Neither did she. And it hurt that he knew her well enough to know that.
I think you want to be with me as badly as I want you with me.
She couldn’t allow herself to believe that, even though she couldn’t imagine what his motives were for coming all this way to say it. Had he fallen out with Silvio and needed her money? What did he want from her?
She might have descended back into her pajamas on the sofa if she hadn’t been consumed by the business of executing Otto’s will. She could have left everything in the hands of a lawyer, but she was unemployed and wanted a last look for anything that might have belonged to her mother. She was still angry with Trude for hiding her paternity, but she couldn’t help thinking she might find some explanation—some justification—for her mother’s secrecy among the flotsam of Otto’s effects.
After Joy’s kindness at the service, Mira was also determined that Otto’s “real” daughter have something from Otto’s estate. Joy had only met Otto once and, according to Axel, Otto had been his bastard self toward her—which was why Joy insisted she didn’t want anything.
Mira could relate. It was only right, though. Promises had been made in the marriage contract that had yet to be fulfilled.
She struck on the perfect solution when she was preparing Otto’s mansion for sale.
Aside from the house itself, there wasn’t much here that had belonged to Mira’s mother. Mira had taken what she had wanted after her mother had passed and Otto had put more of his own stamp on his living space. Which was to say, he had hired a decorator to change out the furniture and a curator to fill it with tasteful pieces of art that Mira had no particular affection for.
They were good investments, though. If Joy didn’t want to display them in her home with Axel, he could put them on the walls of the Vorstoben offices. Mira invited them to come look at them and make decisions before she had them packaged and removed.
It felt very unsettling to pick over someone’s life this way, though. Ultimately, Otto had been a stranger to her. Now, she understood why he hadn’t been the father she longed for, but it still hurt that she had never had one.
She was in the study, sorting through documents, when she heard the doorbell ring.
Axel and Joy were early, she thought with a glance at the antique clock on the mantel. Either that or it was someone from the property agent. They had said something about hiring someone to stage the house before it was photographed and listed. There were so many bits of red tape in closing out a man’s life that Mira was barely keeping up.
She stepped into the adjacent powder room to wash her hands and came back to see Winola was showing a man into the study. His silver hair was trimmed short, his jaw shaven clean. He was tall and trim for his sixtysomething years and wore a razor-sharp suit with a blue striped tie. He held his hat in his hands and searched her face in a way that reached so deeply into her chest, she had to look away.
But she recognized him. Of course, she did. She’d looked him up. Once. Briefly. Just to see what the man who’d made her looked like. They didn’t look a lot alike, but now she knew where she got her nose.
“Herr Silvio Galetti?” Winola said, perhaps sensing Mira’s ambivalent reaction.
Mira nodded, trying to recover from her shock.
“I was expecting someone else, but please come in.” Her hand trembled as she waved at the sofa.
“May I bring you anything?” Winola asked.
“Coffee, please.” Mira was already wired from too much caffeine. What did one more matter?
She closed the door behind Winola, then joined Silvio where he stood in front of the dark green brocade sofa. She habitually chose the least comfortable chair for herself, the one with wooden arms that she had always perched on when talking to Otto in this room.
“I didn’t expect I’d find you here,” Silvio said, waiting to sit until she did. He angled to face her. His English held the hint of an Australian accent overlaying the subtle musicality of Italian. “I didn’t know how best to reach you. I came here to see if anyone could direct me. Thank you for seeing me.”
“Rocco has my number. You could have got it from him.” She folded her icy hands in her lap.
“Rocco isn’t taking my calls. And I wanted to see you.” His eyebrows pulled into a pained look while his mouth took on a wistful smile. “You look so much like your mother.”
A pang of lightning struck her heart. She swallowed and brushed at an invisible wrinkle in her pant leg.
For a moment, there was only the tick of the clock, the one Winola had realized had stopped so she’d rewound it this morning.
“I told my wife,” Silvio said. He was sliding the brim of his hat through his fingers in a slow circle. “I would like to tell my children, but I wanted to speak with you first, so you’re prepared if they reach out. I want to tell them whether you would welcome that or not.”
“You didn’t need to disrupt your life.” She looked to the windows that offered a view to the back garden. Her breastbone had turned to sand. Her throat was so dry, she could hardly speak. “I wasn’t planning to tell anyone. I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself.”
“You’re not. This has weighed on me a long time. May I tell you how it happened?”
“If you want to.” She realized the pain in her hand was her own grip. Her nails were cutting into her skin. She kept her gaze on the window, even though the view was nothing but a blur of green with smudges of rose-pink and butter-yellow.
“My wife and I were acquainted with Trude. My cousin had the villa next to your mother’s in Praiano. You played with my cousin’s children for a week one summer.” His voice caught with emotion. “I don’t know if you remember that.”
