POV: Rosalind
The winery door opened with a protest—metal scraping stone—and I was alone with the smell of oak and old money. Dawn had barely cracked the horizon, but I was already knee-deep in crates that needed shifting, bottles that needed counting, and a bloody painting that weighed more than my good judgment.
I dragged a crate of Burgundy across the floor. The wood groaned. My shoulders burned. Good.
The painting leaned against the bar—some abstract piece Daniel had commissioned for the exhibition next month. All violent reds and blacks, like someone had tried to capture a car crash in oil. I had to get it hung before the space filled with the usual morning pretenders who thought ordering a Merlot before noon made them sophisticated.
Inventory clipboard in hand, I counted bottles. Châteauneuf-du-Pape, twelve. Barolo, eight. My fingers were cold. The heating system had been temperamental since Tuesday, but I hadn't had time to call anyone. Hadn't had time for much, really, except keeping this place breathing and pretending I didn't notice my marriage had flatlined somewhere between our tenth anniversary and Luca's eighteenth birthday.
The lock clicked behind me.
I didn't turn. I knew that sound—confident, familiar. A key that had no business existing.
"You're here early." Theo's voice wrapped around the silence like smoke.
"So are you." I glanced over my shoulder. He'd already locked the door behind him, and something in my chest tightened at how automatic that gesture had become. How careful we'd learned to be over ten years.
He crossed the space between us in four strides, and then his hand was on my jaw, tilting my face up. The kiss was brief—barely a breath—but I tasted coffee and the mint he always chewed before he saw me. When he pulled back, his thumb traced my cheekbone once before he dropped his hand.
"That crate's not going to move itself," I said, nodding toward the monster by the wall.
"Neither are you, apparently." But he was already moving, taking position on the opposite end. "On three?"
We lifted together. My arms screamed in protest, but the crate rose, and we shuffled it toward the back wall where it belonged. This was dangerous—the synchronicity of it, how we moved like we'd been doing this for decades instead of just one. How his breathing matched mine, how I knew exactly when he'd adjust his grip. It was the kind of intimate choreography that got people killed.
Or caught. Usually both. But God help me, there was nowhere else I'd rather have been than lifting contraband wine with a man who wasn't my husband at six in the morning. Theo's jaw clenched with effort. There was a scar above his left eyebrow I knew better than my own reflection—the shape of it, the story behind it, the way it disappeared when he smiled.
We set it down. I straightened, pressing my hand against the small of my back.
"How long was Daniel home last night?" Theo asked it casually, like he was asking about the weather.
"Long enough to sleep." I moved back to the painting, considering angles. "Left before dawn. Some emergency with the firm."
"Emergency." Theo repeated the word like it was foreign. "Right."
"Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything." He picked up the other end of the painting without being asked. "I'm observing that you've been taking on too much alone."
"The winery keeps me sane." I guided my end toward the wall, eyeing the hooks we'd installed last week. "Higher on your side—no, there. Perfect."
We hung it together. The violent reds caught the early light coming through the windows, and for a moment, it almost looked beautiful. Almost looked like something worth preserving.
"Rosalind." Theo's voice had that edge now, the one that meant he was about to say something I didn't want to hear. "We should meet somewhere else today. Somewhere public."
I turned to face him. "The cellar's worked fine for ten years."
"The café near the river. You know the one." His eyes held mine. "One o'clock?"
There was something in his expression—caution, maybe, or the beginning of fear. I didn't like it. Fear made people sloppy, and we couldn't afford sloppy.
"Why the change?"
"Because—"
The side door rattled.
We both froze. That door was supposed to be locked. I'd locked it myself last night before I left, checked it twice because paranoia had kept me alive longer than trust ever did.
But it opened anyway, and Luca walked in like he owned the place. Which, technically, he didn't yet, but our twenty-one-year-old son had always treated boundaries like suggestions.
His eyes landed on me first, then slid to Theo. We were standing close—too close. The painting was between us like evidence, our hands still raised from hanging it. The air felt suddenly thin.
My son. Looking at me. Looking at Theo. Adding up exactly what he was seeing.
"Am I interrupting something?" Luca's tone was pleasant. His smile didn't reach his eyes—Daniel's eyes, sharp and calculating even at twenty-one.
"No." The word came out too fast. I lowered my hands, stepped sideways, created space that felt like an admission. "Theo was just helping with the exhibition setup."
Theo didn't say anything. He just looked at Luca for one long moment—the kind of look that could mean anything or nothing—and then he stepped back. Away from me. Away from the painting. Away from whatever this moment was about to become.
He headed for the side door without a word, and I watched his shoulders disappear into the morning light. The door clicked shut behind him.
Luca was still smiling.
"So," he said. "About that exhibition."