CHAPTER 27

SLOANE

Tuscany, 2017

Seated at the dining room table with the lawyers, Sloane was first to finish reading a copy of her father’s final letter to Lillian Bell. The room was quiet as a tomb as Connor, Fiona, and Maria continued to read. When Fiona set down her copy, Sloane turned to her, and her voice shook as she spoke. “I guess this is the proof you were looking for.”

Connor was still reading, his face twisted into an infuriated frown.

Mr. Wainwright folded his hands upon a file that contained the original copies of the letters, sent over a span of eighteen years. “It shows, without a doubt,” he said, “that Mr. Clark possessed genuine feelings of love for Fiona’s mother. This will make it very difficult to overturn the will.”

Connor finally finished reading the last letter and tossed it onto the table. “How do we know these are even real?”

“It’s Dad’s handwriting,” Sloane said.

He pointed at Fiona. “There’s a lot of money at stake here. She could have forged it.”

Mr. Wainwright held up a hand. “I spoke to Francesco Bergamaschi, who confirmed that the letters were genuine. He also confirmed Mr. Clark’s final wishes.”

“Who the hell is Francesco Berg . . . whatever his name is?” Connor asked.

“He was your father’s driver and personal assistant for many years,” Mr. Wainwright replied.

Teardrops pooled on Sloane’s eyelashes. “I remember him. He used to drive us into town for ice cream when we were little. Remember?”

“That guy?” Connor replied. “He must be senile by now. You trust what he has to say?”

“We believe the letters speak for themselves,” Mr. Wainwright informed Connor, with a note of impatience. “The will stands.”

A tear spilled from Sloane’s eye. She quickly wiped it away, but Connor noticed and turned to Fiona. “Do you see that? That’s the kind of father he was. A vindictive bastard to the very end, cutting his own kids out of his will just to spite us. Look what this is doing to her.”

Sloane couldn’t allow Connor to speak for her, because he didn’t understand how she felt, nor did he have the slightest appreciation for the things she loved—her children, this winery, the London house. He was her brother, and she would always love him, but deep down, they had nothing in common. She had to be honest.

“That’s not why I’m crying,” she said shakily.

“What’s the problem, then?” Connor asked irritably.

She gestured toward her father’s final letter to Lillian Bell. “I didn’t think that kind of love was possible. I’ve certainly never been loved like that.”

Connor leaned back in his chair and shook his head at her. “Great, sis. Well done.”

“And he wasn’t vindictive,” she added. “Even if he was, it’s our own fault for making him that way. Didn’t you read what he said in that letter? We were terrible children. We believed all the lies Mom told us about him. We believed it because we were selfish, and we didn’t want to miss out on our friends’ parties in LA. We never gave him the benefit of the doubt. If we had come to visit him once in a while, we might have seen that he wasn’t the two-timing womanizer that Mom made him out to be. Maybe he would have confided in us about all this. Maybe he would have been happier.” She buried her forehead in a hand. “I can’t believe he’s gone and I never knew him. I’m not surprised he did what he did. As far as I’m concerned, what we got in the will is more than we deserved.”

Connor shoved his chair back and stood. “I don’t care what these letters say. I still think she did something to make him rewrite it, because she was no better than us. Why did she deserve it more than we did?”

“Because she was a good daughter!” Sloane replied heatedly. “She’s been at her father’s side her entire life. She was devoted to him, and Dad knew it! What did we ever sacrifice for anything?”

Connor stood for a moment, glaring at her. “You’re going to have to buy me out of that house in London, Sloane, because I never want to set foot in it again.” He headed for the door.

Sloane watched him go and realized that she was shaking all over. With trembling hands, she wiped the tears from her cheeks, then noticed suddenly that everyone at the table was staring at her in silence.

“Thank you,” Fiona said.

Mr. Wainwright cleared his throat and pulled another file from under the one that contained the letters. “Now that that’s out of the way, we’d like to begin the process of transferring the deed for the winery and all the corporate holdings over to you, Ms. Bell. And Maria, we also have the deed for your villa here. There’s a fair bit of paperwork. Do you both have time to get through this today?”

Fiona and Maria exchanged a look.

“I do,” Fiona replied.

“Me too,” Maria added.

“Excellent. Let’s get started, then.” Mr. Wainwright opened the file.

After the lawyers left, Sloane was upstairs in her bedroom, curled up in a fetal position on the bed. Evan and Chloe sat on the sofa with earbuds, swiping at their tablets.

A knock sounded at the door, and Fiona walked in. Sloane sat up, dabbed her eyes with a tissue, and fought to pull herself together. Evan and Chloe glanced up briefly, then back down at their screens.

“Hi,” Fiona said. “How are you doing?”

“Horrendous,” Sloane replied. “But please don’t think I’m crying because you got the winery and I didn’t. I don’t blame you for that, and it’s not what I’m thinking about right now.” She watched Fiona move more fully into the room.

“What are you thinking about?” Fiona asked.

“That I don’t know how I’m going to get past the fact that I ignored my father all my life. I let him down terribly.” She glanced at Evan and Chloe, who were oblivious to the conversation. “I don’t know what I would do if they let me down like that. If they didn’t want to see me. I won’t do that to Alan, no matter how angry I am with him. I’ll make sure they continue to have a relationship with him, and they can judge him for themselves as they get older.”

Fiona sat down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know your husband, but I will say this for him. He’s lucky he married you. You’re a decent person, Sloane.” She glanced at Evan and Chloe on the sofa. “You know, my dad always told me to look forward, not back. He had to do that because he was forced to let go of the life he knew before the accident, when he could walk and do other things like dress and feed himself. But now I realize that it also included my mother’s affair and how it broke his heart and how he had to accept responsibility for his part in it, for what was wrong in their marriage in the first place. At least I hope he accepted some responsibility. Either way, he had to focus on how he was going to live with the cards he had been dealt and make the most of the years he had left.” Fiona lowered her gaze. “The doctors didn’t expect him to live very long.”

“He must be an amazing man,” Sloane said. “He wrote books?”

Fiona’s eyes lifted. “Yes. He finished his first novel here in Tuscany, but he always believed he only got published because of what happened to him. They used his situation to publicize the book, and that’s why it sold so well. He wrote two more—he was able to dictate—but they didn’t sell nearly as well as the first one. I think it was a blow to his confidence, because all he ever wanted to be was a novelist.”