chapter 10
A tall, thin girl with auburn hair falling to her shoulders and wary brown eyes waited with an annoyed expression and a pillow
under one arm when Charlotte dragged her luggage down five flights of stairs and a series of narrow, winding walkways to reach
the villa. She knew at once she was looking at Lilly and, at first, assumed the girl was alone—that Luca had simply dropped
her off along with her belongings. Several suitcases and boxes were piled against the stucco wall that enclosed the villa,
near the gate so they were ready to be carried through. But a second later, a man came around the corner from the opposite
direction with yet another box.
“You have arrived,” he stated in heavily accented English as he stacked that box on top of the others.
Sloane and Julian, who’d taken a few seconds longer to reach the villa—since Julian had been paying the cab up top and wrestling with the bag that had the wonky wheel while Sloane kept stopping to rest because she wasn’t enjoying the effort it took to reach a home built on the side of a cliff—came up beside her and stopped, no doubt as shocked as she was to find Luca and Lilly there waiting for them.
Luca hadn’t even given them time to move into the villa!
“Yes, I have arrived,” Charlotte said, tempering her voice to hide her irritation. “You must be Luca.”
He offered her his hand, and she accepted it for Lilly’s sake.
About forty-five or forty-six—which had to be younger than her biological mother had been—he wasn’t very tall, but he was
wiry, tanned and attractive. With strands of silver threaded through his longish black hair, he looked quite distinguished
in a white linen shirt, which fell partway open at the chest to show a gold chain, tan linen shorts and leather shoes. “Ciao.” He gestured at Lilly. “This is your sister, capisci? She has been molto entusiasta to meet you.”
“Yeah, of course I have,” Lilly added dryly. “And I’m sure you’re just as excited to meet me. Who wouldn’t want to find out
about a little sister they never knew they had and who just happens to need a home and a guardian?”
He shifted awkwardly at the sarcasm. “She is intelligente,” he explained, tapping his forehead for emphasis. “You wait and see.”
Lilly definitely sounded older than her years. Charlotte hadn’t expected a miniadult, not at twelve! But she couldn’t think
about that right now; she was too distracted and preoccupied with Luca. She wanted to ask him so many things. How did Sabrina
and Luca meet? What had their relationship been like? How had Sabrina been paying for Lilly’s living—and her own—before she
died? Didn’t Sabrina have any life insurance? Did he know anything about the girl’s father—or her own, for that matter? What
about Sabrina’s extended family? Surely, there had to be more than the members Heidelman had mentioned.
And yet Lilly’s care was falling to her, so . . . maybe not.
She also wanted to learn how Lilly’s mother—her birth mother—had died.
But it felt heartless to talk so matter-of-factly about a woman who’d just passed away and left a twelve-year-old daughter behind to fend for herself, especially while they were standing in the middle of a walkway with presumably everything the girl had in this world piled in boxes beside them.
Charlotte couldn’t bring herself to do it.
There was something in Lilly’s eyes that warned her the girl didn’t trust easily—and that she could spot a fool a mile away, despite her young age.
Maybe that was why she hadn’t gotten along with Luca. Maybe he was a fool—or just eager to get out of a situation he’d never
bargained for in the first place. He and her mother hadn’t been together very long. It was possible they hadn’t been all that
close . . .
“Thank you for looking after her until I could get here,” she said instead of asking anything.
He gave her a slight bow. “It was my pleasure. And now, I have to get back to my Vespa store.”
That was it? He was just going to drop Lilly off and get on with his life as if Sabrina and Lilly had never been part of it?
Charlotte reached out to stop him before he could get too far. “Is there any chance you and I could meet for a cup of coffee
in the morning?”
He didn’t look as if he welcomed the opportunity. Her first impression had been correct, she decided. He wanted to be done,
to be free to move on with his life and not look back. But after he did look back, literally, and his eyes landed on Lilly,
he seemed to soften. “Perché no?”
“That’s a no?” she asked uncertainly.
“It means . . . um . . . why not?” he explained. “There is a coffee shop in town called Gym Tonic. Have you seen the place?”
“No. We just got here. We haven’t seen anything.”
“It’s on the street where the cab probably dropped you off—next to the gym. It serves food, coffee and delicious crepes. Meet
me there at ten?”
“Grazie,” she said with a nod and turned back to Lilly as he walked away without so much as a hug for the girl he was leaving in
her care.
“I wouldn’t have come all the way from America if I didn’t want to meet you,” she said to her half sister, but if she thought
that would be enough to reassure Lilly and get her to lower her guard, she was sadly mistaken.
Lilly glared sullenly—testing her to see if that was all it required to get her to head back to the States, Charlotte supposed.
The girl resented her own need. That much seemed clear.
Julian introduced himself and Sloane, which elicited only a slight nod from Lilly. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Shall
we go inside?”
Charlotte’s heart nearly broke when she saw Lilly turn toward all the boxes Luca had stacked up as if she didn’t know what
to do with them.
“I’ll get those,” Julian murmured. “You go in and have a look around with your sister.”
There was a flash of relief in Lilly’s eyes—and it was then that Charlotte realized if anyone could win her over it would
be Julian. She was so glad he’d come to Italy with her.
Being handed to three total strangers made the girl Julian had just met prickly and defensive. She had to be terrified about
her future. If he had his guess, her life hadn’t been very stable up to this point and had just gotten a whole lot more unstable,
so she was braced for further disappointment. That she didn’t shed a tear when Luca left, didn’t even say goodbye, made Julian
respect her strength and self-possession. It seemed she wasn’t about to let Luca know how badly his abandonment hurt, wasn’t
about to let anyone know.
