That's Amore

Chapter 21

The days grew hotter, the sun lingering longer over the hills, pressing its weight into the vines until the grapes swelled purple, almost bursting. Villa delle Rosa pulsed with the rhythm of midsummer: workers singing in low voices as they moved down the rows, children splashing in the fountain, the smell of bread and rosemary drifting from the kitchen windows.

Isabella carried her notebook wherever she went, pages thick now with sketches of roses, words spilt like confessions, fragments of thoughts she dared not say aloud. She wrote beneath olive trees, at the edges of fields, and always in the rose garden, where her Nonna’s presence lingered like perfume. But lately, her pen returned again and again to one subject she tried to avoid: Giuliano. His silhouette bent over the vines, his hands stained with soil, the curve of his brow shadowed with unspoken things. She wrote his name once, then scribbled it out quickly, but the ink bled through the page anyway, stubborn as her heart.

One afternoon, she found herself in the vineyard once more, though she had promised herself she would not. The workers were spread out across the rows, their baskets filling, voices carrying lightly through the air. Giuliano stood among them, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, curls damp, his hands moving with that same unhurried precision. She lingered at the edge, notebook pressed to her chest, telling herself she only wanted to sketch the vines.

But he noticed her. He always did.

“Ancora qui?” His voice carried across the rows, even but tinged with something sharper. “Still here?”

She lifted her chin, feigning steadiness. “Someone has to write about all this beauty, no?”

He shook his head slightly, as if amused against his will, and gestured to a vine heavy with fruit. “Come, then. If you must stay, learn properly.”

Her steps were slow, deliberate, as she crossed into his row. The air felt thicker here, closer, the cicadas humming louder. He handed her the shears, his fingers brushing hers, rough with callus, warm from the sun. The touch was brief, yet it burned.

“Cut here,” he said softly, pointing to a cluster. His voice was low, close, almost intimate. “Not too near the stem, or you wound it. Piano, Isabella. Slow.”

She obeyed, her breath held tight, her hand trembling slightly as the shears closed. The grapes fell into the basket with a soft thud, their skins glistening. She looked up, expecting criticism, but Giuliano’s eyes were fixed on her, steady, unreadable.

“Well?” she asked, her tone sharper than she intended.

His mouth curved, the faintest shadow of a smile. “Not bad. You learn quickly.”

Heat rushed to her cheeks. She turned away, clipping another cluster, though her hands shook with the weight of his gaze. The air between them hummed, fragile but electric, like the silence before a storm.

Biscotto bounded into the row then, breaking the tension, his paws dusty, his tongue lolling. He barked once, nosing at the baskets until Giuliano bent to ruffle his ears. Isabella laughed, the sound escaping her like a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.

Giuliano looked up at her at that sound — not with sternness, not with judgment, but with something softer, something that made her chest ache. Their eyes caught and held, the cicadas fading, the sun dipping low, the whole vineyard stilling as though the world conspired to give them this single moment.

“Isabella…” His voice was rough, her name heavy on his tongue, but whatever words might have followed were lost in the sudden call of Alessandro from the hill. The spell shattered. Giuliano straightened, his jaw tightening once more, his eyes hardening back into shadow.

He took the shears from her hand, their fingers brushing again, and turned away. “Enough for today.”

Isabella stood frozen, her notebook pressed against her chest, her heart pounding as though she had run a great distance. The sun spilt gold over the vineyard, the roses trembled in the evening wind, and she knew with terrible certainty that something between them had begun to ripen — fragile, inevitable, unstoppable.

And like the grapes swelling on the vine, it would burst if denied.