strange arrival at my vineyard today, had set my mind racing.
And I didn’t want to be alone.
I threw on my boots and headed to the door. A white rose lay on the side table in the living room. I had retrieved it today for when Caresa came to me tonight.
She wouldn’t be coming, so I would take it to her.
Tucking the rose into my shirt, I stepped out into the rain. Within minutes I was drenched, so I walked, not bothering to run, along the dark track toward Caresa’s rooms. She had told me which rooms were hers, and that a private balcony led straight to her door.
I arrived at the stairs of her balcony unseen and climbed my way to her door. Through the slightly open drapes, in the dull lamplight, I saw Caresa, sleeping in a large four-poster bed. She was so beautiful that I didn’t even care if the rain had soaked me through. It had been worth it just to see her like this.
Lifting my hand, I tapped on the glass of the door. I was quiet, so as not to draw attention, but loud enough that it would hopefully rouse Caresa from sleep. Caresa’s dark eyes fluttered open and fell in the direction of the tapping—they fell directly on me.
She blinked in confusion before a wide smile graced her lips, and she leaped from the bed. She padded over to the door and pulled back the drape. I gazed at her through the glass. She was wearing a short silk nightdress, and, even with her usually perfect hair in slight disarray, she was flawless. I couldn’t believe she was mine.
The lock turned on the door, and Caresa opened it quietly, a look of disbelief on her face. Before she could speak, I reached into my now-sopping shirt and brought out the rose. It was wet too, the petals limp. I shrugged as I handed it over. “It looked better before the rain.” I couldn’t help the small smile that pulled on my lips when Caresa covered her mouth to mute her sudden laugh.
She took the flower and held it to her chest. “I love it,” she whispered. “Limp or not.”
Reaching down with her free hand, she took hold of mine and guided me inside. I ducked into her room, and my eyes widened as I took in the size. This was just her bedroom, yet it was at least twice the size of my entire cottage. Paintings in gold frames adorned the walls, and the rich hardwood floors were covered in expensive rugs.
Caresa ducked her head. “Achille?”
I glanced down at my wet clothing. Caresa tried to coax me forward, but I stayed in my place. “I’m soaking,” I said, backing toward the door. “This room . . . I should go. I just wanted to see you and give you the rose.” I dropped my head. “I . . . I missed you tonight.”
“Hey,” Caresa said and placed her hands on my face. “You’re not leaving. You just got here.” She glanced behind us to a set of doors that I assumed must lead to yet another room. “The doors are locked from inside. No one can come in. No one ever comes in anyway. We won’t be caught.”
I felt out of place in this room, in this mansion. In all the years I had lived on the land, I had never once been inside. Other winemakers had been here, at dinners and such, but my father and I had never been invited.
“My clothes are too wet. I don’t want to mess up the room,” I said. Rainwater was already pooling at my feet.
Caresa glanced down at the expanding puddle and stepped closer. “Then let’s get you out of them.”
I followed her to the bathroom. Like her bedroom, it was opulent and extravagant, all white marble and gold finishes. I stopped beside the bathtub, and Caresa placed a towel on the floor. I stepped onto the plush white towel and shook my head. Water dripped down my face. “What is it?” Caresa asked as her hands began unsnapping the buttons on my shirt.
“Nothing,” I said hoarsely as she peeled my shirt from my back and discarded it in the tub. Her rooms, although vast, were warm. Her gentle hands fell to the waistband on my jeans. She snapped open the modified button, pulled down the zipper, then pushed the jeans down my legs until I was naked. Her hands ran up the damp skin of my legs, my waist and my stomach. I hissed as she leaned in and pressed a single kiss to the middle of my chest.
She took another towel and dried every inch of my bare skin. And as she did, I couldn’t stop staring at her face. If I hadn’t already known she loved me, I would have known in that moment. The way she silently cared for me. The way she cherished my body. The way she rose onto her tiptoes and ruffled the towel through my wet hair. She took the towel off my head and smoothed back my hair that had fallen in front of my face. “There,” she said reverently. “Now I can see those beautiful blue eyes I adore so much.”
God, I loved her too.
