Read the book: «A Mother for His Daughter»

CHAPTER ONE

GRACIE LANE was in Rome looking for a man. And not just any man. Her father.

Peering into the mystical waters of the Trevi Fountain, she blinked dry, tired eyes. She had half-heartedly thrown one coin already. According to local myth, she would now one day return to the eternal city.

A second coin now warmed her palm. The second coin was the important coin. The second coin was the wish coin. Searching for her father on her own had produced no results and the Australian Embassy had not come back with anything helpful, so a wish seemed to be her only remaining hope.

‘I wish to find Antonio Graziano,’ Gracie said aloud, hoping with all of her might that somehow this enchanted old fountain would be able to help. She turned, tossed the coin over her left shoulder, and listened for the soft, fateful splash.

But the statue of Neptune looked down on her, benign as he ever was, and unless he had come to life a quarter century before and had a fling with her then nineteen-year-old mother, her last-ditch desperate wish had not produced instant results.

Gracie managed a flickering smile at the thought, even though it meant there was nowhere else to turn. She was down to her last several euros in the bank, she was paid up in her hostel for only one more night, and her wallet held little more than the return train ticket from Termini Station to Leonardo da Vinci Airport. She had very little choice other than to make a phone call to the airline in order to use her open-ended ticket to book a flight home the next day.

She slumped down onto the low concrete wall with her back to the fountain. She was so exhausted her limbs ached, her heart ached, even her hair ached.

But it was not enough to make her cry. The ability had abandoned her. And right when she needed it most. Since that dreaded phone call from her stepfather, she had not cried once. She hadn’t had the chance. She had had to be brave for those around her. For her distraught stepfather, for her much younger half-sister and half-brother. For her best friends.

But in Rome she was alone. She didn’t have to be brave for anyone but herself, and still she could not enjoy the release that came with a good cry. She covered her face with her hands and willed it to happen.

Success eluded her.

Then she felt a tiny hand clasp her denim-clad knee. Suspecting one of the many beggars prowling the area for spare change and open handbags, Gracie jumped out of her skin. When her backside landed back upon the concrete wall, she found herself face to face not with a beggar but with a little girl in designer clothes.

Gracie rubbed a hand over her aching face and sat up straight. It was like looking at a picture of herself at that age; creamy fair skin, glossy dark curls, serious dark blue eyes, except Gracie had tell-tale Australian freckles across her nose and cheeks. Freckles she had proudly cultivated as a child as they were the one feature that linked her to her lanky blonde, suntanned school friends.

‘Hello, sweetie,’ she said once she located her voice.

After a brief moment in which the little girl assimilated the English word, she said, ‘Hello,’ also in English but with a thick Italian accent. ‘My name is Mila.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Mila. I’m Gracie.’

Mila was not smiling, or frowning, just watching Gracie with her head tipped to one side. ‘Are you OK?’

Gracie cracked an unexpected grin. But there was nothing to be gained from confiding in the little girl. ‘Sure, I’m OK. Thank you for asking.’

Gracie looked around for the child’s guardian. There were people everywhere, tourists throwing coins, local men selling bottle openers emblazoned with the pope’s face, pairs of nuns sifting through the bottle openers, young men ‘giving away’ one-euro roses.

‘Where’s your mother?’ Gracie asked, taking the little girl by the hand.

‘In heaven,’ the girl said, her face earnest and calm.

Gracie’s gaze snapped back to her cohort. It seemed they had more in common than their looks. ‘Well, then, your father? Your…papa? Is he here?’

Mila nodded.

‘Can you point him out to me?’ Gracie asked.

The little girl did not need to. At that moment, Gracie caught sight of a tall male figure moving frantically through the crowd, leaping to see over heads and not caring if he was shoving at people as he went.

Gracie’s stomach gave an unexpected little flip. She could tell he was a stunner even with the look of controlled terror on his face. He was immaculately dressed in a black suit and long coat that swished out behind him like a cape as he dodged through the crowd. He had dark hair slightly longer than was fashionable back home, but it looked just right on the tall, dark and handsome types who could be found on many a street corner in Rome. His eyes flashed so bright she could not make out their colour.

With a brisk shake of her head, Gracie refused to be drawn into the unintentional allurement of the little girl’s father. It was the Italian thing, that was all.

