“Yes.” I inhaled deeply. “I have hidden away for too long. But . . .” I pulled a stern expression onto my face. “I want to continue making the wine. I want to stay at this estate. To keep Caresa I will do what is required of me, but I will have this. The wine is my life. I need to keep it.”
“Done,” Zeno said and blinked as though he were in shock.
His hand slipped from my shoulder. He got to his feet. He appeared nervous, an emotion I had not seen from him before. Then he cautiously held out his hand. I stared at his outstretched fingers, knowing that if I got to my feet, my old life would be in the past. But then I thought of Caresa, thought of taking her hand in mine in a church, before God, and it was easy. I held out my hand and allowed Zeno to pull me to my feet.
He hesitated for a second, then awkwardly brought me in to his chest. He embraced me for but a moment, then inched back. He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Who would have thought we would be here one day? Brothers. And you, a winemaker turned prince.”
Prince . . . the word circled my head, but it was too big for me to even fathom. “Not me.”
“But you’re ready to take it on, yes?” Zeno asked.
I stilled, looking around the barn that was once my entire life. I sighed in relief. After tonight I would no longer be alone.
I would no longer be alone . . . I had to hold onto that with both hands.
“Achille?” Zeno pressed. “You are ready, aren’t you?”
“I will be,” I said on a steady, fortifying breath. “For her, I will be.”
Zeno smiled widely, every inch an Italian prince. “Good. Because you’re coming with me. There’s a man in the mansion that you need to meet. And you’ll need to ask his permission to marry his daughter.” He slapped my back. “No pressure, brother.”
Brother, I thought again, and this time allowed its sound to fill my heart. Brother, brother, brother . . .
“I feel no pressure,” I said confidently. “I love his daughter with all my heart.” I nudged him like I would do when we were kids. “And I have you by my side pleading my case . . . don’t I?” I asked hesitantly.
“That you do,” Zeno said softly, and we walked in companionable silence from the barn.
As we stepped onto the path that led to the mansion, I tipped my head back and stared at the stars above, knowing they were finally, after all these years, aligning in my favor. “Thank you,” I whispered aloud to them and whoever was watching from above. Then, heart slamming, and without turning to Zeno, I added, “Thank you too . . . brother.”
Zeno held his breath, then let out a long, soul-freeing exhale. And we followed our footsteps to our new life, en route to ask the Duca di Parma for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
And my heart felt full . . .
. . . because I was no longer doing it alone.
Chapter Sixteen
Three days later . . .
Achille
“She is back?” I whispered as I walked into Zeno’s study.
Signor Acardi rose from his chair and nodded his head. “Late last night.” He slowly walked to the window and gazed out at the still-dark sky. “Take a look for yourself.”
I stood beside him and squinted at the distant track. My chest tightened. I couldn’t see her properly, but, in the light of the fading moon, I could make out her silhouette walking down the track to my cottage.
“She goes to look for me?”
Signor Acardi nodded again. “When we arrived she was not the girl I knew.” He sighed. “On my second day here, I couldn’t sleep. I came down to the study to catch on up on some work, and that’s when I saw her. I watched my daughter sneak from her room and follow that track. I had no idea what she was doing, so I followed her. I followed her all the way to your cottage, and then again as she tacked up a horse and set off into the dark. She ended up sitting on a high hill, watching the sunrise with tears running down her face.”
He looked straight at me. “It . . . it broke my heart.”
I closed my eyes as Caresa’s silhouette faded behind a set of trees. “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I said hoarsely.
A hand landed on my shoulder. Then it gently squeezed. “No one has been saved from hurt in the mess Santo has caused. She just wants you, son. There’s no stronger truth than that.”
He let out a small huff of laughter. “You know, Achille, when my daughter first tried your merlot, she was sixteen. We allowed her a drink with her evening meal. Our American friends disapproved, but we are Italian. The minute she tasted it, her eyes widened, and she told me that it was the best wine she had ever tasted. She turned to me and said, ‘Have you met him, Papa? The winemaker?’ I hadn’t, of course. When I told her so, she smiled and said, ‘One day I should like to meet him. I need to meet the man who can create such perfection.’”
I had no words.
“Go.” His hand slipped from my shoulder. “You know you have my blessing.”
I rushed through the mansion to the rooms I had been staying in for the last three days. I retrieved my coat, pushed out of the main door of the house and headed for the track. I slipped my hand in my pocket and ran my fingers over the smooth velvet of the box. Swallowing back my nerves, I pushed forward until I arrived at my cottage. I glanced inside the windows; Caresa wasn’t there. But she had lit the fire—it was like a beacon calling me home.
I ran through my vineyard and jumped the perimeter fence, landing on the path that led the way to the hill. I walked slowly, seeing the sky beginning to lighten, and thought about what I would say. I didn’t know if she would be angry or upset. I didn’t know if I had broken her heart beyond repair.
But I had to try.
As I passed the botanical gardens, a small smile pulled on my lips. I climbed the fence, and as I had been doing for weeks, sneaked into one of the greenhouses and cut a single white rose from its bush. A thorn stuck into my finger, drawing blood. It was apt, I thought. A blood penance for the fact that I had broken Caresa’s heart.
By the time I arrived at the bottom of the hill, I was wrought with nerves. I turned at the sound of a familiar huff and saw Rosa tied up to a tree. Passing the Andalusian with a gentle pat on her neck, I climbed the steep hill, taking a longer route so I would see Caresa before she saw me.
And then I did, and, like a miracle, the constricting, hollow chasm I had felt in my heart for the past week soothed.
For the first time in days, I could actually breathe.
She looked so small as she sat on the cold ground. She looked paler, and she appeared to have lost weight. But it was the sadness that radiated from her huddled form that was truly my undoing. Because I knew she had been devastated by my absence, just as I had been by hers. And I knew that everything my father had done for my mother—his forgiveness of her affair, his acceptance of me—was because he felt this for her. His love was this deep.
Plato had been right. Split-aparts did exist. And they were only whole when each found the other.
A rebel ray of sun burst from behind the hill and kissed Caresa’s face, illuminating her beauty. Needing to feel her in my arms, I stepped forward and whispered, “Mi amore.”
Caresa stilled. She was barely moving as it was, but now her chest froze as she held her breath. She didn’t turn her eyes to me, but I saw her linked hands begin to tremble.
When she didn’t speak, when her eyes closed and her face contorted with pain, I moved before her and dropped to the ground. “Caresa . . .”
Caresa’s lips shook, her eyes squeezed tighter, and only when a choked sob escaped from her mouth did her eyes open again. I stayed still. I didn’t move an inch as those big, beautiful brown eyes searched mine, and tears streamed down her face.
The seconds felt like hours as she remained looking at me as if I were a ghost. My stomach churned with fear, fear that I had left it too late, that by walking away I had lost her forever. But then she launched herself into my arms. Her arms circled my neck, and her grip was iron tight. I held her back, my arms slipping around her waist.
I wanted to speak. I wanted to pour my heart out to her, tell her how much I missed her. But as she cried great, racking sobs, burying her face into my neck, sadness stole my voice. So I just tightened my grip, showing her without words that I had returned for her. That I belonged to her. That she belonged to me.