Chapter 2
“Mr. Romano,” I said, still holding the glass, “I was referring to the wine.”
Dante’s expression did not change.
“That was not what I asked.”
The room seemed to shrink around me.
The polished bookshelves, the heavy curtains, the golden light falling across the desk—everything blurred beneath the weight of his attention.
I lowered the glass carefully.
“I may have compared the wine to you.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
“You called it expensive, dramatic, and desperate for attention.”
“When you repeat it like that, it sounds worse.”
One of the guards shifted near the doorway.
Dante noticed.
“Leave us,” he said.
The guards exchanged a brief glance, then stepped into the hall and closed the door behind them.
I wished they had stayed.
Being alone with Dante Romano felt considerably more dangerous than being watched by two armed men.
He approached the desk with quiet, measured steps.
His suit was charcoal gray, perfectly fitted, and so immaculate that my wrinkled uniform seemed to acquire new flaws every second.
He stopped beside the bottle.
“Pour another glass.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I have caused enough damage.”
“Pour another glass.”
I looked at the bottle, then at him.
“Why?”
“Because you clearly have an opinion.”
“I’m not sure that’s a qualification.”
“It may be the first honest thing anyone has offered me today.”
The answer caught me off guard.
Dante nodded toward the bottle.
“Go on.”
My fingers felt clumsy as I picked up the wine.
I poured only a small amount into the clean glass beside it.
The deep red caught the lamplight and left a ruby reflection across the desk.
Dante accepted the glass but did not drink.
“What do you taste?”
I stared at him.
“You want me to answer?”
“That is generally how questions work.”
I swallowed.
“Are you going to fire me?”
“That depends on your answer.”
“That sounds like a punishment for honesty.”
“It is an evaluation.”
“You own the house.”
“I also own several businesses.”
“That doesn’t make you a professional wine taster.”
“No, but it makes me accustomed to people telling me what they think I want to hear.”
He lifted the glass and studied it.
“Your turn.”
I sighed softly.
“Fine.”
I reached for my own glass, then stopped.
Dante’s eyes flickered toward my hand.
“You may finish it.”
“That is generous.”
“It is a four-thousand-dollar bottle.”
“I was beginning to suspect you might mention that.”
His mouth moved almost imperceptibly.
It was not quite a smile, but it was the first sign that his face could do something besides intimidate people.
I took the glass and tasted the wine again.
The first impression was familiar now.
Dark fruit, polished wood, spice, and a floral note hiding beneath the oak.
But there was also a bitterness at the back of the tongue, something dry and faintly medicinal.
I held the wine there for a moment.
Dante watched me with surprising patience.
“Well?” he asked.
“It has improved.”
“That is not a complete answer.”
“It is better than it was when I first tasted it.”
“Why?”
“Because the air softened it.”
“And your professional conclusion?”
I glanced at the label.
“The fruit is good, but the oak is too assertive.”
“Assertive.”
“Overbearing, if you prefer.”
“I don’t.”
“I noticed.”
That almost-smile appeared again and disappeared just as quickly.
I continued before my courage failed.
“The wine was probably made from excellent grapes, but someone wanted it to taste important.”
Dante’s gaze sharpened.
“Someone?”
“The winemaker, perhaps.”
“You think the winemaker failed?”
“No.”
I rotated the glass gently.
“I think the winemaker was afraid the wine wouldn’t be taken seriously unless it wore a heavy coat of oak and age.”
Silence settled between us.
I had expected anger.
Instead, Dante looked at the bottle as though it had become a complicated witness.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because people do the same thing.”
His attention returned to me.
“They hide behind expensive clothes, impressive words, or a reputation someone else built for them.”
I realized I was no longer discussing wine.
Perhaps he realized it too.
A faint ache had begun behind my ribs, the same ache that always came whenever I remembered my father.
He had believed that tasting was a kind of honesty.
Not a performance.
Not a contest.
A way of paying attention.
Dante set his glass on the desk.