Her lifelong captivation with all things Italian had been cemented after she first saw The Godfather trilogy. She had watched the films enough times over the years to develop an effusive crush on the charismatic Al Pacino and to be able to repeat entire scenes of dialogue when the opportunity arose. The fact that it had riled her mother to distraction only made the Italian thing more enticing.

‘Mi scusi!’ Gracie waved one arm madly as she held on tight to her young friend with the other.

‘Papa!’ Mila called out, imitating Gracie’s waving hand.

The sweet, high voice of his daughter was enough to have the man stop, his feet shoulder-width apart, his ears straining to pick up on the familiar sound.

‘Call out again,’ Gracie said, grabbing Mila about the waist and hitching her up onto her hip.

‘Papa. Vieni qui!’

The man turned, as though he had extra-sensory radar attuned to that particular voice. He spotted his daughter, his expression went from terror to relief, and he rushed over towards them, in one smooth movement sweeping Mila from Gracie’s hip and into his arms, twirling her about, chattering away a million miles a minute in lilting Italian as he went. It was obvious to Gracie’s ears that he was chastising her, but it must have been in the most adorable manner, as the little girl would not stop giggling.

Up close and personal, the guy was definite crush material with a good several inches’ height advantage over Mr Pacino, and bone structure that would give Michelangelo’s David a run for his money.

Once he put Mila down, she started babbling away in Italian and pointing in Gracie’s direction. The man bent over, listening intently, before flicking his dark gaze in Gracie’s direction.

Melted dark chocolate, she thought as she had her first proper view of the colour of those flashing eyes.

Keeping hold of his daughter’s hand, he stood up straight, his tall frame dwarfing her five feet five and a half inches. Now his focus had shifted, Gracie had it one hundred per cent. He looked at her so completely she felt as though he was committing her face to memory. It was riveting. Her stomach flipped a little higher.

Then his mouth flickered with the beginnings of a smile. And, despite the remarkable appeal of his puppy-dog eyes, if she was describing him to the Saturday Night Cocktails gang back home, his smooth, chiselled, perfectly shaped mouth would have been given a litany all on its own.

‘Ciao,’ he said. His voice was deep and sensuous to Gracie’s ears. ‘Grazie per—’

Gracie held up her hands and he stopped mid-sentence. She dragged her gaze from that slightly smiling mouth and back to his kind and captivating eyes.

‘Whoa. Hang on there, partner. Non comprende. Ah, Australian,’ she said, pointing to herself. ‘I don’t parle much Italiano…’ Her words petered out. She found herself shaking her head and flapping her hands and feeling like a madwoman, yet the little girl’s father was watching her with an ever-increasing smile lighting his face. His lovely face.

She shook the obscuring thoughts from her head, telling herself that her reaction was a mix of the Italian thing and the relief at having someone looking at her as if she was a real person for the first time in weeks, not just a nuisance with no language skills or a tourist to be taken advantage of.

‘Luca Siracusa,’ he said, holding out his spare hand.

‘Gracie Lane,’ she returned, shaking said hand.

He bowed lightly and let her go, but his smiling eyes remained on her. Her hand fluttered to her throat, which was suddenly feeling warm. Mila took a hold of her other hand and swung between the two adults, skipping and dancing and singing some unknown tune to herself.

‘You are an Australian, Ms Lane?’ Luca asked in perfect English. His accent was lilting and obviously came from American schooling.

‘Yep.’

‘I’m afraid I mistook you for a Roman. You do not have the same wide-eyed grin of the tourists around here.’

Gracie tried to smile, but her heart was breaking all over again. Of course she looked Italian! That was the problem!

‘Well, I am,’ she said, still getting used to admitting as much aloud. ‘Half, actually.’

‘But you don’t speak the language?’ he asked.

The answer to that was complicated. Too complicated. She waved a dismissive hand and said, ‘Only enough to catch a train and buy a piece of pizza.’

That earned her a grin from the guy and any judge would have given her stomach’s resultant triple back-flip a perfect ten.

‘I was saying how grateful I am that you brought me back my Mila. She is a handful enough within our grounds. I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing her here.’

Gracie followed the direction of Luca’s sweeping palm and remembered for the first time since he had happened upon her, all stunningly gorgeous, that she was standing before the just as humbling beauty of the Trevi Fountain.

‘You were thinking that you would put a little magic in her day, I expect,’ Gracie said. Even in her down-hearted state, its ancient splendour had not gone unnoticed.

