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Alex woke up early the next morning and took a shower, dressed, and quietly made her way to the kitchen. Strong coffee and the faint smell of some kind of cheese hung in the air along with the scent of a meat, perhaps sausage. She grabbed a container of fresh yogurt out of the refrigerator and scooped it into one of the beautiful dessert bowls along with some fresh berries that she had purchased on her grocery trip the day before. She sliced off a piece of fresh bread and made a cup of coffee from what was left in the coffee maker.
After eating, she wandered across the driveway to see what was going on at the vineyard. She could hear the brothers speaking to each other in Italian from the fields, but Nicolas did not appear to be with them. She entered the building and found Maria working on the computer behind the counter. Maria’s face brightened, and she smiled at Alex, a warm welcoming smile.
“Buongiorno,” she said cheerfully. “Would you like another lesson?” she asked and motioned toward the computer.
“Sì,” Alex said with a smile. “I’d like to learn the computer as well as some Italian. If I’m going to live in Italy, I should know how to speak the language, right?”
Maria nodded. “Sì, sì, you will learn it in time. It will come naturally if we all try to work with you in every day talking.”
Alex wasn’t so sure about that, but she guessed that diving in headfirst was one way to learn.
For the next hour, the two women went over the information on the screen. Alex learned the words she needed to know to work the sales and inventory software, and Maria helped her learn how to say “May I help you” and other phrases and sentences that she would use most frequently.
“Do not worry, I will never leave you alone,” Maria assured her. “At least not until you are ready.” Alex believed that could be years.
They heard a car pull into the driveway and both looked up when the door opened, and a woman, around Alex’s age, dressed at the height of Italian fashion walked in, her entire demeanor commanding attention and respect. She looked and even smelled like an aristocrat, not that Alex had been around any aristocrats. This woman gave off an air of importance, and Alex was intrigued by her while at the same time feeling completely inadequate in her capri pants and cute, matching t-shirt.
Maria smiled, but Alex had already gotten to know her well enough to know that the smile was not genuine. “Buongiorno, Evangelina,” Maria said without the warmth that Alex had come to know and recognize.
The woman did not reply to the greeting but proceeded to ask a question with an air of superiority. Maria answered, and the woman went to the office door, opened it, and went in without knocking. She closed the door behind her, and Alex could feel Maria tense. Alex raised an eyebrow in question.
“Evangelina Lombardi,” Maria said with a shake of her head. “She has been after Nicolas for years. I’m not sure if it’s him or the vineyard that interests her more.” Maria wrinkled her nose in disgust. “She does not, how do you say, have his best interests in her heart?”
“Hmm,” Alex leaned toward the door to see if she could hear any of the conversation going on behind it. She turned back to Maria. “And how does Nicolas feel about her?”
Maria shrugged. “I do not know. He does not ever talk about her to me or tell me anything, but they do spend a lot of time together. Everyone says they are a couple, and he does not deny it. It puzzles me. Her family and Nicolas’ family go back very far, to the War or before, I think. Her madre's family were butchers, but her padre has a large fortune.”
“Funny,” Alex said, “I didn’t get the impression that he was seeing anyone. Other than you perhaps, before I knew you were his cousin, of course!”
Maria spit out a loud laugh. “Boy, were you on the wrong road!”
“Wrong track,” Alex corrected her, “but yeah, I guess I was. Entirely on the wrong track.” She thought about the way Nicolas had touched her arm the night before. She had dismissed it as nothing more than a small truce, which it obviously was.
After a few minutes, Evangelina and Nicolas emerged from the office. Alex noticed how stiff Nicolas seemed to be while Evangelina couldn’t stop touching his arm, his shoulder, his back, as they walked toward the counter. Nicolas and Maria had a brief exchange of words, and Alex pretended not to notice the way Evangelina sized her up. Finally, she turned toward the woman and reached out her hand.
“Alexandra O’Donnell,” she said. “I’m Nicolas’ business partner.”
Evangelina stared at the outstretched hand for a moment and then raised her eyes to glare at Alex. “Non capisco,” she said coldly before placing her hand on Nicolas’ back and practically pushing him out the door.
“Humph,” Maria scoffed. “She understood you perfectly. She is just a, what word would you say?”
“And I understand you perfectly, Maria. My thoughts exactly.” The two women watched through the window as the fancy, metallic blue, Alfa Romeo Princess glided out of the driveway. Alex hoped she didn’t have to win over the snotty Evangelina in order to win over Nicolas. She had enough on her hands already.
