Chapter 10 - The Bottle Worth More Than $4,000
Sophie Bennett stared at the bottle for exactly four minutes.
Some traditions deserved respect.
Bennett Ridge had changed almost beyond recognition.
Sunlight poured through restored windows. The tasting room smelled of cedar, fruit and the faint mineral coolness drifting from the cellar below.
Outside, rows of vines stretched across the California hillside.
A year earlier, the place had been abandoned.
Now it was alive.
Forty-two people worked there.
Thomas Bennett’s portrait hung near the original tasting counter.
And Bennett No. 17 had sold out its first release in eleven minutes.
Wine critics loved it.
Sophie’s favorite review described it as “unexpectedly joyful.”
Her father would have liked that.
But today Sophie was not thinking about critics.
She was staring at a bottle.
Dante had placed it there deliberately.
She knew because her husband—
Not husband.
Not yet.
Her boyfriend.
Annoyingly handsome vineyard investor.
Former mafia boss.
Current tractor enthusiast.
—had disappeared twenty minutes earlier after telling her he needed to check something in the south field.
Sophie narrowed her eyes.
“This is suspicious.”
The bottle offered no defense.
She stepped closer.
Same vineyard.
Same vintage.
Same wine she had stolen from Dante’s study.
She laughed.
“No.”
Beside it was a crystal glass.
Sophie looked around.
Empty.
This felt familiar.
Far too familiar.
She poured herself a taste.
“Still overpriced.”
“Enjoying yourself?”
Sophie smiled before turning.
Dante stood in the doorway.
But this time he wore faded jeans, boots and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
California had changed him.
Not completely.
Dante Romano would probably look intimidating while holding a basket of puppies.
But the darkness around him had softened.
He slept more.
Laughed more.
And occasionally permitted dirt to touch his expensive clothing without treating it as a personal attack.
Sophie raised the glass.
“You’ve used that line before.”
“It worked.”
“You nearly fired me.”
“I never considered firing you.”
“Really?”
“I considered moving the wine.”
“Monster.”
He approached.
Sophie noticed his hand was behind his back.
“What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I ran a criminal organization.”
“And yet you remain terrible at lying to me.”
“Occupational decline.”
She laughed.
Dante stopped in front of her.
“Do you know what today is?”
“The anniversary of my first workplace crime?”
“Unauthorized tasting.”
Her eyes widened.
“You remembered.”
“I remember everything about that afternoon.”
Sophie looked at the bottle.
“So do I.”
Her expression softened.
That ridiculous glass of wine had reopened a door she believed grief had sealed permanently.
It gave her back her father.
Not literally.
Nothing could.
But through Thomas’s notes, his vineyard and the truth he had fought to preserve, Sophie had finally stopped remembering only how he died.
She remembered how he lived.
His terrible singing.
His flour-covered pancakes every Sunday.
His insistence that wine should make people talk to one another rather than impress one another.
His laugh.
Especially his laugh.
Dante touched her cheek.
“Where did you go?”
“Seven years ago.”
He understood.
He always did now.
Sophie leaned into his palm.
“I wish he could see this.”
“He would be proud of you.”
“You never met him.”
“No.”
“So technically you can’t know.”
Dante nodded solemnly.
“Then I’m making an aggressively confident assumption.”
She smiled.
“Better.”
He took the glass from her and placed it down.
Then Sophie noticed the velvet box.
Her eyes moved from it to him.
“Dante.”
He picked it up.
“No.”
His expression changed.
“No?”
“I mean—wait.”
Sophie pressed both hands against her face.
“You cannot just casually put that beside stolen-wine memorabilia.”
“I thought it was romantic.”
“It’s psychological warfare.”
“Should I put it away?”
“Absolutely not.”
Dante laughed.
Then he knelt.
Sophie stopped breathing.
This man had faced guns without blinking.
He had walked into a vineyard knowing men were waiting to kill him.
He had dismantled an empire carrying his family’s name.
But now, kneeling in front of Sophie Bennett, Dante looked nervous.
Actually nervous.
That made her eyes fill before he spoke.
“Sophie Bennett, you entered my house as an employee.”
“Technically.”
“You stole my wine.”
“Borrowed.”
“You insulted it.”
“Accurately.”
“You insulted me.”
“Circumstantially.”
“Sophie.”
“Sorry.”
He was trying not to smile.
“You walked into the worst parts of my life and refused to be intimidated by them. You made me question things I had accepted since childhood. You taught me that protecting someone doesn’t mean controlling them.”
Her humor faded.
Dante continued.
“You gave me a life I didn’t know I was allowed to want.”
A tear slipped down Sophie’s cheek.
“You’re making this annoyingly difficult to joke through.”
“Good.”
He opened the box.
Inside was a ring.
Elegant.
Simple.
A vintage diamond set between tiny engraved grape leaves.
Sophie covered her mouth.
“It belonged to my mother,” Dante said. “But I changed the setting.”
Sophie looked closer.
Inside the band was an engraving.
She laughed through tears.
“Of course.”
Dante looked up.
“Sophie Bennett, will you marry me?”
She pretended to consider.
His expression changed.
Sophie lasted three seconds.
“Yes.”
Dante stood.
She threw her arms around him.
He kissed her as laughter broke through both of them.
Then applause erupted outside.
Sophie jumped.
She turned.
Approximately forty people stood beyond the windows.