“Where did you learn to describe wine?”
“My father.”
“What was his name?”
The question was simple.
My answer was not.
“Daniel Hale.”
Something changed in Dante’s face.
It happened so quickly that I nearly doubted it.
His fingers tightened around the stem of the glass.
“Daniel Hale?”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
“Your father was Daniel Hale?”
The room grew colder.
“You knew him?”
Dante did not answer immediately.
He moved away from the desk and crossed toward the tall window overlooking the dark Chicago street.
Outside, traffic slid along the wet pavement in ribbons of white and red.
“My family knew of him,” he said at last.
The wording sounded deliberate.
Not knew him.
Knew of him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he worked with vineyards.”
“He consulted for them.”
“Among other things.”
I placed the glass down.
“My father evaluated wine and helped small producers improve their methods.”
Dante remained by the window.
“Your father died eleven years ago.”
It was not a question.
The familiar pain arrived with brutal precision.
“Yes.”
“An accident.”
“That’s what the report said.”
He turned.
“And what do you say?”
I looked at the wine between us.
“I say he was driving home after spending three days examining financial records for a winery that didn’t want him examining them.”
Dante’s expression became still.
“You believe he was killed?”
“I believe my father was not careless.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
I folded my hands together to keep them from trembling.
“He was careful with everything.”
The memory came back with such force that I could almost smell the dust of his old tasting room.
Daniel Hale had been a patient man with weathered hands and a habit of writing notes in the margins of every document he touched.
He measured corks, checked shipping seals, questioned invoices, and remembered the name of every grower whose work he admired.
He had taught me that a bottle carried more than a drink inside it.
It carried decisions.
Labor.
Weather.
Sometimes, a family’s entire history.
“He was investigating missing money,” I said.
Dante’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“What kind of missing money?”
“I was sixteen, so he didn’t tell me everything.”
“But you knew enough.”
“I knew he had been hired to review records connected to a vineyard.”
“Which vineyard?”
I looked again at the cream label.
The old crest seemed to pulse in the lamplight.
“I don’t know the name.”
Dante stepped closer.
“You recognized this bottle.”
“I recognized the crest.”
“From where?”
“My father’s notebook.”
The silence that followed was different from the one before.
This time, something had entered the room that neither of us could dismiss.
Dante reached toward the bottle but did not touch it.
“That crest belonged to the Romano vineyard.”
I stared at him.
“Your family owned it?”
“My mother owned it.”
The answer carried a quiet distinction.
“Past tense?”
“She died before I took over the family business.”
“I’m sorry.”
He accepted the words with a small nod.
“When was this wine made?”
Dante lifted the bottle and examined the label.
“Twenty years ago.”
“Then it was produced before your mother died.”
“Yes.”
“Was she involved in the final vintage?”
“She oversaw it.”
His voice had changed.
The cold authority remained, but beneath it lay something more private.
A memory he did not intend to share.
“She believed the harvest was exceptional,” he continued.
“Then why did the vineyard close?”
Dante placed the bottle back on the desk.
“It did not close.”
“But the crest is gone from the newer bottles.”
“You have seen newer bottles?”
“Only in photographs.”
He studied me.
“You’ve been looking into my family’s wine?”
“No.”
The truth came out too quickly.
Dante noticed.
I looked down at my hands.
“My father kept the notebook after the investigation.”
“What notebook?”
“A tasting notebook.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At home.”
“Why didn’t you mention it?”
“Because until five minutes ago, I thought I was being fired for drinking your wine.”
“That remains possible.”
I gave him a strained look.
He seemed almost amused again.
Almost.
Then his expression returned to seriousness.
“Did your father write anything about the Romano vineyard?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I was sixteen.”
“Memory can be selective.”
“So can questioning.”
Dante held my gaze.
For a moment, neither of us looked away.
The tension between us was not fear alone.
There was something else beneath it.
Recognition, perhaps.
The uncomfortable feeling of standing before someone who understood more than he was saying.
