Page 33 of The Vineyard Crush

Right. I was on a mission today. I’d pitch him. Hard. And Leone would have to listen, whether he wished to or not. It was that simple.

The soft chime of the penthouse lift arriving hardly registered through my Zen-like focus. I stepped into the vestibule on autopilot, hand already lifting to jab the bell. As the dulcet tones echoed through the hush, I hastily smoothed my palms down the front of my sweater, willing my racing pulse to settle.

You got this, Emma Harrison. You got this.

A series of muffled clunks and clomps sounded from within the apartment, rapidly drawing nearer. Then suddenly, the door swept open in a rush of barrel-aged scotch and heavy wood smoke.

“What are you doing here?” An incredulous baritone barked out.

So much for the warm welcome and fraternal backslaps. Resisting the urge to bolt like a spooked colt, I instead summoned up my warmest, most sibling-ally smile.

“Hello to you too, brother.”

“Hello,” Leone grumbled, raking an impatient hand through his prematurely graying hair as I barged into the spacious penthouse without waiting for further invitation.

Plush dove gray carpet hushed my footsteps as I crossed the sprawling great room with its soaring windows overlooking Central Park’s verdant treetops. Not pausing to survey the opulent yet coldly minimalist decor - a calculated ambience of understated wealth - I flopped inelegantly onto the pristine ivory sofa.

“I am not going to Maine,” he continued in a clipped tone, “and I am not going to resign from my job.”

With a disdainful sniff, Leone crossed to the oxblood leather club chair opposite, folding himself into it with leonine disdain. A nearly-empty crystal tumbler sloshed with the final swallows of smoky scotch as he settled back, pinning me with a scathing glare.

I merely arched one brow - a challenging Alpha stare-down if there ever was one. “Let’s not talk about that right now. Tell me how you’re doing.”

His shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly before deflating on an aggrieved sigh, the motion so subtle that had I not spent four formative years joined at his intellectual hip, it might have escaped notice entirely.

“I’m…good,” he muttered, swirling the remaining amber liquid with a lethargic flick of his wrist.

“Uh huh.” Maintaining my impassive facade despite the blatant lie, I swept my gaze over the penthouse’s starkly tidy interior, zeroing in on the telltale signs etched in the tiny grooves bracketing his mouth, the unhealthy hollows beneath his eyes.

“Had any hospital visits lately?” The question tumbled forth before I could filter it, pointed and blunt.

Leone’s stormy glower would have cowed most into stammering retreat. But not me. I’d known the scathing edges of his legendary temper too intimately, recognized the simmering fractures lurking behind the cracks in that meticulously curated veneer.

“I’m fine, Em,” he growled, the time-worn endearment saturated in equal parts affection and warning. “Quit your clucking.”

Ignoring the barefaced lie, I slowly rose and drifted across the thick carpet, each measured footfall eating away at the distance between us like the relentless gnaw of time itself.

“You’re not fine,” I countered softly, reaching out to pluck the tumbler from his white-knuckled grip and place it aside with a dull thunk against the polished slate coaster. “I can see the dark circles, the whiskey crutch…”

His jaw tensed, emerald eyes hardening to flint as I hunkered down before him, callused fingers encircling his wrists in a gentle vise to halt any attempt at retreat. Meeting that volcanic stare head-on, I murmured, “You have to let it go, Leone. You lost a—”

“That’s enough!” He wrenched his hands free, the leonine mask ruptured as agony writ savage tormented his aristocratic features.

A ragged shudder racked him from within and all at once, the gilded armor shattered away to the desolate ruin underneath - a shattered husk of a man mourning an unimaginable loss. Broken. Raw.

Without conscious thought, instinct propelled me forward until our ragged breaths mingled. Palms against his heaving chest, I simply held on as his too-bright eyes squeezed shut, forcing scorching tears to carve pale streaks down those sculpted planes.

“Leone…” The faintest exhale, the barest breath of a plea for him to release this lone-borne burden.

With a ragged gasp, he crushed me fiercely against him, forehead butting against my collarbone as the last of his reserves finally, inexorably, collapsed. Long fingers gripped my shoulders in a vice, entire frame wracked with silent, visceral sobs as the torrent finally broke free.

And still, I held on. Simply holding the fractured pieces of my erstwhile mentor, my shield against this unforgiving world…

My friend, my brother, my kin.

It was finished, this long dark grief’s night. The dawn was ours to reclaim with nascent, fragile grace - if only he’d permit me to grasp it with him.

Salty dampness soaked the thin cotton of my blouse as Leone’s shuddering breaths slowly steadied, the worst of the tempest having crested and ebbed. One broad palm splayed across the taut muscles between my shoulder blades, grounding us both through sheer gravitational force.

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