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Блейк Элли
A Mother for His Daughter
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CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS early evening when they reached Luca’s Tuscan villa, and it was like something out of a postcard. A long driveway lined with tall, tapered cedars wound up a gently surging hillside covered on the front side by a small private vineyard. At the top of the hill, a sprawling two-storeyed stuccoed farmhouse with an orange tiled roof and an adjacent matching cottage glowed a deep yellow as it soaked in the warmth and light of the setting sun.
‘You like?’ Luca asked.
‘How could I not?’ Gracie said on a sigh.
‘It’s isolated,’ he said, and Gracie thought she heard a tinge of…something in his voice.
She pulled her head in from the window and faced him but his gaze remained on the house. ‘Rubbish,’ she scoffed, and he spun to face her, just as she had intended. ‘You know nothing about being isolated. To get here from Melbourne I had to take two separate planes, and was in the air for a total of twenty-four hours. A two-hour drive from Rome is nothing, buddy.’
She had desired to see him relax and she succeeded, though she could have done without the tummy turn that came from one dose of those crinkling eyes.
‘I see your point,’ he said.
‘Besides, the world gets smaller every day. What with the internet and cable TV, nowhere is really isolated any more.’
His dark eyes looked through her, trying to determine if she was teasing him. ‘So they tell me,’ he finally said, a cheek crease adding impact to the yummy eye crinkles.
Flushed and flustered by her responses to the man’s charming smiles, Gracie stuck her head back out the window, drinking in the cool fresh air. The villa looked quaint, and particular to the region. She would not have been surprised if Luca informed her they still sent post via messengers on horseback.
‘You may have access to all means of communication I have at my disposal while you are here, Gracie. Mi casa, su casa,’ he assured her, and she found it disconcerting but at the same time kind of fabulous that he seemed able to read her thoughts.
Once in front of the house, the tyres crunched to a halt on the gravel. They were met by a number of household staff and a huge black dog tumbled from the large front door and down the ten steps to the driveway.
The humans babbled in Italian over the top of one another, and the big black dog bundled straight up to Luca, throwing itself at him until his paws rested on his chest. Luca ruffled him about the ears yet didn’t break conversational stride with his staff for a moment.
Gracie half expected Mila to be bundled up in the arms of a nanny but none came. She remained resolutely attached to her father’s side, rubbing the dog’s tummy.
Finally, Gracie’s host turned to her. He made quite a picture with his pretty daughter standing silently at one side and his large black dog sitting on the other.
‘My staff have been apprised as to your role here. I will let you acquaint yourself with them as you go. And this,’ Luca ruffled the massive dog’s ear, ‘is Caesar.’
Caesar greeted Gracie with a loud woof that she felt from head to toe. She waved back, happy to keep her distance, her only real experience with dogs being her friend Kelly’s cuddle-sized Maltese terrier.
‘What is he?’ she asked.
‘He’s a Newfoundland.’
‘Are you sure? I could have sworn he was a bear.’
Mila giggled. ‘There are no bears in Tuscany. There are wild boars. But no bears.’
‘Great,’ Gracie said, suddenly wishing herself back in Australia, where one could find the deadliest snakes and spiders in the world but where the chances of meeting a wild boar in your back yard were slim to none.
‘And where is Gran-nonna?’ Gracie asked, her voice thin.
Luca cut a glance to the cottage, which stood several metres to the right of the house. ‘She lives next door. I am sure you will meet her soon.’ He held out an arm. ‘For now, please, follow Cat; she will show you to your room.’
Gracie nodded. Amongst the gaggle of staff, a young woman bowed her head and Gracie figured she was Cat.
‘Venuto,’ the girl said. ‘Come.’
Gracie’s backpack was already being moved off in another direction by one of the men so she had little choice but to venuto as ordered.
Inside the house was even more beautiful than on the outside. It was elegant yet comfortable, though it did not show any of the usual evidence that a four-year-old was in residence. Gracie remembered when her half-brother and half-sister were young; their house had been strewn with toy trucks and dolls, with board-game tokens taking up pride of place on side-tables alongside the more adult bric-à-brac. Luca’s grounds, with their sprawling vineyard, had promised a working home, but the inside looked more like something out of Architectural Digest.
Gracie followed Cat up a large staircase to her room, which turned out to be a small suite with a queen-sized canopy bed, a sitting room by curtained French windows and an en suite. The room smelt like freshly laundered sheets and was twice the size of her room in her hostel, which had slept eight snoring backpackers who were mostly into double-figure days of wearing the same unwashed clothes.
She whistled a steady stream of air. ‘Jeepers creepers.’
