His comment was met with a moment of silence. “I shouldn’t have left.”
“I don’t think that’s the case.” It was time. They had to find happiness with each other or separate and find it elsewhere.
She asked him a few questions about his work. Then she put her brother on so he could say hello. Ben knew that if their marriage ended, it would be hard to lose her family, too. He had a good mother, but he’d had to step into his dad’s shoes when he was only fifteen. That had changed the dynamic at home enough that he craved being part of a regular family, and Sloane and Julian’s parents were definitely regular—the kind of regular that was as American as apple pie. So were Charlotte’s, for that matter. He didn’t want her adoption to change the closeness they’d always shared.
After he spoke with Julian for a few minutes, he said hello to Charlotte and wished her well. If anyone could love a sister they’d never known, it would be her. But he had no idea how that sister would impact her life—whether it would be for better or for worse...
Sloane came back on the phone once Charlotte said goodbye. “I’ll send you a video of the villa once we get there.”
“I hope it’s as great as the pictures.”
“So do I. I miss you,” she added.
“Miss you, too,” he responded and meant it. Then he disconnected and turned on the shower. He feared what the next few weeks might bring. It felt like a make-it-or-break-it moment in their marriage—and he had no idea which way it would go.
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 andLilly 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 beenmolto entusiastato 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 isintelligente,” 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—herbirth mother—had died.
But it felt heartless to talk so matter-of-factly about a womanwho’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.“Perchéno?”
“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.”