Nicolas hardly heard anything that Evangelina said on the ride to Verona. She was hosting a cocktail party for a visiting celebrity making a movie in the city, and she wanted Nicolas’ opinion on the placement of the bar on the terrazzo in her backyard. Nicolas had no idea why she needed him to tell her to put the bar in the same location she always put it, but he wasn’t in the mood to argue with her, and it gave him an excuse to leave the vineyard for a while. He stared out the window at the fields of grapevines and olive trees and found himself wondering what Alex’s home was like back in America. Did she live in the countryside like he did, or did she live in a city? He knew that she was a recent graduate from a college in Baltimore, but had she always lived there, or was there another place she called home? And why couldn’t he get her off of his mind? Perhaps a Google search later would satisfy his curiosity and make thoughts of her go away.
“Niki, did you hear a word I just said?”
Nicolas brought his attention back to Evangelina. “I am sorry, my mind must have wandered off. What were you saying?”
Evangelina pouted and stared at the road ahead. “No, I will not repeat,” she said after a moment. “You are not paying me any attention today.” She puckered her lip out farther.
Nicolas reached over and patted her leg. “I am sorry,” he said. “Please, I have a lot on my mind these days.”
“The woman living in your house? Your ‘business partner’?” she said the phrase like one would have said “Your rotten fish,” or “Your ex-wife.”
“Yes, Alex is the root of it,” Nicolas admitted. “I have to rethink how I do everything, how I can give her some authority without giving up control. It has been very confusing and frustrating for me.”
“I see nothing confusing. Just get rid of her. Send her back to America.”
“I would if I could, believe me, but I have gone over every document and looked at every possible loophole, and I am afraid I am stuck with her.” Nicolas sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He looked at Evangelina with a pitiful gaze.
“It is okay, my love, I know how to make you forget about your new ‘partner.’” She reached across the car and put her hand on his thigh. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye with a sultry smile and moved her hand upward.
Nicolas reached down, picked up her hand, and placed it back on the steering wheel. “Now, now, Eva, you do not want to wreck the new car Papà just bought you.”
The pout reappeared, and Evangelina sneered at him as she pressed down the accelerator and sped up the car. “Niki, you do know how to ruin a girl’s fun.”
Nicolas turned back toward the window and wondered what was wrong with him. Every hot-blooded male for at least 30 kilometers would give his right arm to go to bed with Eva. They’d been together off and on for years now, and he knew that Eva was ready to make a commitment. He thought he was, too, but suddenly, her touch didn’t excite him like it normally did. Maybe he was coming down with something.
Maria and Alex sat behind the counter and ate the caprese salad that Maria fixed for them. Alex was nervous the entire time that Maria was in the villa, but nobody called or came into the winery, and Alex appreciated Maria’s trust in her. Still, she was happy that Maria returned quickly.
“So, Maria,” Alex began tentatively, “yesterday, I was exploring a little.”
The phone rang, and Alex was relieved to have the interruption. Maria took an order from a restaurant in Bologna, and Alex watched the transaction, trying to learn the steps as well as the words. When she hung up, Maria turned and looked at Alex expectantly.
Alex continued, “I was up in the barn, and I found something...” she hesitated.
Maria’s expression changed. “Something bad?”
Alex shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Then just tell.”
Taking a deep breath, Alex began, “I found a journal. I think it’s Signora’s, Prozia Isabella. I can’t read it, but I typed the first paragraph into my laptop, and I’m sure she wrote it when she was quite young, a teenager perhaps.”
Maria sat in silence as she thought about the information. After a few minutes, she spoke. “And you want to read it?”
Alex nodded, “I do, but only if you, and Nicolas of course, think it’s okay. I should ask him right? I should see if it’s okay with him or if he wants to read it himself, shouldn’t I?”
“I think, yes, you should ask. It is not my say, but his. I think if you do not ask him, he will say you kept information from him again. I do not know if he will care what it says, but he will want to know you are reading it.”
“I thought so, too. You know him so much better than I do, and I trust you. What should I say? Will he be angry that I didn’t go to him right away?”
Maria rolled her lips together and thought about it. “I do not think so. Not if you go to him today and say that you forgot about it yesterday, and then he was gone today when you remembered. I think he might like to know what you find, but then again, he may say it was written so long ago that it does not matter any more.”
Alex nodded and thought about what his reaction might be. After a few minutes, Maria inquired, “What did it say? The paragraph that you read?”
“That she had met the man she was going to marry.” Alex smiled as she remembered the feeling she had when she read the words.
