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‘I came to see you too,’ he said, and her eyes widened in response, ‘to see if you might understand just a little of why I acted as I did, even if those actions are unforgivable. I know I could not hope for your forgiveness, but maybe a little understanding?’ He shrugged. ‘When I was a child,’ he started, ‘my parents were both killed in a boating accident. You saw their tombs.’ She nodded. ‘Eduardo and Agnethe took me in, gave me a home. I went to them with nothing. My father had just invested everything he had in a start-up company he would be a key part in. With his death, it folded and all but a pittance was lost.’
‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Lily told me you had lived with Eduardo as a child. You must have felt that when Eduardo married Lily that you lost your inheritance a second time around. No wonder you wanted the palazzo back so desperately.’
He laughed a little at that. ‘Is that what you think? I think I was too young to worry about any lost fortune back when my parents died. But it would have been useful later. I did worry about Eduardo and the palazzo. He was one of Venice’s grand old men, but no businessman, living on his family’s reputation while his fortune dwindled.
‘I knew as I grew older that the palazzo needed major structural work, but there was never the money and when Agnethe died Eduardo missed her dreadfully and I think he forgot to care.
‘I promised him then that I would pay him and Agnethe back for taking me in, by fixing the palazzo and restoring it to its former glory. I studied and I worked day and night to make it happen.’
‘And then he went and married Lily.’
He smiled thinly at that. ‘You could put it that way. She refused to consider my plans to restore the palazzo, she made short work of the limited funds Eduardo had at his disposal.’
Tina nodded, the strands of her hair catching on her lashes in the wind, and he ached to brush them away, but it was too soon, he knew. It was enough that she let him hold her hands. It was enough that she did not protest at the circles his thumbs made on her skin. ‘That does sound like Lily.’
‘Once the property was in her name, I tried to buy it. She refused again. But she came to me when she needed more money. It seemed the only way to get her out.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I can see it would have been hard to shift her otherwise. Thank you for telling me this, Luca. It does help me understand a little better.’
‘It is no excuse for the way I treated you.’
‘I guess you were still mad at me for slapping you and walking out.’
‘A little,’ he admitted, until he saw her face and he smiled ruefully. ‘Maybe more than a little. But I have a confession to make about that time.’ His hands squeezed hers, his fingers interlocking with hers. ‘You bothered me that night, Valentina. You got under my skin. You were too perfect and you shouldn’t have been—you were Lily’s daughter after all and I didn’t want to like you. I wanted somebody I could walk away from and I knew I couldn’t stay away from you, unless you hated me.’
She shook her head, a frown tugging her fair brows together. ‘And yet you did hold it against me.’ But he took heart that her words weren’t angry. Instead they searched for understanding amidst the tangle of revelations, as if she was searching for the one thread that would pull the knots free. He took heart that she was still listening and tried to find her the key.
‘Because it suited me to. Don’t you see? By blowing it out of proportion, by making it your fault, it gave me an excuse to get you to Venice, and to legitimise it by calling it vengeance. And it was easy to be angry, because I was mad at Lily for letting the house fall into such disrepair, and I hadn’t forgotten you, and that made me even madder.
‘I am sorry I said what I did. It was designed to drive you away. It was hurtful, just as the words I said before you left Venice were designed to hurt. And why? Because I needed to believe the worst of you, that you had destroyed our child.’ He felt her flinch, as if reliving the pain of his accusations but he just squeezed her hands and pressed on. ‘I’m so sorry. Because just as it worked that night we spent together, my ugly words worked only too well, and this time drove you from Venice.’ He shrugged and looked up the hill towards the grave. ‘I guess it is only just that I should be the one who paid some of the cost too, by never knowing of my son’s existence until now.’
A wave crashed on the rocks below, sending spray high, droplets that sparkled like diamonds in the thin sun before spinning into nothingness.