Luca.
Rachel.
The vineyard employees.
Dante’s security chief.
Even the elderly accountant who had somehow cried through every major Bennett Ridge event.
Sophie looked at Dante.
“You invited an audience?”
“I was confident.”
“You were terrified.”
“Both can be true.”
Luca opened the door.
“Did she say yes?”
Sophie held up her hand.
Cheers filled the tasting room.
Someone opened champagne.
Sophie immediately objected that champagne was French and they owned a vineyard.
Ten minutes later, Bennett No. 17 replaced it.
That evening, long tables were arranged between the vines.
There were no crystal chandeliers.
No armed negotiations.
No secret accounts.
No powerful men whispering in dark rooms.
Just food.
Music.
Friends.
Family they had chosen.
As sunset painted the hills gold, Sophie sat beside Dante with her bare feet tucked beneath her chair.
Her engagement ring caught the light.
Luca raised a glass.
“To Sophie, who stole four thousand dollars’ worth of wine and somehow ended up owning the vineyard.”
“I drank maybe eighty dollars,” Sophie protested.
“Inflation,” Luca replied.
Everyone laughed.
Dante leaned toward her.
“For the record, the bottle is worth six thousand now.”
Sophie stared.
“You kept it?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“The sentimental value.”
She placed a hand over her heart.
“That may be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.”
“I’m improving.”
“Slowly.”
Later, after everyone left, Sophie and Dante returned to the tasting room.
The original bottle remained on the desk.
Only a little wine was left.
Sophie picked it up.
“You know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“I still think it’s showing off.”
Dante folded his arms.
“You’ve become impossible since getting your own label.”
“I learned from you.”
She poured the final amount between two glasses.
Then she noticed an envelope beneath the bottle.
“What’s this?”
Dante frowned.
“I didn’t put that there.”
They looked at each other.
For one old, terrible second, Sophie felt the past return.
She opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Thomas Bennett.
He stood in this very tasting room twenty years earlier, smiling beside a teenage Sophie.
On the back was handwriting.
Not Thomas’s.
Elena’s.
Found this while clearing an old archive. Thought it belonged home.
Sophie stared at the photograph.
Her eyes filled.
Dante came beside her.
She handed it to him.
“My father hated photographs.”
“Why?”
“He said cameras always caught him looking confused.”
Dante studied Thomas’s enormous smile.
“He looks happy.”
“He was.”
Sophie touched the picture.
Then she smiled.
“So am I.”
Dante wrapped an arm around her.
Outside, evening settled over Bennett Ridge.
The vineyard that had once held murder, secrets and grief now glowed beneath strings of warm lights.
New barrels rested in the cellar.
Thomas’s original notebook sat safely behind glass.
The criminal fortune that had nearly destroyed two families was gone.
Marcus Romano was awaiting trial.
Whitmore had been convicted.
Bellini had accepted a plea agreement that exposed the remaining financial network.
Luca had moved to California and claimed he was there strictly for business, though Sophie suspected the local veterinarian had something to do with his sudden enthusiasm for rural life.
And Dante Romano, once one of Chicago’s most feared men, now spent an unreasonable amount of time arguing with vineyard contractors about irrigation.
Sophie raised her glass.
“To irresponsible decisions.”
Dante touched his glass to hers.
“That seems dangerous.”
“The best one I ever made involved stealing your wine.”
“Unauthorized tasting.”
“Are you going to correct me for the rest of our lives?”
“Yes.”
Sophie smiled.
“Good.”
They drank.
She considered the wine.
Dante waited.
“Well?”
Sophie swirled it thoughtfully.
“Still too much oak.”
He looked offended.
She laughed.
Then Dante pulled her gently against him.
“Enjoying yourself?”
Sophie looked around the vineyard her father had loved.
At the man she had once been warned never to trust.
At the life neither of them had expected to find.
Then she looked back at Dante.
“Very much.”
She kissed him.
And for once, there was no gunshot waiting beyond the door.
No hidden enemy.
No secret buried beneath a label.
Only the quiet sound of the vineyard outside and two half-finished glasses sitting on Thomas Bennett’s restored wooden counter.
Sophie had spent years believing that losing her father had been the ending of her story.
It wasn’t.
Neither was the day she became a maid because every other dream felt too painful to touch.
Neither was the moment Dante caught her with his wine.
Those had only been turns in the road.
Some terrible.
One spectacularly embarrassing.
All leading here.
Sophie rested her head against Dante’s chest.
“Dante?”
“Hmm?”
“I have one condition before the wedding.”
He immediately became suspicious.
“What?”
“No four-thousand-dollar wine.”
“That seems arbitrary.”
“Fifty dollars maximum.”
“Sophie.”
“Seventy-five.”
“We have three hundred guests.”
“Exactly. Financial responsibility.”
He stared at her.
Sophie grinned.
Dante finally laughed.
The sound filled the same room where Thomas Bennett had once taught his daughter that something did not have to sound impressive.
It only had to be true.
And the truth was wonderfully simple.
Sophie Bennett had stolen a sip of the wrong man’s wine.
She had found a mystery beneath the label.
A father beneath the grief.
A home beneath the ruins.
And love in the last place she had ever intended to look.
This time, when Dante kissed her, Sophie did not wonder what might happen next.
May you like
Whatever came, they would face it together.
And that was worth considerably more than four thousand dollars.