Cat looked to her in confusion but Gracie just smiled and gave her two-thumbs-up, the international sign that all was good. Cat looked relieved and sent Gracie her own tentative two-thumbs-up to show she understood, and then she left, closing the door behind her.
Gracie sat on her bed and waited, having no idea what was expected of her. Five minutes of waiting was all she could take. There was no telephone in her room, and, itching to hear from the Australian Embassy, she went in search of one, or a messenger on horseback; whatever was available.
Besides, it was Saturday night. Kelly and Cara would be on the next plane over if she didn’t contact them soon. But for the first time in…forever, she didn’t feel like confiding in them. In saying aloud, to them, to those who cared for her, that she still hadn’t found her dad.
At least with Luca it was new and fresh, not feeling as if she had to explain herself all over again to the same people. People who loved her, people who would have come over to help her if she had let them, but people who had their lives so together it hurt Gracie to think about them. And it hurt that it hurt her to think about them.
She would call the embassy then go to bed. It was already Sunday morning in Australia, so she had technically missed Saturday Night Cocktails anyway. The girls could wait until the next day, or maybe the next week, when hopefully she would have something of consequence to say.
Once downstairs, Gracie heard Luca’s voice. He was having a one-sided conversation behind a half-closed door. She sidled up to the door and listened. It hardly helped she only recognised one word in ten, and none of those words were ‘Antonio’ or ‘Graziano’. Nevertheless, she could not help peeking around the corner.
Luca was seated behind a grand wooden desk, which accommodated a computer, a fax machine and a photocopier.
Gracie realised she had no idea what the guy did for a crust, but by the look of his home, and the state-of-the-art office set-up, whatever it was he earned a pretty penny. No wonder he could afford to hire help on a whim. But she wasn’t really hired, was she? They were doing each other a favour.
A sweet gurgle caught her attention. Mila was sitting on a rug on the floor with a doll and a toy palomino horse having a conversation in her lap. The great Caesar lay behind her, and she leaned against his immense bulk.
Gracie could tell Luca was not happy with whoever was on the other end of the phone but he was keeping his voice down for his daughter’s sake. His daughter, who it seemed went nowhere but at her father’s side.
A warm glow threatened to overcome her. They looked like something out of an advertisement. Father, daughter, warmth, wealth. The perfect family, except for one thing—the missing mother.
Gracie wondered what she had been like, the woman who had managed to land such an exquisite man and produce such a gorgeous little girl. She must have been something else. She must have been sorely missed. And she would be darned difficult to replace.
‘Buonjourno,’ a gravelly voice called from behind Gracie.
‘Jeepers creepers!’ Gracie shouted, spinning so fast she slammed against the outer wall with a thud.
A tall woman dressed in head-to-toe black, with silver hair dragged back into a low bun, looked down her glorious Roman nose. This had to be Luca’s grandmother, Mila’s great-grandmother. She had the same elegant height, the same aristocratic cheekbones and the same intelligent brown eyes as her grandson.
‘So you are the new English tutor,’ the woman said in proud, thickly accented English, obviously awaiting a more dignified response to her arrival than jeepers creepers.
‘That’s me,’ Gracie returned brightly. ‘And you just have to be…Mila’s gran-nonna.’ She had had to pause so as not to name the woman Pino, after Mila’s horse.
Gracie waited for the utterly sensible questions that would surely come next:
Who were her family? That she barely knew.
Where had she worked previously? Croupier in the high-rollers room of Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia.
Main duties? Fending off wandering hands and marriage proposals from oil barons and visiting billionaires.
Gracie knew that her answers would not have made her past a first interview for such a position in any good home. But Gran-nonna said not another word, so Gracie nodded and filled the silence ably.
‘English tutor extraordinaire,’ she gabbled. ‘Here for Mila. To teach her to talk like a right little Aussie.’
The longer she went the less she could stop the verbal incontinence. It was as though she was determined to frighten the stern look from the older lady’s face. But she was shocked to her little cotton socks when it worked.
A cheeky glimmer lit the old lady’s dark brown eyes. ‘Good,’ Gran-nonna said. ‘Our little Mila needs someone with your…skills around here. As does Luca.’ Before Gracie could work her way through that cryptic statement Gran-nonna went on, ‘You see, our Luca was once a lion.’
Gracie gave her a tight smile, having no idea what one could say to such a statement. ‘A lion, you say?’
Gran-nonna sent her a sideways smile as though she knew she was being humoured. These Siracusas were too smart for their own good.
