Lillian lifted her face and kissed Anton softly on the lips, but he wouldn’t let it go with that. He pulled her close and deepened the kiss for one final moment of passion.

When he drew back, a door swung shut over Lillian’s heart, and she knew, from that day forward, it would be locked away forever, until she and Anton met again. In this life or in the next.

CHAPTER 24

FIONA

Tuscany, 2017

“I don’t know how to feel right now,” I said, wiping tears from my cheeks and squinting into the sunshine as a small sailboat passed by. “If what you’re telling me is true, that means my father knew about my mother’s affair all along and that it wasn’t a secret at all. But I’ve been carrying the burden of that secrecy, hiding it from him, since I was eighteen years old.”

There was something intense in Francesco’s eyes as he watched me with scrutiny, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. He almost seemed to be enjoying this. I supposed he was relieved that the truth was finally out.

“But if my dad already knew,” I said, “why did Mom make me promise to keep it secret from him?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Francesco replied. “Because she wanted Freddie to believe that you were his child. She asked Anton to keep the same secret, and he did. For the rest of his life, he never broke that promise.”

“Because of the guilt he felt?”

“Partly, yes, but not entirely. The real reason Anton never revealed the truth was because he simply couldn’t break a promise he had made to your mother. That’s how much he loved her.”

I pondered all of this as I twisted my signet ring around on my finger. “But my dad didn’t even want children. Why did Mom feel she had to lie about it?”

“Because everything changed after the accident. She knew how afraid he was that she would leave him for Anton one day, and if he knew you were Anton’s child, he might have simply given up wanting to live. She was very protective of him. She had to be, and I believe a part of her felt that, in the end, it was her purpose in this life.”

“Her destiny,” I said. “To care for someone who couldn’t take care of himself.” I looked across at Francesco. “She was always very good at being a mother—to both of us, I suppose. But when did Anton find out about me? Did Mom tell him when she found out she was pregnant, or did she tell him years later?”

Francesco shifted in his chair and crossed one long leg over the other. “She and Freddie spent four weeks at the trauma center in Turin, and when it was time for Freddie to leave the hospital and move into a rehab facility, her insurance company insisted that he be transferred back to America. By that time, she knew she was pregnant.”

“Did she know that I was Anton’s?” I asked. “For sure?”

“From what I understand, yes. She told Anton there could be no doubt. Women know these things, I gather.”

“As long as we know how to use a calendar,” I said with a sigh.

Seagulls soared above us, high against the blue sky, calling out to one another.

“Before your mother left the country,” Francesco continued, “she saw Anton one more time in Turin. She asked him to come, and I drove him there. He spent an hour with her, on a park bench outside the hospital, and that was all.” Francesco bowed his head. “He was devastated that day. It was a painful drive back to Montepulciano, let me tell you.”

“What did she say to him?” I asked.

“She told him what I told you before—that she intended to pass their child off as Freddie’s because she believed if he ever learned the truth, it would take away his will to live, and he was hanging on by a thread. Anton agreed to let her do whatever she felt she had to do.”

My heart was breaking. I stood up and moved to the iron railing to look out at the sea. “Did they think it was just temporary? That my dad wouldn’t survive for more than a few years? Is that why Anton agreed to keep quiet about it? Did they expect that they would be together again, eventually?”

“I believe that’s what Anton expected,” Francesco said. “And please don’t think he was a bad person, wishing for your father to die. He never wished that. He felt guilty enough as it was, and he did everything he could to help your father.”

I swung around to face him. “What do you mean?”

“Financially,” Francesco explained with a shrug of his shoulder, as if I should know.

“Are you telling me that he supported us?”

“Yes, he sent money to your mother every month.”

“But I thought we were living on medical insurance money and then the proceeds from my mother’s life insurance policy.”

He nodded. “You were. But Anton paid for your mother’s insurance policy, just to be safe. It was his idea, not long after she left Italy. He wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of in the event of your mother’s death. He was always a planner, very smart about money.”

I bent over the railing and bowed my head. “I can’t believe it,” I said breathlessly. “All this time, I hated him. I thought he took advantage of my mother. If I’d only known.”

A terrible regret came at me suddenly, knocking me off kilter. Anton, my real father, was dead, and I would never get the chance to meet him. It was too late now.

My heart squeezed agonizingly in my chest. What a fool I had been. I should have searched for the truth sooner. I shouldn’t have buried my head in the sand, buried all my questions for the sake of my father’s emotional stability.

Fighting to maintain my composure, I faced Francesco. “Why didn’t Anton contact me and tell me what you just told me? I never knew he cared for me or for my mother. Why did he let me believe that he didn’t?”

“Because he didn’t know you knew the truth. Your mother’s death was devastating for him, but it didn’t change the promise he made to her—that he would wait until after Freddie was gone to approach you. All his life, he was waiting for that day.”

“And no one expected my dad to live as long as he did,” I replied with newfound understanding.

“Thirty-one years,” Francesco said. “He certainly beat the odds.”

“He outlived them both.” I returned to my chair at the table and sat down. “Where do I go from here? How do I live with this?”

Francesco folded his hands across his lap and squinted into the bright sunshine. “It seems that your more immediate problem is making sure that Anton’s final wishes are respected. He loved his children, and it’s important for everyone to realize that he didn’t disinherit them—although it might seem like that from their point of view. But I can tell you this, in no uncertain terms—he wasn’t pressured into changing his will. He wanted his children to learn something, to learn how to be grateful and not take things for granted, and to be independent and budget their money, for pity’s sake, and stop going through life thinking it grows on trees. Anton had a very strong work ethic, and I think this was his way of forcing Connor and Sloane to wake up to that. Heaven knows he tried to teach them that while he was alive, but their mother got in the way of it. Kate did love to spoil them.”