Crushed (The Fredrickson Winery Novels) by Brink Barbara Ellen

Author:Brink, Barbara Ellen [Brink, Barbara Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Barbara Ellen Brink
Published: 2011-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

“What do you mean, you can’t? I have paid you an exorbitant amount of money to accelerate the process. I want to take my son home to Italy by the end of this month. Don’t tell me it’s not possible. Just do it!” He flipped the cell phone closed and laid it on the table beside him.

Carl’s restaurant was already busy and bustling at five p.m. He still hadn’t become accustomed to the seven and a half hour time difference from Rome, but he’d skipped lunch and he was starving. A waiter moved smoothly between tables offering free samples of a local Merlot. He waved him away when he neared his table. The man moved off to a rowdy group of middle-aged patrons, already half drunk from touring wineries.

Agosto picked up his glass of wine and took a sip. Letting it linger on his tongue, he breathed deeply. He detected a hint of nutmeg and lush, dark blackberries. There was a nose of cocoa and something else he couldn’t quite...

“Agosto. I didn’t know you were here.” Carl stood beside him still in his chef coat, a puzzled look on his face. He eyed the bottle of wine on the table. “I see you’ve discovered Margaret’s Wine.”

“Please have a seat and share a glass with me.” Agosto motioned for his cousin to sit. “If you can spare a few moments from your precious kitchen. We’ve hardly spoken since I’ve been back.”

Carl turned toward the kitchen and nodded at a busboy standing there. The young man disappeared through the swinging doors. “I can sit for a minute.” He took a wineglass from the unoccupied table next to them, pulled out a chair and sat, his face a mask of politeness.

“I suppose you know that Margaret has refused to allow me contact with my own son.” He swallowed the rest of the wine in his glass and reached for the bottle. He refilled his and Carl’s as well. “I thought perhaps we could start over. But she won’t give me a chance.”

“Did you really think that taking Davy was a good way to start over?” Carl asked, is tone sharp. “I find that hard to believe. You were always a conniving…”

Agosto put out his hand. “Stop right there! You have no right. It’s been ten years since I was the boy you so despised. I’m a different man now. Am I to be punished for the rest of my life for an immature choice I made a decade ago?” He rubbed his hands over his face and sat back with a weary sigh. “I know I shouldn’t have taken him. It was stupid. I waited for Margaret to call and she didn’t. I wanted to see my son. To talk with him. To spend time with him as a father. So I took him—to play soccer. What is so horrible about that?” He shook his head. “She actually called the police.”

Carl watched him as though he were a criminal on the witness stand.

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