Chương 4
No one had recorded the alleged conversation.
At two thirty, Giulia asked Elena whether she wished to sleep.
“No.”
“At three, I will ask again.”
“You can ask.”
“You are becoming like your father.”
“That usually makes you angry.”
“It is making me tired.”
Elena smiled despite herself. The smile vanished quickly, but Giulia saw it and returned to the documents without comment.
At three, Elena lay down on the sofa and slept for nineteen minutes.
She woke to Julian’s voice in the corridor.
Giulia opened the door but blocked the entrance.
“You asked for me?” he said.
“I did,” Giulia answered. “Elena has questions. You may answer them with counsel present.”
Julian entered wearing the same tuxedo trousers and white shirt. The bow tie was gone. His collar stood open, and the white rose boutonniere had wilted nearly flat. He looked at Elena once, then sat in the chair farthest from her.
His attorney, Malcolm Reed, followed. Malcolm was a narrow-faced man from Boston who had served Julian’s family long enough to distrust every emotional statement on principle.
Giulia placed the power of attorney on the desk.
“Did you sign this amendment six weeks ago?”
Julian looked at it. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“My mother said our family office was restructuring my authority before the marriage. She said it would allow her to finish transactions already in progress while I was abroad.”
“Did you read it?”
“I read the first two pages.”
“There are seven.”
“I know.”
“Now you know.”
He nodded.
Elena watched his hands. He kept them open on his knees.
Giulia continued. “Were you aware that Mercer & Rowe was negotiating new financing?”
“Yes.”
“Were you aware the lender required additional collateral?”
“No.”
Malcolm shifted. “Julian was not involved in those negotiations.”
“Were you aware,” Giulia asked, “that your mother intended to create a holding company containing Bellandi Agricola?”
“No.”
“Did your mother ever discuss acquiring an ownership interest in the vineyard?”
“She discussed a distribution partnership.”
“Ownership?”
“No.”
Elena spoke for the first time. “She said you knew nothing.”
Julian looked at her.
“You knew she had expanded authority,” Elena continued. “You knew your company was restructuring. You knew she wanted a partnership with the vineyard.”
“I knew those pieces separately.”
“And never put them together?”
“No.”
“Because you trusted her?”
“Because I let her handle things I didn’t want to handle.”
His answer arrived without defense.
Elena folded her arms. “What didn’t you want to handle?”
Julian looked at Malcolm, who gave no visible instruction.
“My family’s company,” he said. “Its debt. The board. The decisions my brother used to make.”
The mention of his brother changed the air in the room.
Adrian Mercer had died four years earlier when his car left a wet road outside Albany. He had been thirty-two. Julian had been the last person to speak with him. Elena knew they had argued, but Julian rarely described the argument.
“My mother has run the company since Adrian died,” he said. “I own shares. I attend meetings. I sign what I’m told is necessary.”
“You are twenty-nine,” Elena said.
“Yes.”
“That is not an explanation.”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“A failure.”
His voice cracked slightly on the last word.
Elena looked away.
Giulia asked whether Julian had ever seen the ownership amendment before the reception. He said no. Malcolm produced Julian’s phone, tablet, and laptop. Julian had instructed him to provide complete access, including cloud records, subject to the preservation of unrelated client information from Julian’s architecture firm.
“You work for a living outside the family company,” Elena said. “You understand contracts.”
“I understand building contracts.”
“Words change because the building changes?”
“No.”
Julian rubbed his thumb once across his wedding ring. “I signed because my mother called me at midnight and said the documents had to reach the bank before morning. We were arguing about the guest list. I wanted the call to end.”
Elena stared at him.
“That is your defense?”
“It is what happened.”
It was such a small, ugly reason that she believed it.
People imagined betrayal as a deliberate act: secret meetings, closed doors, a hand accepting money. But lives were often damaged by irritation, fatigue, avoidance, and the desire to get off the phone.
Julian had not plotted to take the vineyard.
He had made himself easy to use.
Elena did not know whether that was forgivable.
At dawn, Giulia ended the interview. Julian stood but did not approach Elena.
“I will sign a revocation of the power of attorney in front of anyone you choose,” he said.
“You should do that for yourself.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
He lowered his eyes. “All right.”
Malcolm opened the door.
“Elena,” Julian said.
She waited.
“I am not asking you to believe me tonight.”
“It isn’t night anymore.”
He looked toward the pale strip of sky beyond the windows. “No.”
After he left, Elena removed her wedding ring and set it beside her father’s reading glasses.
She did not return to the bridal suite.
She slept in her childhood bedroom on the eastern side of the estate, where the wallpaper still showed faint rectangles from posters removed when she was seventeen. Her mother sat in a chair near the bed until Elena asked her to leave. Then Sofia stood in the hallway for another hour, speaking quietly on the phone to relatives and denying that she was speaking to anyone.
Elena woke shortly before noon to the sound of vineyard machinery.
For several seconds she did not remember the wedding. Then she saw the lace gown hanging from the wardrobe and the empty place on her finger.
Her phone contained ninety-three messages.
Most were kind. Several were curious while pretending to be kind. One former classmate she had not spoken to in eight years wrote, I always had a strange feeling about him. Elena deleted it.
May you like
The head agronomist, Matteo Riva, had sent only: The north fans worked. Call when you are awake.
She called him.
