“She is only there for a few days with her mother. Her father is here, at the mansion.” His face betrayed the stress he was feeling. “He is here to try and help with Savona Wines too. To see how we can gain back what buyers and business we have lost.”
“It is bad?”
Zeno laughed, but it was forced. “I don’t know wine. It is my own fault, I know, but I find myself lost. I . . . it is incredibly hard doing this alone.”
I glanced up at Zeno and saw him already watching me. His expression made a strange feeling burst in my chest. Something akin to fondness. Something I imagined siblings shared, something reminiscent of the closeness he and I had once had, many moons ago.
“It is not easy doing anything alone,” I said, averting my gaze to stare into the unlit fire. “I didn’t realize how alone I was until Caresa came bursting into my life.” I smiled, remembering the day she appeared in my vineyard, all flustered and fresh from her run. “She made me want more from my life.” I sighed. “She made me want her. And only her, forever.” I risked a glance at Zeno. His eyes were wide. “I don’t imagine you know what that feels like. I have heard you don’t want for female attention.” Something flashed across his face, something I couldn’t recognize.
“Just because one is always surrounded, it doesn’t mean one is not alone.”
“You’re rich, and always have people at your beck and call. What would you know of being lonely?”
Zeno turned to me this time and truly looked into my eyes. “Wealth is no protection from loneliness. It is very easy to be surrounded by many people yet feel like you are caught alone in the rain. I—” He stopped himself from whatever he was about to say and sat back in his chair. When he had composed himself, he said, “I think the only time I never felt alone in this world was when we were friends.” He smiled, and this time it was genuine. “Do you remember when you fell into the fishing lake? I ended up jumping in after you when I thought you had drowned.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory.
“Your father was so mad at you for snapping his fishing rod when you ended up having to help me out. Do you remember?” Zeno asked.
“I do,” I said. “He banned me from that lake for a month.”
Zeno wiped his eyes and then shook his head. The levity drifted away, replaced by a heavy silence once again. I had a million questions floating around my head, but I struggled to speak even one. Then Zeno spoke for me, and answered about a dozen.
“I spoke to my Zio Roberto this week. I went to Florence. I kept to myself for a week, and thought of nothing else but your father’s letter and our fight. I . . .” He took in a deep breath. “I kept replaying that night in my head. I was so angry. I was hurt, but then” —he leaned forward and rubbed his forehead— “Zio Roberto confirmed everything. He tried to lie to me at first, but I saw through his deception.” His eyes met mine. They looked sad. “It was him, Achille. Zio Roberto. He was the one who persuaded my father not to publicly acknowledge you. My father wanted you. Even when my mother left because she found out, he wanted you. But it was Roberto who told him what was at stake. Your mother was not of noble birth. He . . . he thought you a bastard and claimed you would sully the Savona name.”
Pain hit me with the force of a thunderbolt. He thought you a bastard . . . sully the Savona name.
“I hit him too,” Zeno said, and my face whipped to his. He shrugged. “I have never fought in my life, yet I hit two people in the space of a week.” He smirked, but it quickly fell. “My father wanted you, Achille. Roberto confessed to me that my father never forgave him for persuading him otherwise, but as you grew older, he thought it was too late.
“He confirmed that the king would come and see you when you were a child, just so he could know you in some way. He asked your father not to tell you the truth so the risk of gossip was squashed.” Zeno sagged in his seat. “But you see, it’s not even about my father’s pain. He was a grown man who should have fought harder for you. It . . . it was that they kept the fact you were my brother from me. They kept it secret, that my best friend shared my blood. And when they sent me away and I protested, they told me that you were not good enough to be in my life any longer. They took you away, my . . . brother . . . to protect their reputations.”
I listened to every word he said, quietly breaking further and further apart. But the only word my head picked out was “brother”. Brother, brother, brother . . .
He had called me his brother.
He would have wanted me as his brother.
“I . . .” My whisper was barely audible. “I would have . . . liked you as a brother too.”
I kept my eyes facing the ground, but I knew Zeno was staring at me. I could feel his eyes burning through me. Eventually, I lifted my head and saw the glint of happiness in his expression. He coughed to clear his throat. When neither of us rushed to speak, he eventually said, “I have never seen anyone in my life pine for someone like I saw Caresa pine for you this week.”
At the mention of Caresa, all the pain I had momentarily staved off came back with vengeance. I fought to breathe as my lungs constricted. “I . . . I missed her too. More than I can explain.”
Zeno sighed. “You love her too?”
This time there was no hesitation in my reply. “More than you could know.” I squared my shoulders. “I won’t be without her. I came back for her. Even if you renounce me and take away my land, I won’t be leaving without her. Never again.”
I braced for an argument, for Zeno to tell me their marriage was set and there was nothing he could do. But instead he nodded his head. “I know. And don’t worry, Caresa and I won’t be walking down the aisle. Her father only had to watch her fall apart and witness my personal hurt to see that this marriage would never work. So I told him everything.”
“You told him about me?” I felt fear, real fear at the thought of Caresa’s father disliking me. I knew how much she cherished their relationship.
“And so did Caresa. He never knew. He was one of my father’s closest friends, yet he never knew about you. He was angry.”
I felt my face blanch. “He doesn’t want his daughter with me?”
“No,” Zeno said vehemently. “He was angry that you were never acknowledged. He was livid with Roberto. And then, when he thought back to those days, he blamed himself for being a bad friend. He said he knew that something was wrong with my” —Zeno cast me a wary glance— “our father. He never knew why my mother left. And he never pushed him for answers.”
I didn’t know what to do with that. Caresa’s father thought I should have been acknowledged as Santo’s son. Did that mean . . . would he mind if . . . ?
“Society expects a marriage between the Savonas and Acardis on New Year’s Eve.” I stilled. “That can still happen. Only the Savona groom would be different.” My pulse raced and my eyes widened.
Zeno shrugged. “I would have to publicly announce you as a Savona, of course. And I would have to do that soon.” Zeno lifted his hand and, after some hesitation, laid it on my shoulder. “I would acknowledge you as a prince of Italy. I would acknowledge you as my brother. Achille, I would announce you as part of House Savona.”
My heart was racing out of control as I stared at Zeno. I wasn’t prepared for this. I knew nothing of being a prince. All I knew was wine. All I knew was . . . “Then you must also announce me as the maker of the Bella Collina merlot.”
Zeno’s eyebrows drew together in confusion.
“I know wine, Zeno. I may not know the business side yet, but . . .” I felt full with pride, confident that what I was about to say was the truth. “But I can learn. I have been working on my reading and writing. And I am . . . I am getting better. You said the buyers and shareholders wanted the Savona-Acardi marriage to happen to secure the business. Well, we can also tell them that I am the winemaker of your most sought-after merlot. Tell them that the houses will still unite, and I am going to help with the business too.”
“You would do that?” Zeno asked, his voice thick with emotion. “You would help me with the wines? The business? You would partner with me?”