Luca’s gaze softened, and she felt her cheeks warm nonsensically under his appraisal. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘You are right, of course. I do feel Mila should know as much about her homeland as soon as she can. Once she hits her teens I am sure she will turn her back on her culture as so many do these days.’

‘She’ll watch American TV and wear British clothes,’ Gracie agreed. ‘I promise that is not just an Italian teen thing. We in Australia call it the cultural cringe.’

‘Yes,’ he said, with a widening smile that displayed a hint of perfect white teeth within his divine mouth. ‘That describes it well.’

‘Though what you could possibly cringe from in this country I have no idea,’ Gracie said. ‘It is the most beautiful place I have ever been.’

‘You will not hear me disagreeing. Have you seen much of Italy?’

Gracie shook her head. ‘Only Rome.’

She was in Rome with a purpose and sightseeing was the last thing on her mind. Even so, the heavy beauty of the city had worked its magic on her. She knew that at least a small part of her disappointment stemmed from having to leave the city before she had taken the chance to really explore its surrounds.

‘Only Rome?’ He did not hide his shock, gasping with the dramatic passion Italians lived every second of the day. ‘But then you have only seen the tip of the iceberg. There is so much diverse beauty in our country. You must promise me that you will see some of the countryside.’

It sounded tempting, to be sure. But Gracie had run out of money. And time. And she had more important things on her wish list than to find the perfect villa, vineyard and trattoria.

‘I’ll try,’ she said, covering up her vague promise with an affable smile.

‘You are humouring me, I think,’ he said.

Gracie was surprised that their language barrier had done nothing to disguise her idle promise. She laughed aloud, for what must have been the first time since arriving on Italian soil, and it felt good. ‘I wish I wasn’t but I’m afraid I am.’

‘Don’t think that just because English is my second language I do not understand its nuances.’

Gracie’s laughter eased back to a comfortable grin. ‘OK. Duly noted.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘You humour me again, do you not?’

Gracie threw out her spare arm. ‘Fine. You win. I have no plans to see anything more of your country, as I have no time left in my busy schedule of trapping the locals with my wily English.’

Luca’s next smile was warm and enveloping and Gracie felt the odd desire to wrap her arms about herself.

The conversation seemed to have come to a natural end. Gracie felt the moment arrive where she could slip away gracefully. Yet she could not make herself say polite goodbyes. Her tongue would not form the words. She just stood her ground, her gaze lingering on this stranger’s lovely, lovely face.

He seemed as disinclined to leave as she was. Then she understood why. He said, ‘I am sorry to have to ask, but I simply must. Mila says you were upset when she found you.’

Gracie blinked in mortification. While she was mentally cataloguing the guy’s gorgeous bits, she must have looked a mess with dark rings of exhaustion under her eyes, in her borrowed jacket, dirty shoes and scruffy hair.

‘I am all right now,’ she said, taking a step back and running her spare hand through her thick curls, hoping to at least make a move towards looking less like a crazy woman.

‘But you weren’t before. May I ask what is troubling you? I would like to help. Somehow to repay you for helping Mila.’

‘No. Thank you. Please, take advantage of this beautiful day and show Mila a good time.’

Gracie blinked as a sudden light mist of spring rain swirled about them. So much for it being a beautiful last day in Rome. Nevertheless…

‘The last thing you want her to remember of this day is marking time whilst her dad listened to the ramblings of some self-indulgent stranger.’

Luca looked to his daughter, who was still holding on to each of them, tugging as she chased a pigeon that had strayed too close. But as soon as she reached the limit of their arm reach, she bounded back.

Gracie watched as a slow, wondrous smile grew upon his face. He was in awe of every movement and decision his daughter made. Something deep and lingering twisted painfully inside her.

‘She is everything to me,’ he said, almost beneath his breath.

It tugged at Gracie’s heart. They were both just too perfect. A perfect man and his perfect daughter. And it only managed to hit home what she had missing from her own life, and what she had failed to uncover on her expedition to Rome.

‘It was Mila who helped me already. Truly. I should go,’ Gracie said, purposely, steadfastly breaking the warm, mesmerising spell that this man and his daughter were unwittingly weaving around her.

Luca looked her way, his devoted smile enduring. And Gracie felt the backs of her eyes pricking uncomfortably with the cruel echo of tears that she knew would never fall.

