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Dante paused, for this part was difficult for him. Here he had to paint a picture of the happiest of families, and lying did not come readily to him because Dante was honest to a fault.
His mother and father had fought when he had been little; he could remember hearing the rows and the dread and certainty he had felt that his parents would soon break up. The arrival of the twins had afforded them a second start, though, and so he remembered then the peace that had arrived in his family and pushed on.
Mia saw that slight waver.
Oh, why did she notice everything about him?
Why was she so completely attuned to him?
And why the hell had she touched him?
Even now, sitting there holding an orchid in the midst of her husband’s funeral, her hand, where she’d touched Dante’s, felt tingly.
Even now, as she sat in the musty church, she felt as if she were inhaling him again, inhaling the freshness of his cologne that she had tried not to notice in the car.
Mia felt tears prick her eyes when Dante spoke of the twins’ arrival.
‘He had always wanted a daughter.’ Dante looked over at Ariana, who wept quietly. ‘And he was so pleased to have another son...’
He spoke on until finally it was time for the most difficult part of this eulogy, and she stiffened as Dante switched from Italian to English. ‘My father loved his family, yet, being Rafael, there was room for more love in his life and still time for more surprises. Two years ago he married Mia...’ He paused again, though certainly not for effect. He was fighting the very private devastation that that chapter of his father’s life had caused. Dante forced politeness and made himself look at her as he spoke. ‘I know Mia was a great comfort to him, and brought him peace in his last years. I know, because he told me so on the night before he died.’
It was the best he could do, for though he could not say that she had been welcomed into the family, or that Mia and Rafael’s love had shone like a beacon, instead he dealt in facts and tried to do so with the respect this day deserved.
Then he switched back to Italian and Mia sat looking down now at the orchid as he finished the eulogy, touched that Rafael had said that about her, and grateful to Dante for sharing it.
‘Sadly,’ Dante concluded, ‘there are to be no more surprises. It is now your time to rest.’ His voice finally cracked. ‘We shall miss you for ever.’
The burial was awful.
Ariana was sobbing, and Stefano cried too, with Eloa holding him, as Dante stood alone with his hands still fisted at his sides.
Mia stood alone, beneath a huge holm oak, feeling both sick and icy cold as the coffin was lowered into the ground. When it was her turn to throw the orchid, her thighs seemed to have turned to rubber and she was terrified that she might faint.
Mia was sweating in the frigid air, but then an arm came around her and steadied her. Oh, she could have, possibly should have, retorted, ‘Dante,getyour hand off me,’ as he had to her, but instead she gasped out, ‘Thank you.’
‘Come.’ He guided her to the edge of the grave and then guided her hand to toss in the single orchid that she held.
It was done.
She closed her eyes in weak relief. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, as he removed his arm and they headed back to the car.
Dante chose to walk back to the house.
He had none of the damned antipasti and nothing to drink other than water, for he needed to retain every last ounce of sense he had.
And so to the last will and testament of Rafael Dante Romano.
Dove c’è’ un testamento, c’è’ un parente!
Where there’s a will, there’s a relative,indeed!
Luigi had a front-row seat and, as predicted, Angela did indeed deign to set foot in the house. They sat, all frosty and staring ahead, although Dante stood at the French windows in his father’s study, for he wanted to see every flicker of Mia’s reaction, whatever the will might say.
In the end it was straightforward with no real surprises.
Most of the divisions had taken place at the time of the divorce and following the terminal diagnosis.
The family residence had been left to Dante, the Switzerland residence to Stefano, and it was Paris for Ariana.
