That's Amore

Chapter 45

The elevator doors opened on the 17th floor with a quiet sigh, releasing Isabella into the sleek, glass-paneled world she once craved.

Boston's skyline stretched beyond the boardroom like a promise—towering, glittering, untouchable. The air inside was filtered and lemon-scented. Voices echoed against polished floors and sterile white walls. No birdsong. No vineyard breeze. Just efficiency.

“Isabella!” Sarah called, heels clicking like applause. “They’re waiting in the main conference room. Big news.”

She followed, silent, spine straight, every step an echo of who she used to be.

Inside, a long mahogany table gleamed beneath recessed lights. Screens lit up with charts, projections, names in sans-serif fonts. The company’s senior partners sat like a panel of polished statues, smiles tightly composed.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” said Warren, the CFO. “Your work on the Bordeaux crossover project was exceptional. Milan has requested you lead the expansion into Italy—full autonomy. Creative and executive control.”

The room clapped.

“I hope you’re ready,” Sarah beamed. “You’re about to become the youngest vice president in the firm’s history.”

Applause again. Broader. Louder.

A title. A corner office. A six-figure raise. International prestige.

Everything she had worked for.

Everything she had lost sleep for, stayed late for, fought for.

And yet—

Isabella looked down at her hands folded in her lap. Pale. Still stained faintly with watercolor pigment, like memory clinging to skin.

Something in her chest didn’t lift—it tightened.

After the meeting, she stood at the window of her new office, staring out over a city that once thrilled her.

Traffic pulsed like veins. People darted below, miniature lives in motion.

She turned and faced the room.

Perfect. Modern. Lifeless.

A bouquet of white orchids sat on her desk. “Congratulations,” read the card. No name. Just a hollow gesture.

She sat in the chair behind her desk and let her fingers skim the cool, spotless surface.

And in her mind, she saw a warm hand place a bowl of sun-warmed figs beside her easel. Heard Giuliano’s voice, low and teasing, telling her she squinted like an old painter when she worked. Felt the vines brushing her arms as they walked side by side, nothing to prove, nothing to win.

That night, she celebrated alone.

She ordered room service in a hotel near the office—the same hotel she had stayed in during her very first corporate training years ago. The view was still beautiful. The sheets still starched. The wine overpriced.

She toasted the mirror.

“To success,” she whispered, voice hoarse.

She took a sip. It burned.

And then she cried.

Not with drama. Not with sobs.

Just a slow unraveling.

Like a ribbon being loosened. Like a knot finally giving way.

She opened her laptop, intending to draft her acceptance email.

Instead, her fingers typed something else:

The vineyard is quiet now, I imagine. The vines heavy. The sun soft. I wonder if you still carry my name in your chest the way I carry yours in mine.

She stared at the blinking cursor for a long time.

Then closed the lid.

The next morning, her name appeared on the company-wide memo.

Isabella Marshall — VP, International Development

She walked through the office as congratulatory emails flooded her inbox, her phone lighting up with empty praises and future meetings.

But she felt like she was watching herself from behind glass.

The girl in the blazer. The girl with the big title. The girl who got it all.

And none of what mattered.

That evening, she pulled out her journal—the one she had filled in Tuscany with sketches of vineyards and olive trees, of Giuliano laughing beneath the fig tree, of Chiara dancing with a wine bottle in one hand and Biscotto at her heels.

She turned to a blank page.

And stared.

Then she wrote two words:

I’m lost.