Richard and Nives spend their first summer holiday together, two full weeks in the charming Isle of Elba in Italy, hosted by Nives' friends Raffaella and Jerry in their beautiful wine estate.
(expect lots of fluffiness, but with a touch of hot chili...
Nives dialled her Roman friend Raffaella's number. She had met her the first time she had gone to Elba and the island had won her heart. The two women had immediately become friends, as they both had in common a passion for several subject, namely writing, history, Tolkien and Star Trek, and even for good food and wine – the latter being Raffaella's forte. Oenology had indeed always fascinated her and, though she profitably studied architecture at the La Sapienza University of Rome, she had taken many courses about this topic, spending her summer holidays visiting wine producer's estates. After graduating from university, she had begun working for a group practice of architecture in the capital but, coming to the Elba Island one summer of twelve years before, she had fallen in love with an estate near Capoliveri, which used to be famous for producing an excellent Ansonica white wine, but which now lay abandoned, because the heirs of the owners – who had died a couple of years earlier – weren't interested in it and had put it on sale. With a header she had never regretted, Raffaella had quitted her job in Rome and, investing her entire savings and partly those of her parents – both successful professionals and rather wealthy – she had purchased the estate. Putting to good use every knowledge and notion she had accumulated over the years, she got the Ansonica vineyards back in shape with the help of skilled local workers, and she had started to produce wine both of the dry and of the sweet variety. Success had been immediate and had allowed her, just three years later, to develop the property by purchasing a new plot of land, where she had planted the most typical Elban vine, the Aleatico, which produced the famous dessert wine, but also an excellent sparkling brut rosé. After that, she had added Vermentino vines, too.
Nives had met Raffaella during one of the gourmet evenings she organised in her estate, Altariva, where common acquaintances had invited her. They had become friends at once, with the immediacy that only kindred spirits experience, and they had spent much time together, as Raffaella now dealt almost only with her estate's public relations, because she had entrusted the management, the entire manual labour and most of the accounting work to trustworthy staff. When Nives had come back to Elba the following year, Raffaella had invited her to be her guest, as she possessed a very large house. It was a 19th century villa that she had entirely renovated, with four bedrooms, as many bathrooms, an extensive living room opening on a huge terrace overlooking the sea – where she held monthly her gourmet evenings – a large sitting room, a library, a kitchen fit for a restaurant, several service rooms, a garage for four cars, and last but not least, a spectacular pool with attached Jacuzzi, surrounded by a magnificent garden full of flowers and trees, the latter nearly all holm-oaks and maritime pines. Since then, each time Nives had gone to the Elba Island – and it had happened lots of times – she had stayed at her friend's.
Raffaella answered the phone at the third ring.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Hi, Nives!" she greeted her enthusiastically. "How was the stay at your parents-in-law's?"
Amongst all of Nives' acquaintances, Raffaella was the one who could better understand her difficulties to handle the fame she was experiencing vicariously since she had met Richard Armitage, because she had lived through something rather similar when she had met the famous world multi-champion archer Jerry Runner, on holiday there on the island. They had fallen for each other hard and fast, even more than Nives and Richard, and within six months they were married. Jerry's sport career had been cut short just a few months before his encounter with Raffaella, because of an accident that had injured the tendons of his left arms, compromising his agonistic ability, and she had been a lifeline for him, saving him from the terrible depression he had fallen into. Born and grown up among the Napa Valley vineyards, viticulture and winemaking had been his side business since forever and therefore, it was completely natural for him to come and live in Elba, working along with his wife and investing in her estate both on a personal and on a financial level.
