CHAPTER ONE
“Happy birthday to you . . .”
Giovanni sat at the head of the table on the rooftop terrace of their family home. The seat was normally reserved for his mother, but Mari happily gave up her seat for the occasion.
The D’Angelos loved a good party, but birthdays were for family. And Gio couldn’t have asked for more as his sang him “Happy Birthday.”
His niece, Franny, sat on his lap, something he ate up, knowing she was growing out of the lap-sitting age. Soon there would be another baby in their family. His older brother, Luca, and his wife, Brooke, were several weeks away from welcoming the newest D’Angelo into the world. And even though his sister, Chloe, and her husband, Dante, weren’t quite at the baby making stage, Giovanni knew it was only a matter of time.
In addition to his immediate family, Dante’s mother, Rosa, was there, as well as a close friend of the family, Salena.
The San Diego spring air had a snap of cold that lofted away with the heat lamps on the terrace. The noise from the busy streets of Little Italy rose four stories to where they celebrated. On the ground floor, the family restaurant ran like the well-oiled machine that it was.
“You’re getting old, m’friend.” Dante patted Giovanni on the back once Franny jumped off his lap to help his mother cut the cake.
“Wait for it . . . ,” Salena called from the other end of the table.
“You need to pick a wife!”
All eyes turned to the oldest D’Angelo, who didn’t even bother to look up from the task of cake cutting as she gave her orders.
Salena, who seemed to be holding her breath, now sighed with a smile. “There it is.” She winked at Gio. “How dare you be thirty and unmarried.”
“Shouldn’t that be ‘find a wife’?” Gio asked his mother.
“Find one, pick one.” Mari waved a hand in the air. “Call it whatever you want.”
Gio laughed, his head more than a little fuzzy from the wine they’d been drinking throughout dinner.
Salena laughed louder than all of them. “We can start setting Gio up on blind dates, Mrs. D’Angelo.”
“There isn’t anyone in Little Italy that Gio hasn’t dated,” Chloe pointed out.
“That’s not true,” Gio defended himself.
“You exaggerate, Chloe. The high school senior class is completely untouched,” Dante teased.
Gio motioned to Luca. “Help me out here.”
“There will be a whole mess of freshmen coming into the city by midsummer.” Luca leaned back, placed his hand over Brooke’s as everyone at the table took a jab at the birthday boy.
There was no point in taking offense to his family’s well-natured ribbing. He was the last of them to remain single, and now that Chloe and Dante’s formal wedding had passed, the focus fell on Gio.
“Whatever happened to all that talk about settling down and having a dozen kids?” Brooke asked, reminding him of a conversation he had with her when they first met.
“I’ve been busy playing best man to all of you.”
Luca and Dante exchanged glances with a shrug. “True.”
Mari sat to his side once the cake was served and patted his hand. “You’re a good son and generous brother.”
“Thanks, Mama.”
Luca grabbed an envelope that had been sitting in the center of the table throughout the meal and handed it to him. “This is from all of us.”
“Is it a mail-order bride?” he asked as he accepted the large envelope.
“No,” Chloe said. “But we do realize that you’ve put a lot of your plans on hold while we’ve been busy with weddings and baby showers.”
“Not to mention flying all the way to Positano to beat me up,” Dante added.
For a brief time, it wasn’t clear that Dante was the right person for Chloe, and since Gio didn’t approve of the match early on, he absolutely wanted to kick Dante’s ass for messing with his little sister. Hence the last-minute trip overseas for said ass-kicking.
“The pandemic put my life on hold,” Gio reminded them.
There was a collective groan at the table, followed by Luca saying, “And we kept it going.”
“This is our way of telling you to take some time for yourself.” Chloe smiled.
“And if you find a wife along the way . . . ,” Mari said with a hum.
Gio opened the envelope and pulled out the papers folded inside.
Tour of Tuscany was written in fancy lettering with the image of a vineyard and a bus.
“What is this?”
Luca started to explain. “A three-week tour through Tuscany. Family-owned wineries of all shapes and sizes. This looked like a great way to kick-start what we all know is the life you want here.”
Gio had been studying the art of wine making almost as much as he’d studied to earn his level one sommelier. He’d even considered increasing his certificate to the next level but wasn’t sure that would get him any closer to his ultimate goal of growing his own grapes.
“The tour starts in Florence and ends there. You can visit Nonno before the tour leaves and stay later if you want. The return ticket is flexible.”
Gio flipped through the pages of the itinerary, saw the tickets for the flight. “This is a week away.”
Dante patted him on the back. “Better get packing.”
The smile on Gio’s face started to spread as excitement warmed up his spine. He hadn’t visited Florence in years. “I don’t know what to say?”
“Grazie mille,” Franny told him.
Everyone laughed as Gio stood and hugged his family, one member at a time.
The click of Emma’s high heels echoed in the rotunda of the Napa offices of R&R Wineries as she walked through. Awards filled the display cases that splashed against the walls of the room, offering an exclamation point to her family’s success.
There was a time she meandered through this building with an absolute sense of belonging. A sense of hope that one day she’d sit right beside her father and help make all the important decisions about their wine.
And even though she’d been asked to join the executive board meeting on this day, she held little hope that the time had come for her to move from Temecula to Napa.
Still, Emma kept her shoulders back and her chin high . . . while her cell phone was pressed to her ear.
“I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
Nicole, her best friend and dinner date for the evening, complained on the other end of the line. “It’s your birthday. You shouldn’t have to work on your birthday.”
“It’s a meeting.”
“So . . . Zoom in like the rest of the world.”
“My father doesn’t ask for my presence very often. I’m not about to say no.”
“Does he even realize it’s your birthday?”
That . . . was a very good question. “Fifty-fifty chance.”
Nicole moaned.
“Our reservation is at seven. My flight gets in at three thirty. I have plenty of time.” Emma explained her plan.
“Call me if there’s a delay and I’ll meet you in San Diego and we can have dinner there.”
“It won’t be necessary. Trust me, I’ve done this trip a zillion times.” Emma started up the stairs and ended the conversation. “I’ll call you when I land.”