familiarity with me—and feeling completely in the dark about the nature of my conception or the reason for my existence in the world—I set my purse on the terrace floor and forced myself to face Francesco directly. “I’m sorry to hear that you were ill.”
He waved a hand dismissively. “That was nothing. I’m fine now, as you can see. But I was sorry to miss the funeral.”
“Me too,” I replied. “I didn’t get here in time for that.” We sat in silence for a moment or two, then Elena appeared with two small cups of espresso. “Thank you so much,” I said to her and took a careful sip before setting the cup down in the tiny saucer. “So you’ve known about me?” I said to Francesco. “For how long?”
“Many years. I knew about you before you even came into the world.”
I sat staring at him, stunned, staggered, and shaken by this newfound connection to the past. “I’m glad I found you,” I said, “because no one in Anton’s family or at the winery seemed to know I existed—at least not until this week. And no one has been able to answer questions about what happened between him and my mother. She wasn’t able to tell me anything before she passed, so needless to say, I’m curious about that.” I gazed out at the distant blue horizon. “And thank you for being so welcoming this morning. I haven’t been very popular with certain family members back at the winery, so I appreciate this.”
“Because of what was written in Anton’s will,” Francesco said perceptively, gazing out at the water as well. Seagulls screeched in a flock as they circled a fishing boat just off the coastline. “I confess,” Francesco said with hearty laughter, “I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when Connor and Sloane learned what Anton had done.”
I regarded him with surprise. “You didn’t like his children?”
“It’s not that. I loved them because they were Anton’s, but they grew up to be very lazy and ungrateful. They expected to inherit the whole world without ever having to lift a finger and without ever giving anything to their father in return, and God knows he tried to be a part of their lives. They must have been flabbergasted.”
“They were,” I told him, “but they’re not going down without a fight.”
He looked at me curiously. “A fight? What sort of fight?”
“They want to prove that Anton was unduly influenced,” I explained, “or pressured into changing his will. They can’t understand why, after thirty-one years, he would leave the bulk of his estate to me—an illegitimate child he’d never met. I’m surprised too. Anton was never a part of my mother’s life for as long as I was alive, and she only told me the truth because she was dying. She wouldn’t share many details. She was hanging on by a thread at that point, so I always assumed it was something . . . I’m not sure how to say this, Francesco. I assumed it was something . . . unpleasant.”
Francesco’s head drew back as if I had swung a punch at him. “You thought Anton forced himself on her?”
I chewed my bottom lip. “I don’t know. Maybe I thought that. I was only eighteen when she told me that my dad, who I adored, wasn’t my real father. It was a shock, and I didn’t know how to process it, and then she died within hours, so I didn’t get a chance to have a proper conversation with her about what happened.” I reflected upon my thoughts and feelings over the past twelve years. “I was too young for all of that. I was grief stricken and angry. It was a shock to hear it, and I felt betrayed—for myself and on my father’s behalf. Maybe I still feel betrayed.”
Francesco watched me with sympathy. “I was sorry to hear about your mother’s passing.”
I looked up. “Did you know her back then?”
“Sì. She was a very important person at the winery, and important to Anton.”
“In what way?”
He regarded me with a frown of disbelief. “Do you really know nothing about what happened between them?”
I shook my head. “All I know is that she spent a summer in Tuscany so that my dad could research his first book and that she worked at the winery as a tour guide.”
Francesco tapped his finger on his temple. “She was much more than a tour guide. She had a real head for