Gracie blinked to break the tormenting eye contact and crouched down to Mila’s eye level. ‘Mila, it was lovely to meet you. I think you are very lucky that your papa has chosen to show you his favourite places in the city.’

Mila looked up at Luca, her intelligent eyes squinting through the now heavier mist of rain into the bright sunlight. ‘Papa loves me very much,’ she said as though that explained everything.

Gracie grinned. ‘Of course he does. You are a seriously lovable little girl.’

She gave Mila a neat tickle in the ribs, sending her squirming in delight, then stood, extracting herself from the young girl’s affectionate grip. ‘It was lovely to meet you too, Luca.’ She held out her hand.

Luca clasped his spare hand around hers. It was warm and comforting.

‘Lovely,’ he agreed. And he kept a hold of her hand.

Gracie’s eyes flickered up to meet his. There was more than thanks going on behind those eyes. There was unanticipated interest. So, he had felt it too. Pity, since their timing could not have been worse.

Gracie cleared her throat in an effort to dislocate their budding awareness. ‘I’ve kept you from your outing long enough,’ she said. Needing a touchstone to ground her, Gracie pulled her hand away and reached into her jacket pocket for the key to her hostel room.

She found the key, but her wallet, which should have been in the same pocket, was gone. Her eyes wildly scanned the crowds for a furtive figure huddled against the stonework, going through her wallet. But no. The thief was long gone.

It was the last straw. She began to laugh. Loud, uproarious, exhausted laughter turned heads her way. It racked her so hard she had to clutch her stomach to settle the straining muscles within.

Luca watched her in obvious confusion. But it took several moments for Gracie to be able to gather her breath. ‘My wallet has been stolen,’ she explained.

Luca took her by the arm and did the same wild search for the culprit she had done. ‘Please, my family owns a restaurant near by; let me take you to a telephone so you can cancel your credit cards immediately.’

‘No,’ she said back to him, clasping her hand over his to draw his attention. ‘It’s OK. All the poor guy would have found is a train ticket, less than one euro in coins, a photo of my friend’s scruffy Maltese terrier, Minky, a couple of cappuccino receipts and a video rental card. My fortune is stowed back at my hostel.’ Her remaining fortune consisting of some laundry that was overdue for a wash.

‘Your passport?’

Gracie slapped her thigh. ‘Tucked away in a hidden pouch with my airline ticket. Thanks to my clever friend Cara from back home, who expected nothing less from me than having my wallet stolen.’

Gracie’s body shook with the last of her dog-tired laughter. Luca took her hand; his palm felt so warm and strong and steady it made her feel suddenly weak in comparison. If she didn’t eat, and soon, she would likely not make it back to the hostel.

‘I was serious about the restaurant near by,’ Luca said, as though reading her mind. ‘I was about to take Mila for some lunch. I would be honoured if you would join us as our guest.’

Gracie’s mouth dropped open. She was ready to say no; she knew she should say no. She had to get back to the hostel to phone the airline, to call Cara for a lift from the airport when she got back to Melbourne and to scrounge up money from her fellow backpackers for a replacement train ticket. But she was starving. She hadn’t had anything more substantial than a cappuccino all day.

‘Come with us. Please,’ Luca insisted, his voice warm and encouraging, his smile even more so. ‘Let me buy you lunch.’ He shrugged his coat higher on his shoulders. ‘And soon. I fear I am beginning to get rather wet.’

He was right. The rain was coming down harder.

‘OK,’ she said, looking to the heavens. ‘I guess someone else made the decision for me. Thank you.’

Luca nodded, his dark eyes still upon her, and only then did he let go of her arm, his hand slipping away, leaving a tantalising trail of warmth where his sure fingers had been. Mila brought Gracie back to the present by chattering away to her father in staccato Italian.

‘Yes,’ he answered in English for Gracie’s benefit. ‘I am hungry too, as is Gracie. So we are going for lunch together.’

‘Yippee!’ the little girl squealed, pirouetting like a ballerina on the end of her father’s hand before pulling him away from the fountain and towards lunch.

As they wound their way through the ever-evolving crowd, Gracie caught Neptune’s eye and thought for one curious moment that he had a smile on his face that had not been there before.

