Chương 6
“Not in front of them.”
“But while they waited for cake.”
Naomi’s face showed the first sign of anger. “I told her it was a terrible idea.”
“Did that stop you from putting the envelope there?”
“No.”
The answer settled between them.
Naomi had worked for Celeste for nine years. She had a mortgage in Connecticut, a mother in assisted living, and a salary tied to a company that might collapse. She had objected and obeyed.
Elena understood her better than she wanted to.
“Where is Celeste?” Elena asked.
“In her room at the guesthouse.”
“She hasn’t left?”
“No. She said leaving would look like guilt.”
“Staying looks like arrogance.”
Naomi nodded. “I didn’t tell her that.”
Giulia ended the meeting but asked Naomi to remain available. Before leaving, Naomi turned to Elena.
“The note included one line Mrs. Mercer dictated twice because she wanted it exactly right.”
“What line?”
Naomi recited it without looking back.
“Your father understood that survival requires families to surrender what pride tells them to protect.”
Elena felt a coldness move through her.
“That sounds like him,” she said.
Naomi turned. “Mrs. Mercer said it was something he told her.”
Elena had never known her father to speak privately with Celeste about the vineyard. He had met her only a handful of times before his death, usually at dinners in New York or London. He respected her business reputation and disliked her manners. Once, after she corrected a sommelier’s pronunciation, Paolo had whispered to Elena, “A person who humiliates staff in public will eventually do it to family.”
Elena had repeated the story to Julian.
She wondered whether Celeste knew.
That afternoon, Giulia requested access to Paolo’s old correspondence.
Elena had avoided reviewing most of it after his death. The company’s lawyers had handled necessary files. Personal emails remained archived on a server, along with scanned letters and contracts dating back decades.
Searching the archive required Elena’s authorization.
She stared at the form.
“What are you afraid of?” Giulia asked.
“My father was allowed to have private thoughts.”
“He was. He is also named as moral authority in an attempted transfer of your company.”
“He might have said it.”
“Then we should know.”
Elena signed.
The search produced twenty-seven messages involving Celeste Mercer.
Most concerned the wedding, distribution possibilities, and introductions to hotels. Three dated from the year before Paolo died. In the earliest, Celeste proposed a joint venture between Bellandi Agricola and Mercer & Rowe. Paolo replied with interest. In the second, he discussed exchanging a minority stake for expanded distribution.
The third message was longer.
Paolo wrote that he would consider placing Bellandi Agricola into a shared holding company if Elena and Julian married, provided Elena retained voting control and Mercer debt could never attach to vineyard land.
Survival requires families to surrender what pride tells them to protect, he had written. But no family survives by asking one child to surrender everything.
Celeste had preserved the first sentence and discarded the second.
Elena read the email in silence.
Her father had considered a version of the plan. That did not excuse Celeste. It did, however, destroy Elena’s simpler belief that the entire idea had originated in malice.
Giulia leaned back. “This helps us.”
“It helps her too.”
“Not much. Your father rejected the structure she drafted.”
“He didn’t reject consolidation.”
“He imposed conditions she ignored.”
Elena rubbed her eyes. “He never told me.”
“Perhaps the conversation had not advanced.”
“Or perhaps he planned to decide for me.”
Giulia did not answer.
Paolo had done that before. He had chosen Elena’s university concentration, fired her first boyfriend from a summer job, and delayed transferring shares after she turned twenty-five because he believed she was not serious enough. When she protested, he said ownership was not a birthday gift.
After his cancer diagnosis, he promised they would discuss succession when he had more energy.
He died before the discussion.
The vineyard came to Elena through the will, not through trust between them.
At four, Julian requested another meeting. This time Elena chose the small kitchen off the estate courtyard. It had no ceremonial flowers, no lawyers’ tables, and no portraits of her father. A refrigerator hummed beside shelves of copper pans. Someone had left half a lemon on a cutting board.
Giulia sat near the door. Malcolm remained in the courtyard where he could be called if necessary.
Julian entered in a gray sweater and dark trousers. He had shaved but missed a small area beneath his jaw. The absence of formal clothing made him look younger and more tired.
Elena placed Paolo’s email on the table.
“Did you know about this?”
Julian read it.
“No.”
“Your mother did.”
“Yes.”
“My father considered joining the companies.”
Julian’s eyes remained on the final sentence. “With safeguards.”
“Would you have wanted it?”
“No.”
The speed of his answer irritated her. “You didn’t even think.”
“I have thought about little else since last night.”
“You might benefit from the vineyard.”
“I might. My family would.”
“Your company could fail.”
“It may.”
“And four hundred employees?”
His jaw tightened. “My mother has already told you that?”
“The accounts told me.”
Julian pulled out a chair but waited until Elena nodded before sitting.
“Mercer & Rowe is not my company in the way the vineyard is yours,” he said. “I own twelve percent. My mother controls the voting shares. I attend board meetings because Adrian used to attend them, and after he died everyone looked at the empty chair until I sat in it.”
“You could have refused.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
May you like
He looked at the half lemon.
“The night Adrian died, he called me from a restaurant. We had been arguing for weeks about a hotel project. I told him he was turning into our mother. He told me I was happy to spend family money while pretending to be morally superior to it. He had been drinking. I told him to drive home and sleep.”