‘He was the king of the business world,’ the elder lady went on regardless. ‘A workaholic, determined to keep the villa flourishing and his mortgage business booming. He thrived on success. Even starting up offices in London. Only when Sarina died did he take a step back. That day he removed himself from the seat of power in his company and devoted all of his time to Mila.’
Gracie was completely enthralled by the older lady’s unsolicited spray of information. She listened for and heard the continued clacking of computer keys. ‘You mean he hasn’t worked in a year?’
The old woman shook her head. ‘He works, but he has not once been into the office. They send reports, which he dutifully reads and sends back with comments, but only late into the night once Mila is asleep. During her waking hours, he is at her beck and call.’
Picturing Mila cooing away on the rug, Gracie believed it. ‘Luca brought me here to give Mila my waking hours instead. Is that what you mean by him needing my skills?’
Gran-nonna said nothing and Gracie was pretty sure the older lady was turning her in knots entirely on purpose. ‘He seems to be doing OK working from home,’ Gracie said, probing.
Gran-nonna shrugged. ‘He fits in as well in the country as he does in the city. His youthful dream was to set up a lost-dogs home on the property until his grades meant that he was sentenced to a working life in town.’ Gran-nonna zeroed in on Gracie with such intensity she lost her breath. ‘He often brought strays home as a child too.’
Gracie felt her cheeks bake under Gran-nonna’s stare, which had all of the concentration of Luca’s but not much of the warmth.
Gracie knew that the cover story of her being nothing more than a tutor had not washed with this smart lady. She sent the woman an understanding smile, giving the old lady as good as she got. ‘I guess I am no surprise, then?’
After a few moments of silent contemplation Gran-nonna said, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that, dear. I’m quite hoping that you will be the first of many new surprises. This family is in danger of complacence, and needs a shake-up every few years, and the time for one is long overdue.’
And with that, she walked away. A smile, a nod, a cryptic response or two and off she went, leaving Gracie feeling completely outwitted.
Gracie tripped when the door opened against her shoulder. She moved out of the way to find Luca looking at her in puzzlement.
‘Did I just hear Nonna?’ he asked, taking a hold of her shoulder as he looked around her.
‘That you did,’ Gracie said. She was pretty sure that the word that flew from his mouth was not one he would want her teaching Mila, and she quite enjoyed the fact that he wasn’t such a perfect gentleman after all.
‘Don’t sweat it, Luca. I think she kinda liked me.’
Luca let her go just as naturally as he had taken a hold. He blinked, his gaze zeroing in on her fully. ‘And what makes you think so?’
‘Women have instincts about these things. We can tell if someone likes us or not pretty much instantly.’
Luca shifted until he was leaning against the doorway, his hands disappeared into his trouser pockets and he crossed his ankles. He relaxed and gave her every lick of his attention. ‘Can you now?’
Gracie wrung her hands together and rocked back and forth on her toes. ‘Mmm. Yep. Uh-huh.’
Silence fell between them. The steady tick-tock of a grandfather clock in the hallway was their only companion.
After several moments, Luca ran a hand over his face, his fingers massaging around his eyes, as though trying to rub some life into his tired skin. ‘Well, I am glad. And is everything OK? Are your accommodations suitable?’
‘They’re lovely. Thank you. I am apparently in the “Blue Room”. Pretty swish. In my apartment back home there’s the small room or the even smaller room. I had never thought to differentiate by colour. Maybe that would have made all the difference. Perhaps I could have charged more for flatmates if I had.’
The silence returned, though it felt altered. It felt cosier.
‘Would you like dinner?’ Luca asked, his voice likewise softer and more intimate. ‘Cat could prepare you a dish.’
Gracie held a hand to her tummy. ‘Still full. But thanks. Anyway, it’s a big day tomorrow, my first day of school and all. I think I am going to spend an hour in the shower, washing away the lingering scent of hostel bedding, and rediscovering skin beneath all this grime.’
Luca smiled indulgently and Gracie had to measure her breathing.
‘I noticed Mila was with you,’ she said, not yet ready to leave, even with her very own shower beckoning her. ‘Would you prefer if I took her to bed so you can get some work done?’ She took a step inside the doorway to find Mila asleep on the couch, thumb in her mouth. Caesar was snoring on the rug. ‘Or I could take Caesar for a walk.’
Luca followed her gaze and she glanced up to find a smile lifting his tempting lips. ‘That won’t be necessary. He has the run of the place and exercises himself into a deep sleep every day.’
Thank goodness! Gracie thought, and she could feel Luca’s knowing laughter though no sound had been made. She flicked a glance his way before focusing on his less vexing daughter. ‘Do you want me to take her to bed?’
