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I could respect it. Lighting the cigarette, I took a long drag and let the smoke fill my lungs. I didn’t often smoke—maybe one or two cigarettes a day, at most—but for some reason I felt off kilter, out of my element. I needed to relax.
“Can I have one?” Michael said, gesturing to my pack as I started to put it away.
Silently, I offered a cigarette and the lighter.
The tip of the paper flared as Michael inhaled. “Man, that’s good. I rarely get to smoke cigarettes.” He handed me the lighter.
“Why is that?”
“I work in a winery, dude. I can’t have my taste buds dulled by tar and chemicals.”
That made sense, I supposed. “I started smoking when I was trapped on a yacht for a few years.”
“A few years? Holy shit.”
I pulled in another lungful of smoke, held it, then exhaled. “It’s a long story.”
“Listen, Vito. About changing the name of the winery? I’m begging you not to do it. This place has history. My family, my grandfather . . . I mean,please. You can’t do this.”
“As your investor and principal owner, I can and will.”
“Fuck me,” he muttered and took a long drag off his cigarette. His hands were shaking. “I’ve really ruined everything.”
I thought he might start crying again. “Michael, you’re, what? Twenty-five, twenty-six? Your sister is twenty-three. The odds that you two would be able to carry this place alone were astronomical. If I didn’t take over, another investment group or winery would. It’s the nature of the business world. Kill or be killed.”
“It wasn’t that bad. We weren’t making money, but we weren’t much in the red, either. Jesus fucking Christ.” He rubbed his eye with his fingers. “She’s never going to speak to me again.”
“It will take time, but Maggie will accept this.Te lo prometto.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means, I promise you.”
His shoulders drooped as he exhaled. “Let’s keep going. I have to finish preparing for a dinner group coming in an hour.”
We came around a bend and a two-story cottage appeared. Vertical white siding ran along the outside, with giant windows overlooking the vineyards. A black slanted roof covered the top. There were two porches, one on the ground level, and one off the second floor. It wasn’t a palace, but it was a hell of a lot nicer than the B&B.
Michael walked up onto the lower porch and took out his keys. “We built this place for the rental revenue and it’s done fairly well. It’s not booked again until Valentine’s Day, though.” He unlocked the door and went in. I put out my cigarette and followed him inside.
He pointed to the staircase. “There are two bedrooms upstairs. Then we have two smaller cottages that are a five-minute walk away.”
I checked out the interior. Small kitchen, living space. On the walls were snowshoes and fishing poles, plus a few wine-related paintings in a not-so subtle attempt at decorating. At least the ceilings were high and the light was nice.
On the second floor I discovered two small bedrooms, each not much bigger than a stateroom on my brother’s yacht. I knocked on the wall between the rooms. Hollow. I could knock this wall down and make one big bedroom. The main bathroom,which was nice, had a large walk-in shower and a sky light. At least this room didn’t need changes.
Michael was scrolling on his phone when I returned to the first floor. “This is fine. I’ll have my guards bring our things over today.”
“Okay. You might want to stop by the market, too. I don’t think there’s any food in here.”
“Thank you, we will. Incidentally, where do you and Signorina Fiorentino live?”
“I live upstairs in the main building, above the tasting room. Maggie wanted her own space, so she moved into my parents’ old place. It’s a small house on the other side of the main building, out toward the south end of the vineyard.”
Interesting.
“But—” He bit off the rest of his sentence.
“Yes?”