“Sì,” I replied, grateful for this initial warm welcome. It calmed my nerves slightly, at least for the time being.

“I’m Maria Guardini, the housekeeper.” She opened the door wider. “Please, come in.”

I stepped over the threshold onto a wide terra-cotta tiled floor in a brightly lit central foyer. A large wrought iron chandelier hung over a round table with a vase full of fresh flowers, and the plastered walls were painted cream. Straight ahead, the foyer opened onto a large reception room with a bank of french doors, all flung open, toward the back terrace.

“How was your flight?” Maria asked.

“Long,” I replied. “It was hard to wake up this morning.”

“I don’t doubt it. Can I get you anything? A cappuccino or espresso?”

“No, thank you. I just had coffee at breakfast.”

She stared at me for a moment, and I felt suddenly self-conscious. If I were a turtle, I would have retreated into my shell.

“Marco was right,” she said. “You do look like him. In his younger days.”

I swallowed uneasily. “Do I?”

“Sì.” Maria checked her watch. “The lawyers won’t arrive for about twenty minutes. We have time to get acquainted. Would you like to come into the reception room?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She led me to the expansive space at the back of the villa, which housed a few cozy groupings of sofas and chairs on area rugs. A grand piano was nestled at the far end of the room, and the walls were adorned with oil paintings that looked like they should be kept in a museum.

I followed Maria to a sofa in front of the large stone fireplace. “You must have many questions,” she said.

“I do, actually.”

“We do as well,” she replied.

There was a tightening in the pit of my belly, and I cleared my throat nervously. “I’ll be honest, Maria. This is very awkward for me. I’m not sure how much you know about the situation, but Mr. Clark wasn’t a part of my life. My mother only told me about him an hour before she died, more than a decade ago, and she revealed very little. Even my father doesn’t know I’m another man’s child. So you see, it’s complicated.”

“Oh, mamma.” Maria’s eyes held a puzzled look. “You know nothing about your mother’s relationship to Anton?”

Nothing except for the fact that she had turned her face away in shame and despair when she made her deathbed confession.

“I’m not even sure if it was an actual relationship,” I explained, “because my mother was happily married to my father when they spent a summer here, thirty-one years ago. That’s why I wasn’t told that Anton was my real father, at least not until she was dying. I guess she just wanted me to know for some reason . . . maybe in case there were ever any medical issues in the future? That’s the only reason I can think of for why she wanted me to know. But she begged me not to tell my dad because it would have broken his heart, and he has enough to deal with. He’s a quadriplegic, and he needs twenty-four-hour care.”

“Santo cielo.”

I lowered my gaze to the floor. “Pardon me. I’m rambling.”

“Not at all.”

I took a deep breath. “I just have so many questions.”

Maria sat back. “I wish I had answers for you, but this is as much of a shock to us as it must be to you. We only learned about your existence from Anton’s legal team in London a few days ago. They’re the ones who are coming here this morning with the will that he updated recently.”

I frowned with uncertainty. “How recently?”

“Two years ago. In 2015.”

I considered that. “Was that when he found out he had a heart condition, maybe?”

She shook her head with regret. “He wasn’t aware, as far as I know. He seemed healthy as a horse.”

A door slammed somewhere in the house, and I turned to the sound of a woman’s heels clicking briskly down a flight of stairs. Maria rubbed her temples. “Porca vacca. I apologize in advance for what is about to happen.”

A tall, beautiful Italian woman with long black hair, an ivory complexion, and full red lips stormed into the room. She wore a black Armani pantsuit and began ranting in Italian, shouting an endless wave of complaints while gesturing wildly with her french-manicured hands. I couldn’t understand a single word she said, but I suspected it had something to do with the lawyers’ visit.

Maria held out a hand to try and calm the situation. She spoke slowly to the woman in Italian. All I could do was sit and watch.

Another woman stormed into the room. This one was blonde and older, possibly in her early sixties, but she looked fantastic. It was obvious to me that she’d had some work done.

“She won’t leave!” the blonde woman shouted.

“I won’t leave because I live here!” the Italian woman countered.

“No. You were a guest here, and now you are no longer welcome.”

The younger woman shot back with a firestorm of emotion, hollering in Italian, until the other threw up her hands in defeat. She turned to Maria expectantly, waiting for her to intervene and say something to diffuse the situation.

“Ladies!” Maria said. “This must wait. We cannot make any decisions about who stays and who goes until we know what the lawyers have to say.”

“See?” the Italian woman snapped. “I told you!”

“They won’t have anything to say about you,” the blonde woman said. “Anton drew up his will two years ago, and he didn’t even know you then.”

The Italian woman snapped her fingers in front of her face three times. “You think you have all the answers, but you don’t. You know nothing. Anton loved me. He told me so. You don’t know what he was thinking before he died. He might have added something. A letter. I don’t know how these things work.”

“No, you don’t know anything, because you have lipstick for brains.”

“And you are an arrogant cow! You’re only here for the money! You didn’t care about him! If you did, you would have come to visit him before he died, but you didn’t. And who was here, making sure his last days were beautiful?”

Maria stood up and spread her hands wide, like an orchestra conductor. “Tacete! We’ll talk about this later. I must introduce you to Fiona. She just arrived.”

They both fell silent and turned their fiery gazes in my direction.

The younger Italian woman stared down at me as if I were a snake in the grass. “This is she?”

I stood up and tried to smile. “Buongiorno.”

“This is Kate Wilson,” Maria said to me, gesturing toward the older blonde woman, “Anton’s ex-wife. She’s here from California. And this is Sofia Romano . . .” Maria struggled for the right words. “A friend of Anton’s.”

“I was more than a friend,” Sofia replied. To my surprise, she swept her anger aside and held out her hand with a smile. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Fiona. I see the resemblance. You have his eyes.”

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.” I shook Sofia’s hand.

Mrs. Wilson stepped forward as well. “It’s rather unsettling, actually. So much for the suggestion that you’re not really his daughter.”