Except she was overcompensating, which made it easier to figure out than she probably thought.
“This villa is pretty cool, isn’t it?” he said, walking over to join her when he found her standing at the edge of the terrace alone, staring out at the sea.
She didn’t answer. She just watched him warily, as if she didn’t dare lower her guard in case whatever kindness he was offering
would prove to be a trap.
He persevered with a smile. “I mean, life could be worse than having our own suite—and there’s a hot tub with a view of the
Mediterranean.”
She corrected quietly, “It’s the Tyrrhenian Sea.”
The Tyrrhenian was part of the Mediterranean, but he didn’t bother explaining that. Technically, she was right. It wasn’t
an important distinction, anyway, especially at this moment. “Whatever it is, I’m certain I’ve never seen a more beautiful
coastline, and I’ve been all over the world.”
She studied him, presumably to decide if he was credible. “Even Antarctica?”
She thought she had him. “Even Antarctica,” he replied.
Her eyes widened. “You’re so rich you just travel the world?”
“No, I travel for work. I’m a landscape photographer. I take pictures of beautiful places like this and sell them to magazines,
online sites and galleries.” He pulled his phone from the pocket of his khaki shorts, found his Antarctica album and handed
her his phone.
She studied each picture closely, seemingly mesmerized. “I think it’s just as pretty as it is here,” she said as she handed
it back. “Maybe even prettier.”
“It’s an entirely different kind of beauty. Everyone should see it at least once. But—” he gestured at the houses built on
the cliffs to the right and left of them “—this place is much more comfortable.”
“Does anyone live in Antarctica?”
“Just scientists who stay at various stations. There aren’t any homes or businesses. Did you know that planes can’t even fly over Antarctica?”
He could tell he’d piqued her curiosity despite her desire to remain completely aloof. “Why not?”
“Weather’s too unpredictable.”
“Where else have you been?”
“Russia, China, India. Lots of places.”
She peered over her shoulder toward the villa as if checking to make sure they were alone. And they were. Charlotte and Sloane
were still inside getting settled in their rooms. “Are you my sister’s boyfriend?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Just a friend.”
“Like . . . really?” she said skeptically.
“Like really,” he echoed with a chuckle. “We’ve known each other since grade school. She’s been Sloane’s best friend since
I can remember, and Sloane’s my twin sister.”
“How can Sloane be your twin? You don’t even look alike—not very much, anyway.”
“Fraternal twins don’t share identical DNA.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s weird.”
“It is—kind of. But sort of fortunate, too. At least my parents weren’t tempted to name us Riley and Kylie or something like
that.”
This elicited a small grin.
“Or dress us alike,” he added emphatically. “Can you imagine what that would’ve been like for me—going through school always
matching my sister?”
Her smile broadened, though grudgingly. “She’s still your same age. Did you like that?”
He lowered his voice as if confiding a great secret. “Early on, I would gladly have traded her for a brother. But when I started
getting interested in girls, her cute friends were coming to the house all the time, so I felt like the luckiest guy in school.”
She laughed out loud, then clapped a hand over her mouth as if the sound had escaped in spite of her attempt to squelch it.
“I had lots of acne and braces back then, so I needed all the help I could get,” he said, and that made her feel comfortable
enough to drop her hand.
“So . . . she’s cool?” she asked uncertainly.
“My sister? I think so. We’ve managed to get along despite being the same age. I think you’ll like Charlotte, too.”
She reached down to scratch her ankle. “Mr. Heidelman told Luca that Charlotte’s married to an NBA star. Is that true?” She
gestured around them. “Is that how she has the money for a place like this?”
“The three of us are sharing expenses, which makes our accommodations a bit more affordable. But what Mr. Heidelman said was true. Until a couple of weeks ago, she was married to Clifford Jackson.”
“From the Lakers?”
He nodded.
“What happened a couple of weeks ago?”
A soft wind ruffled his hair as he turned his face up to the sun. “They split up. He wants to be free. And since he’s famous,
you can read all about it on the internet, which, as you can imagine, isn’t very much fun for her.”
“That would suck,” she admitted.
“It does. Bottom line, you’re both going through a pretty shitty time. But it’ll all work out in the end.”
His swearing startled her, but she also relaxed immediately after. “What makes you think so?”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever met a nicer person than Charlotte. She’ll get on her feet eventually—and, if I know her, she’ll
be there for you.”
She fell silent for a few seconds. Then she said, “What about your sister?”
“What about her?”
“She married?”
“She is—to a guy named Ben.”
“Where’s he?”
“Back in Seattle, where they live.”
“He couldn’t come?”
“Had to work.” He leaned forward, trying to catch her eye after she turned away. “Aren’t you overwhelmed enough with three
of us?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know yet,” she said, looking worried again.
“You’re going to be okay,” he reiterated.
The door opened before she could respond, and Charlotte stepped out. “There you are, Lilly. Jules, I thought you’d be taking
a nap.”
“Is that what Sloane’s doing?”
“She was so jet-lagged, she fell right into bed. But she told me to wake her when we go to dinner.”
“You know people eat a lot later here in Italy, don’t you?” he said.
“I didn’t know, but that works well for us. She’ll be able to rest a little longer that way.”
Wanting to give Charlotte some time alone with her newly found sister, he backed away, leaving Lilly at the railing. “I think
I’ll lie down for a bit, too,” he said and gave Charlotte a nod of encouragement as he went inside.