She tied another dry towel around my waist, took my hand and led me to her bed. It was huge, twice the size of my bed. When I had arrived at her door tonight and seen her sleeping, all I could think was that she looked so small. The woman who owned my heart drowning in a sea of white.
Caresa climbed in and held up the comforter for me to climb in too. I dropped the towel and shuffled forward until I was in her arms. I closed my eyes as my head lay over her chest.
Her heart beat quickly.
“Is everything okay?” she asked as she stroked her hand over my forehead.
I held her a little closer. “I needed to see you. I . . .” I swallowed, trying to chase away the remaining sadness. “I kept thinking of my father tonight . . . of when he died.” Caresa held her breath. It was the first time I had ever mentioned his passing to her. “I kept thinking of things he had said. I kept thinking of how weak and frail he was.” I sucked in a quick breath. “I . . . I needed you. I . . . I didn’t want to be alone . . . not tonight.”
“Achille,” Caresa whispered, shifting on the bed until she lay on her pillow opposite me. She held my hand in the space between us. Her grip on my fingers was iron tight. “Then I’m happy you came,” she said and bowed her head to lay a kiss over my knuckles. In an instant, I felt better. Just being beside her, being in her presence, was all the balm my soul needed to heal.
“I’m glad I came too.” I looked around the room. “It’s good to see where you stay when you’re not with me.”
“You have never been in the mansion?”
“No.” I shook my head and couldn’t help the smile that appeared on my lips. “I feel very out of place here. I’m afraid I’ll break something priceless.”
Caresa shifted closer still, her warm body pressing against mine. “The only thing in this room that is priceless to me is you. So you don’t have to worry.”
“I love you.” I brought my lips against hers.
“I love you,” Caresa said when she pulled away.
We lay there in silence for a while, content to just stare at each other.
“The prince came to see me today,” I said.
The shock was evident on Caresa’s face. “Zeno came to your vineyard?”
I nodded. “He said he wanted to get to know the winemakers on his land more. Wanted to understand the products better.” I thought back to us sharing a coffee, of how awkward he was. “He seemed different to when we were children. The same in some ways, but . . . different.”
Caresa’s brow furrowed. “When you were children? You knew Zeno as a child?”
Exhaling a long breath, I said, “He was my best friend. Zeno was the only friend I ever really had. He would come to Bella Collina in the summer, and we would play on the tracks and in the nearby woods. We would fish and ride bikes.” I shrugged. “Then, one day, he just stopped coming around. I asked my father if I could come to the mansion and ask where he was, why he didn’t want to be my friend anymore, but my father told me to leave it be.” I blinked away the memory. “I never spoke to Zeno again until today. He took me by surprise. I never thought I’d ever speak to him again in my life.”
“You were best friends?” I could hear the disbelief in her soft voice.
“Yes. My only friend . . . until you.”
Caresa’s eyes glossed over. Then she looked away and said, “I never knew you knew Zeno, Achille. You never said.”
“Because I don’t know him anymore. We were children. He left the estate for Florence, and I never had any contact with him again . . . until today.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “But I am thankful to him.”
“Why?”
“Because he brought you to me. He left you here on my estate, and God made it so we would cross paths. So although I don’t know him anymore, I am thankful to him.”
Caresa’s lips found mine. When we broke from the kiss, she said, “I can’t believe he came to see you. I’m glad. I’m glad he is trying.”
“I guess so.” I laid my head back over her chest. My arm wrapped around her waist and, just as my eyes began to close, pulled by sleep, I saw an old book on her nightstand. A book I knew very well. “Plato’s Symposium,” I said and felt Caresa still.
“I have been reading it,” she confessed. I caught the embarrassment in her tone. But all it did was make my heart explode.
“Mi amore?” I asked.
“Mm?”
“Read to me,” I requested. She didn’t move for several seconds, but then she leaned over to the table and retrieved the book.
I closed my eyes as Caresa’s soothing voice lulled me to sleep. As I drifted off, I thought of the room she stayed in, of the expensive nightgown she wore, and wondered if I was enough.
But then, as she spoke of jealous gods and drifting souls, I let all my worries float away. She was here with me now. That was all that mattered.
The issues we had to face would still be there tomorrow. So for now I let her words wash over me, until I fell asleep, completely content.