He walked back to the desk and opened a drawer.
From inside, he removed a slim black folder.
He placed it beside the wine.
“I have seen your father’s name before.”
My breath caught.
“Where?”
“In records connected to my mother’s vineyard.”
I did not touch the folder.
“What kind of records?”
“Financial records.”
The words seemed to echo.
“Why would your family have records about my father?”
“He was hired to review them.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I was twenty-four.”
“You were already involved in the family business.”
“I was involved in the parts my mother allowed me to see.”
He opened the folder.
Inside were photocopies of old invoices, shipping documents, and handwritten notes.
The paper had yellowed at the edges.
My heart began to beat faster.
Dante slid one page toward me.
At the bottom, beneath a series of figures, someone had written a name.
Daniel Hale.
The handwriting was not my father’s.
But beside the name was a symbol I recognized.
A small circle crossed by two diagonal lines.
My father used it to mark discrepancies.
I reached for the page.
Dante’s hand moved at the same moment.
Our fingers touched.
The contact was brief, but it unsettled me more than it should have.
He withdrew first.
“Where did you see that mark?” he asked.
“In my father’s notebook.”
“What did it mean?”
“He used it beside numbers that didn’t match.”
Dante looked toward the folder.
“Then he believed something was wrong.”
“He believed many things were wrong.”
“Such as?”
I examined the page.
“Here.”
I pointed to the shipping entry.
“The amount listed doesn’t match the quantity.”
Dante leaned over the desk.
He smelled faintly of cedar and rain.
“What do you mean?”
“The invoice says four hundred cases were shipped.”
“The payment reflects four hundred.”
“But the production record indicates only three hundred and twenty cases were bottled.”
His eyes moved across the document.
“Are you certain?”
“My father taught me to check volume against case size.”
I traced the figures with my fingertip.
“If this record is accurate, eighty cases disappeared before the shipment was logged.”
Dante remained silent.
“And this isn’t the only discrepancy,” I said.
I turned the next page.
Several entries were marked with the same symbol.
“The numbers repeat.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Those records were used to accuse my mother of mismanaging the vineyard.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
I looked up.
“How do you know?”
“Because she spent the last years of her life trying to find out where the money went.”
My grip tightened on the page.
“Did she know my father?”
“She met him.”
“When?”
“I was told they argued.”
“About the missing money?”
“About what he intended to do with the information.”
“What did he intend to do?”
Dante’s gaze dropped to the documents.
“I was never told.”
The room seemed suddenly too quiet.
I thought of my father’s final week.
His restless pacing.
The way he had kept the curtains drawn even during the afternoon.
The old silver cuff link he had found in his coat pocket and never managed to identify.
The phrase he had repeated while packing his papers.
“Some people confuse silence with safety.”
At the time, I had thought he was speaking about business.
Now I was no longer sure.
“Did your mother keep personal papers?” I asked.
Dante’s eyes returned to mine.
“Why?”
“Because my father’s notebook mentioned a woman from the Romano family.”
He did not move.
“What woman?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said it mentioned her.”
“I said it mentioned someone.”
“Then tell me exactly what you remember.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
The notebook had been small, brown, and soft at the corners from years of handling.
After my father died, I had read it obsessively, searching for explanations I was too young to understand.
Most of the pages were filled with tasting notes.
Plum.
Tobacco.
Poor structure.
Promising finish.
But one page had been different.
There had been a name partly erased by water.
A line beneath it.
Protect her if I cannot.
I had never known whether the words referred to a client, a witness, or someone my father loved.
“I remember a sentence,” I said.
“What sentence?”
“Protect her if I cannot.”
Dante’s face lost what little warmth it had held.
“Did it name the woman?”
“The name was damaged.”
“Can you read it?”
“Not completely.”
“Could it have been my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
He turned away.
The city lights reflected in the glass behind him, placing a second, ghostly outline around his shoulders.
For the first time since I had met him, Dante Romano looked less like a feared businessman and more like a son who had spent years living beside an unanswered question.