Maria smiled, too. “How romantic,” she said. “Did it say anything else?”
“Not much,” Alex told her. “It was written during the War, and she said that the world was falling to pieces around her.”
“Si, then she was a teenager, for she left toward the end of the War when she was just seventeen or eighteen.” Maria’s eyes lit up. “In fact, she left with a boy. I wonder if he is the one.”
“A boy, or a man?”
“Well, they were both young, as I said, not more than seventeen, at least Isabella. I don’t know much about the man, or boy. I suppose everyone seemed older than they were during those years. Nicolas could tell you more. She was his family, not mine.”
Alex thought about how horrible it must have been to live in Europe during that time. She closed her eyes and remembered the Signora she knew. She tried to imagine her as the teenaged girl in the journal. They just seemed so different. She needed to know more, to know how this naïve young Isabella became the elegant and wise Signora.
“I will show it to Nicolas tonight,” she said. “Maybe together, we can learn about the woman who threw us into this mess.”
“If Evangelina lets him out of her grasp,” Maria said, shaking her head. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t think I have any influence over Nicolas at all.”
“Not yet, perhaps, but I think that will change.” Maria stood and took Alex’s plate. Alex watched her go outside to take the dishes back to the villa and thought about the two different sides of Nicolas she had seen, particularly his angry side. I don’t know about that, Maria. I’m not sure I could ever have the influence over Nicolas that Evangelina has, or if I even want to.
It was late afternoon when Nicolas barged into the winery looking like he was returning from the trenches of war. He seemed out of breath, his expression hard, his jaw clenched, and his hands curled into fists. He practically snarled at Maria and Alex as he slammed the door behind him.
Maria asked Nicolas a question, and he shook his head and exhaled as he answered. His words were fast and filled with irritation. Maria shook her head, tsked her tongue, and made another comment. Nicolas spat back an answer and retreated to the office, not sparing that door either. The bottles on the wall shook as they had the day Alex first arrived at the vineyard.
Eyes wide, Alex turned to Maria and released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “What was that?”
“You will get used to it. It is the effect Eva has on him.” Maria tried to suppress a smile.
“You really don’t like her,” Alex stated.
Maria shook her head and laughed. “I cannot stand her!”
“Nicolas doesn’t seem overly fond of her either. Why does he put up with her?”
“As I said, the families are old friends, and Eva always gets what she wants. And there is the sex, of course.” Maria laughed at Alex’s shocked expression. “No, really, he says he loves her and everyone says that someday he will marry her, but so far, that has not happened. He is very, I don’t know how to say, strange when it comes to Eva. He does not act like a man in love. I think it is just what he thinks the family expects him to do, but he is taking a long time to do it. Like I told you, he does not talk about her or their relationship to me. And he probably does not talk to his mother either. She would want him happy and not worrying about what is expected.”
“We have an expression in America, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Maybe Nicolas doesn’t think they need to get married if he’s getting everything he wants already, if you know what I mean.”
“I do not know,” Maria said. “Nicolas is a good man. I know you have not seen that yet, but he has been very good to me, and I know that he has a good heart. He would not use Evangelina or anyone for sex or anything else. I truly think he would rather not be with her. He has tried to tell her that maybe they are not right for each other, but she becomes more painful, and he goes back to her.” Alex smiled at Maria’s attempt to speak English and realized just how little effort she was making at learning Italian. At least that would get her mind off of Nicolas and Eva, though she wasn’t sure why she even cared, other than the fact that she did not want to spend the rest of her life sharing a business with that woman. Suddenly, she thought again of the journal and how she wished she could understand it. “I’m guessing this is not a good time to talk to Nicolas about the journal.”
Maria pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No, I would wait. It is best you leave him alone for now.”
Later that afternoon, Luigi and Giovanni came in to tell the ladies goodbye. Maria shut down the computer and gathered her things before bidding Alex a good night and heading home. Alex realized that Nicolas must have snuck out the back door from the office. There hadn’t been any sounds coming from behind the door in quite a while, and a heavy silence fell over the building. Alex turned off the lights and locked the front door before slipping out and walking to the villa.
She ate a quiet dinner alone and wondered where Nicolas was and what he was doing. It wasn’t until she was in bed reading, holding off the temptation to translate more of the journal, that she heard him come upstairs and go to bed. Unable to fall asleep, once she turned out the light, Alex tossed and turned as many thoughts drifted through her mind. How would she ever fit in here? Would Nicolas ever accept her as a partner and friend? Mostly, what secrets might Signora’s journal hold, and did she really want to know them?