She squinted at the bright sunlight when she emerged from the building and rooted around in her purse for sunglasses. The Vintner International corporate offices sat on the edge of a nondescript strip mall, but when exiting the building, she faced the ocean. Tabitha took a deep breath of the fresh, salty breeze and felt a new sense of freedom fill her lungs.

“How did it go in there?”

She looked up from the mess in her purse to see Mark sitting on the bench on the edge of the path overlooking the rocky shore. She sat down next to him and didn’t speak for a moment.

Finally, she looked at him. “Are you asking me as a friend or as a reporter?”

“Do you care anymore?”

She thought that over. “I guess not. It would be nice if you don’t print when I curse, though.”

He laughed and raised his coffee toward her. “Noted. I’ll make you sound as pure as Alaskan snow.”

“It went fine. I mean, I’m professionally and financially ruined, and I have probably reduced my ex-husband and the entire business he built to ashes. But other than that, yeah. I feel pretty good.”

Mark put his hand over hers. “He reduced it to ashes. Don’t ever forget that. You told the truth about how he ruined things.”

She nodded. “I know. I was mostly kidding.”

“What are you doing with the rest of your day? Do I need to keep a suicide watch over you?”

She laughed. “This afternoon I’m heading over to El Zop to talk to the staff and start working on the reorganization. We’re still working through the buyout, but Royal hasn’t shown his face around there too much lately, so most of the work is falling on me. I’m just trying to keep my head above water.”

“What do you think will happen next?”

“My main goal is to make sure the employees are taken care of. Maybe you should come with me and give them that same pep talk. You could tell them about how it’s not my fault.”

“You don’t need me for that. I think you are a woman who can handle the truth.”

“My old mailman would disagree with you.”

“Possibly.”

“I really ought to send him a fruit basket or something, don’t you think?”

“I think maybe you ought to leave that poor guy alone.”

Tabitha laughed. “You are probably right. There is only so much trauma an average man can take.”

“What do you think will happen to the most average man we know?”

“Gabrielle had already made copies of every document in the company’s history, so by the time he realized I was researching, it was too late for him to try to shred any evidence. We put a rock-solid termination agreement in place for the winery when I married him. I thought it was so silly at the time—why would a happy couple need an exit plan? But I ignored that concern, just like all others.”

“In retrospect, it was a wise move.”

“Yep. He thought it would protect him. Turned out it protected me.”

“Can you run the winery yourself?”

“Yes, because we have an amazing staff. I’ve promoted Emil to winemaker, which is a great move. He’s got impeccable taste and was wasted as production manager. I promoted my sister to Operations Manager. And I have a few investors.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Cori Melbourne, from Old World New School. She’s been looking for a new home base and has some great ideas for importing a lot of new product from around the world and turning our tasting room into more of a showcase for all kinds of wines. I’m really excited about her ideas.”

“She’ll be a great addition to your team. Who else?”

“The great Jillie Jones Lawson is another investor.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Not bad, Rock and Roll Somm. That will give you a whole lot of street cred. You’ll be able to handle her?”

Tabitha paused before replying. “It’s going to be interesting. Before, I would have said no, I can’t handle her. But things have changed lately. She’s different toward me, somehow. Still a pain in my ass, but differently.”

“She’s going to love it when you start naming wines after Black Sabbath songs. Who else?”

“Well-ll. As a matter of fact, I have a foreign investor.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It is a fact.”

“Some wealthy venture capitalist, I presume?”

“No. An Italian winemaker.”

“Italian? What do they know about wine?

“It turns out, they know a whole lot,” Tabitha replied. “Much more than I do. And this particular winemaker is just starting to get some recognition on the international stage, but doesn’t want to expand his home operation too much.”

Mark grinned at her. “I’m glad you talked him into doing that. It will be really nice to get his wines locally.”

Tabitha dropped her cagey manner and smiled back at him. “I didn’t talk him into anything, actually. He suggested it. His uncle Alessandro was really pushing him to expand to the States, and Giovanni didn’t want to. This was a perfect compromise. A small expansion, with someone he trusts. He can distribute wine through Cori. Emil’s staying with him in Treviso right now, in fact, so he can get to know Giovanni’s style. Emil’s family is French, and they have really similar philosophies about wine. It’s all about passion and art and love and romance, blah, blah, blah.”

“Gross.”

“I know, it’s so disgusting.” They looked at each other and laughed.

“And you’ll do what, exactly?”

“Own a winery, and let people I trust run it. Work as Cori’s full-time rep in Italy.”

“Have twelve Italian babies?”

“It’s not my fault that Italian men adore me.”

He grinned and stood up from the bench. She looked up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun behind him.

“Where the hell are you going? We are bonding here.”

“I have a story to write. One with a happy ending. You have a business to save.”

Tabitha slumped back against the bench and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Fine, then. Leave me alone. I upend the entire wine world, and you don’t even have the decency to sit here and worship me.”

He tossed his coffee cup into the nearby trash can and gazed out at the sea. For a moment they remained in silence, letting the sound of the pounding surf wash over them, lost in their thoughts.

“Listen,” he finally said, “don’t leave town without saying goodbye. Liz will kill me if I let you run off to Italy without coming over for dinner.”

“Oh, right, like I ever miss dinner. I’m not going anywhere yet. My to-do list is rather long, thanks to you. In case you didn’t notice.”

He smiled and nodded. “I noticed. But I think you’ll figure it out. After that, I’m not sure we’ll be seeing too much of you. Not when there are Italian winemakers who want your attention.”

She watched him walk to his car with a strange mixture of gratitude and surprise. Everything had changed since the day they’d first met. She thought Mark McClintock was in her life to one small role—to prop up her career, to stroke her ego, and give her a platform for her ambition. His article was the first step to a whole new life, but not at all the way she’d expected.

She grinned and waved at him as he drove away. She would see him and Liz, a lot. She would make a point of it. Ultimately, his dismantling of her world had led her to the truth. She had come out of this ordeal with only a handful of people who knew her, the real Tabitha, with all of her flaws and furies. She intended to cling to those people for the rest of her life.

She watched the waves for a few more minutes. She had a lot to do today. Mark was right: she had a business to save, and the road would not be easy. She’d need to devise a marketing campaign to get in front of what was sure to be a terrible backlash to Royal’s cheating. She’d have to show the team that she would put in the work and the long hours to rebuild their reputation.

But in the end, she’d change the winery into one that was run by people who weren’t blinded by ambition and greed and ego, but by people who cared only about great wine. Someone like her, before she met Royal Hamilton, who she no longer cared enough about to nickname anymore.

Because if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that she didn’t belong here anymore. Her body and brain may live here for a while longer, but her heart was around the world, in a tiny village in Treviso, where the air smelled like oranges and basil and the days moved slowly, like honey.

“You can have the whole world, Royal Hamilton,” she murmured to herself. “But I get Italy.”

She smiled and stood up from the bench, stretching a bit and enjoying the way her limbs moved against the warm air. For the first time in her life, she was in complete control.