From the Baroness’s Diary III

Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

I watch Enzo carefully as he unwraps his parma and Ragusano cheese sandwich, leans back in the chair, puts his feet up on his desk, and finally takes a big bite.

My brother is a very handsome man. Tall, rugged, with just a bit of graying hair on his temples, and intense blue eyes, he resembles a lot his biological father, our mother’s first husband. I can see the appeal Chloé sees in him.

He catches me looking at him and pauses, mid-chew. “What?”

I sigh and finally say, “You had her, right?”

“Yeah.” He swallows and shrugs. “In Mario’s house.”

Cazzo. That is…such a f*****g turn-on. I hesitate for a moment then I ask, “How was it?”

He laughs a little. “I think you’d know.”

“Sì, I know. But I can’t know what goes on in your mind and overly horny dick.”

He shrugs again, his nonchalant mood covering his old insecurities, and says, “She is f*****g hot.”

We watch each other for a second, a tense moment hanging between us. This isn’t the first time we’ve had the same girl. We have shared many women and we have always enjoyed that.

“Relax, I’m not mad.” I grin as an idea starts to form in my head.

He starts laughing, probably more from relief than from amusement. “Why would you be? It’s not like she’s your wife.”

“No, she isn’t.” I agree, but I make my point, “But I did have her first and you knew it. You could have told me you f****d her.”

“Sì, I could have but we didn’t have much time alone before I left Mario’s house and she entered our kitchen.” Enzo tells me in a few words how Chloé introduced herself to him as Fleur; how he had spun a web of seduction around her; and how she stopped him from making love to her once she discovered who he was. When he finishes, he looks at me seriously, his mouth in a flat line and I know he is pissed with himself. “I’ll back off, if you want.”

“No,” I say, surprising myself and by the widening of Enzo’s eyes, surprising him too. I am the last man in earth who would condemn Chloé’s behavior. Besides, I know my brother and Chloé, and there was no commitment, no promise, between Chloé and I. “That’s okay…if she is okay with it.”

“I guess she is, if you are.” When he sees I understand what he means, he goes back to eating as if we were commenting about the weather and not about her; about us; a possible future.

Papers are spread out in front of us, invoices and bills and reports on the winery, about export and import laws, a ton of different stuff.

In a sense, this whole business, it’s one big tangled web, and it’s all interrelated.

Sometimes too tangled.

I pick up my own sandwich and dig in, distractedly. We’ve shared a lot of things, though not a father. Enzo and I are just half-brothers. And as much as Angelo is officially my brother, I have always suspected he is also our half-brother, son of my father’s younger brother, Luigi.

Not that it would make any difference to me, but suddenly everything makes sense.

I glance out the window of our office.

I keep seeing Chloé in my mind. The way she smiled at Angelo, then how her lips slightly parted in surprise and she blushed when Enzo called her Principessa.

They both actually like her.

I can easily tell Enzo does by how he has behaved: If he didn’t like her, if he didn’t have feelings for her, he would have told me. Maybe backed off and asked my permission since he knows I have feelings for her. But the fact that he just kept quiet about it, that says a lot to me.

I’m weirdly okay with it. I don’t feel jealous as I felt when I shared her with the baron. I hated when her husband was at home. I hated that he used her as a depositary for his seed.

But imagining Chloé with Enzo?

Cazzo. It makes me horny.

I don’t know what it is about Chloé, but she makes me smile in a way a woman never has. She is at the same time, innocent and seductive. In a word: bewitching.

Maybe I’m f*****g jaded, I don’t know, but I am thinking of having an open relationship with Chloé and my brother.

And…maybe Angelo?

That would be weird at first since he has never shared a woman with us. Dio! I doubt my little twenty-year-old brother has had a woman. But he has never sprung away from a woman’s presence in that way. Maybe…she makes him feel something?

Wouldn’t it be nice if Chloé is his first?

It has a nice ring to it.

I am about to tell Enzo about what goes in my head when Angelo comes back and starts talking about logistical stuff for the new wine Enzo is creating and we go back to work.

But my mind, and I bet also Enzo’s, is still on Chloé.

The thought of Enzo kissing her, tasting her, f*****g her…cazzo! It doesn’t bother me, it makes me hard as f**k.

I thought it might at first, but I can’t seem to make myself mind.

Really, I’m more than happy to share.

We leave Angelo with his papers when the sun is already going down on the horizon and we go back to our vineyard by the sea to survey the vendemmia, the harvest which has just started and will only be done in a few weeks.

In Sicily, grape harvest lasts for two to three months according to the ripening of the grapes in the different areas: from sea level vineyards, where our main villa is located, to those 1100 meters above sea level, in the Etna volcanic region, which are the last to be collected.

Since daytime temperatures can even exceed thirty-five degrees celsius in August, night-time harvesting—when the air is decidedly cooler—prevents the grapes from starting to ferment while being carried to the cellars, which would result in a loss of those aromas so precious to the winemaking process.

A couple of hours later, our sleeves rolled over our arms, our shirts wrinkled, stained, and dirty from sweat, grapes and earth, we are heading back to the house, both exhausted but satisfied with how the work is going.

“This year’s harvest looks promising,” says Enzo, watching as the waxing moon appears over the sea, orange and pregnant, and a strange moonlight bathes the waters and the landscape.

Row by row, the vineyards are lit up by the lamps of grape harvesting machines.

A truly evocative sight and I make a note to myself to bring Chloé to see it. After, I will make love to her among the grapes.

Only a naked Chloé bathed by moonlight would be more beautiful than a night-time harvesting.

I smile. I know her better than she knows herself and I am betting she would agree to sharing life with us pretty easily. I turn to my older brother and say, “Let’s talk to her about it. About an arrangement.”

“Good idea.” Enzo takes it in stride. “I’ll back off until then. And I think she will be more open to the idea if you present it to her…since you’ve known her for a longer time and all that. So, be quick about it.”