Luca shook his head. ‘No, thanks. It is one of my greatest pleasures, seeing her sleep peacefully.’
By the strength of his statement, Gracie had the feeling peaceful sleep was not something he experienced for himself. No wonder, if he was looking after his daughter all day, running a business by night, as well as looking after the welfare of household staff and an ageing grandmother. Now she had been thrown into the mix she would do all she could to ease his burden. Because the more time he had for himself, the more time he had to help her find her father.
They looked to one another again and their eyes locked. Even in the low lighting, she could feel the zing of awareness, but she was not sure if she was doing the sending or receiving. Either way it was time for bed. Alone!
Gracie backed out into the relative safety of the hallway. ‘Great. Groovy. Cool bananas. I’ll leave you to it. Sleep tight and I’ll see the two of you tomorrow.’
‘Buona notte, Gracie,’ Luca said, still leaning at his post in the doorway. ‘Sleep well.’
Gracie cocked both hands like a pair of pistols then turned and walked away, feeling his dark, knowing eyes burning a pair of holes into her back all the way.
Only once she had reached her room did she remember she had gone in search of a phone and instead had found herself with more than a bit of a crush on her housemate.
Sunday morning Gracie awoke to a view of sunshine streaming through a set of French windows. She stretched her sleepy limbs, the feel of expensive cotton sheets slithering along her arms too good to pass up. Then she sat up with a start.
‘Where am I?’ she asked the blue wallpaper. When it didn’t answer back, she closed her eyes and squeezed her brain until it all tumbled into place. Luca. Mila. English tutor. Last chance to find her dad.
‘Alrighty, then.’
Gracie slipped out of the massive canopy bed, feeling just a tad out of her element in her favourite brown T-shirt with Chocoholics Anonymous emblazoned across the front, oddly matching leopard-print underpants and utterly mismatched pink bed socks which had seen better days. She padded over to the window, her eyes slits as she squinted against the disgustingly bright sunshine.
Yawning, she yanked open the French windows and padded outside onto a large concrete balcony. Something a heck of a lot more descriptive than jeepers creepers shot from her mouth at the view before her.
At the rear of the villa, a large rectangular lawn led to a set of slim stone steps. From there a sand pathway on the left meandered to wooden stables big enough to house several horses. A dressage ring took pride of place in the far centre. And on the right a jade-green creek split acres of natural woodland that crawled up a massive hill, dwarfing the smaller hill on which the house resided.
Gracie leant her elbows against the cool concrete columned wall, closed her eyes and let her face be warmed by the weak spring sunshine that had managed to peek out between the slow-travelling clouds. ‘Bello,’ she whispered on a contented sigh.
Only moments later she was roused from her reverie by the scuffle of claws on concrete to her right. She spun about, shocked to find Luca striding towards her with Caesar at his heels. It seemed her balcony was not as private as she had assumed. In fact it ran, unobstructed, the entire length of the upper floor.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Luca asked, seeming not to notice her insufficient attire. He, of course, looked faultless, decked out as he was in black trousers and a black cashmere sweater, the arms pushed up to his elbows.
Gracie grabbed the front of her baggy T-shirt and dragged it as low as could be to cover the tops of her bare legs, but, as she was trying to keep Caesar from snuffling at her feet at the same time, it was fairly difficult.
Once he was within a couple of metres, Luca stopped and leant against the balustrade and looked out over his land, giving Gracie some respite from her struggle to cover herself.
‘There is a lot of land for this big lug at least,’ he said, looking down at Caesar so Gracie had to do her contortionist act again. ‘Is he bothering you?’
‘No. Not really. But he is about twenty times the size of the only dog I have ever been this intimately acquainted with.’ Gracie had Caesar by the snout as she tried to disentangle his teeth from the bottom of her T-shirt, where a small chocolate stain had garnered his rapt attention.
Thankfully, after one brisk whistle from his master, Caesar dutifully upped and seated himself at Luca’s right and Luca once more looked out upon his land rather than towards her bare, goose-pimply legs.
‘My grandfather bought this land as a wedding gift for Gran-nonna. He was that certain he was not worthy of her he openly tried to buy her love. He initially received a slap for his efforts, but she did not reject the offer, deciding in the end, quite sensibly, to accept both him and his land. He built the house and the cottage in which Gran-nonna lives today and we restored this monstrosity to its current state several years ago when my business took off.’
Luca turned and shot Gracie a lopsided smile. She did not think for a second that he seriously considered his large home to be a ‘monstrosity’. He loved the place. Like him, it was big, strong and beautiful, and brought alive by his family.
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