I felt my anger soften.
Not disappear.
Just soften.
“My father may have believed someone in your family was in danger,” I said.
Dante’s voice was quiet.
“My mother died believing everyone around her had betrayed her.”
“Did she ever explain why?”
“She stopped trusting explanations.”
“That sounds familiar.”
He glanced back at me.
“You don’t trust the official account of your father’s death.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the investigator who handled it told me the road was wet, my father was tired, and accidents happen.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“It does.”
“Then what is missing?”
“The silver cuff link.”
His gaze sharpened.
“What cuff link?”
“My father had one in his possession the night he died.”
“His?”
“No.”
“Whose was it?”
“We never found out.”
I could still see it in my mind.
A small silver link with a dark stone set in the center and a narrow engraving along the edge.
My father had shown it to me two days before the accident.
He had placed it in my palm and told me not to lose it.
Then, as though reconsidering, he had taken it back.
“It may belong to someone who wants it returned,” he had said.
“Did you keep it?”
“No.”
“Where is it now?”
“I don’t know.”
Dante stared at me.
“Your father had an unidentified cuff link connected to the Romano vineyard.”
“I didn’t say it was connected.”
“You were about to.”
“I don’t know what it was connected to.”
He looked down at the old records.
“Neither do I.”
A soft knock sounded at the door.
Dante closed the folder.
“Come in.”
One of the guards entered.
“Mr. Romano, the shipment from Napa has arrived.”
Dante did not look away from me.
“How many cases?”
“Two hundred and forty.”
“Any damage?”
“Not that we’ve seen.”
Dante nodded.
“Have them moved to the lower cellar.”
The guard hesitated.
“Your mother’s private inventory is still stored there.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“Then move it carefully.”
The guard left.
I glanced at him.
“Your mother’s private inventory?”
“Old bottles.”
“From the vineyard?”
“Some of them.”
“May I see them?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because the bottle you opened tonight may have come from that inventory.”
“It came from my private collection.”
“Which may have come from her.”
“Most of it did.”
I rose from the chair.
“I could help evaluate the shipment.”
Dante studied me.
“You are a maid.”
“I am also the daughter of a wine consultant.”
“You have tasted one bottle.”
“I tasted three glasses of one bottle.”
“While cleaning my study.”
“Which proves I can multitask.”
His gaze lingered on me for a long moment.
“Why do you want to help?”
The honest answer frightened me.
Because my father’s name had appeared in his records.
Because the old crest had awakened something I had spent years trying to bury.
Because Dante Romano, for all his reputation, looked as though he had been searching for the same missing truth without knowing where to begin.
“I want to know whether the wine is telling us something,” I said.
His expression shifted.
“Wine does not speak.”
“My father believed it did.”
“And you?”
“I believe people leave traces in everything they make.”
Dante picked up the glass I had insulted.
He drank at last.
His eyes remained on mine.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said.
I frowned.
“What happens tomorrow morning?”
“You will evaluate the shipment.”
“You’re offering me work?”
“Temporary work.”
“Why?”
“Because you are either unusually perceptive or recklessly confident.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
“No.”
“And because of my father?”
“That is part of it.”
“What is the other part?”
Dante set the glass down.
“I want to know whether you recognize anything else.”
The words sent a chill through me.
Before I could answer, he reached for the bottle and turned it so the label faced the light.
His thumb brushed beneath the old vineyard crest.
Then he stopped.
A faint mark had appeared in the wax seal, barely visible beneath the burgundy coating.
Not a crack.
Not damage.
A deliberate impression.
Two diagonal lines crossing a small circle.
The same symbol my father had drawn beside missing figures.
Dante looked at me.
“Where did this bottle come from?” I whispered.
He did not answer.
Instead, he opened the folder again and removed a faded shipping record.
At the bottom of the page, beside a missing batch number, were three handwritten initials.
D.H.
May you like
And beneath them, in another hand, a single sentence:
He knew before the others did.