Gracie shook the rain from her navy hooded jacket and Luca from his immaculate black coat as they ran the last few steps into the loud and busy trattoria. Several customers drank their espressos standing at the serving counter, thus saving themselves the exaggerated price of a drink-in coffee, but Luca showed Gracie to a booth deep inside the cosy restaurant.

Pictures of an Italian movie star Gracie could not put a name to lined the walls, and a television tucked high in the corner played the Italian version of an American reality TV show. It only reminded her how disjointed she felt so far from home; everything was at once familiar but just out of reach.

‘Your family owns this place?’ Gracie asked as Luca helped her remove her utilitarian jacket then hung it over a hook on the wall.

‘My late wife’s uncle, actually.’

Gracie remembered Mila saying her mother was in heaven and it felt cosmically unfair that the perfect man had lost his perfect wife.

She didn’t quite know what to say. She knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of constant sympathy and thus had no intention of bestowing the same. It was half the reason she had come to Italy, to distance herself from the burden relentless pity had brought into her life.

Before Gracie gave in to the overwhelming urge to regurgitate the fairly useless ‘there, there’, a large man in a tomato-splattered apron hastened to their table carrying a bottle of Chianti and two wine glasses. He placed them on the table before gathering Luca in a bear hug and bubbling away in effusive Italian. Gracie had the feeling they had not seen each other in some time; Luca’s cheeks even reddened under the obvious chastisement from the older man.

When he had finished berating Luca, he descended upon Mila, lifting her from the ground and hugging the life out of her. She finally wriggled free of his grasp and tumbled over Luca’s knees until she was safely ensconced between her father and the wall.

‘Gracie,’ Luca said, ‘this is Giovanni. Mila’s great-uncle. Giovanni, this is Gracie. She is from Australia, though she is half-Italian.’ He offered her a wink with his last comment and she could not help but smile.

The elder man blew Gracie an air-kiss and gabbled in Italian. She picked out enough words she recognised to know she was being favourably compared with Venus, the Roman goddess of love.

She tried to hide her snort of laughter behind a measured sip of the undemanding red wine, but Luca was too quick for her.

‘You understood that, I see. It seems your Italian is selective.’

‘Hmm,’ Gracie said as Giovanni left with their orders. ‘I did the Spanish Steps in my first week here, and I tell you, there I heard some things. The boys who trawl that place could make a packet writing Valentine’s Day cards. But, as compliments went, Giovanni’s was lovely.’

‘And yet not far off the mark,’ Luca insisted.

Gracie felt the same unusual warmth envelop her again.

‘Please,’ Gracie scoffed. She leant her chin on her palm. ‘You know what I think it is? Italian men are born with a flattering gene that missed Australian men altogether. Think Romeo. Think Rudy Valentino. Since landing in Rome, I have been approached and asked on a date at least once a day. It’s ridiculous. In my tatty old jacket and beanie hat, I am surprised they could even tell I was female!’

Luca’s eminently male mouth kicked up at one corner. ‘Ah, but that is the thing about we Italians—we have always been able to appreciate a work of art.’

Gracie knew from the twinkle in Luca’s eyes that he was baiting her, but her blush insisted on sticking around. ‘Please, stop it!’ she insisted. Then said, ‘But who am I kidding? I don’t think you could stop it if you tried. You are flirting machines.’

‘You are very pretty,’ Mila said to Gracie from out of the blue.

Luca laughed aloud, the sound deep and resonant and utterly infectious. ‘See!’ he said. ‘It’s an empirical reality.’

‘It’s a sickness,’ Gracie insisted.

Mila crawled over Luca’s lap, rounded the table and plopped herself onto Gracie’s lap, making sure the attention of the group was focused back where it belonged. Gracie was thankful; the constant compliments made the snug room feel airless.

Mila’s chubby fingers ran down the contours of Gracie’s face, the soft pads leaving a tickling trail across her forehead, her nose, her lips and her chin.

‘You look like me,’ Mila said.

‘Do you think so?’ Gracie asked, grinning over the young one’s head at her father. ‘But I have freckles on my nose and you do not.’

‘That is true,’ Mila said, her face serious as she studied the tiny dots scattered over Gracie’s nose. ‘I think that means I am prettier than you.’

Luca reached out to scold Mila, but Gracie shushed him with a blink and a small shake of her head. ‘You know what? I think you might be right.’

‘Will I look like Gracie when I am as big as her?’ Mila asked, bending over backwards to look at Luca. ‘Will I too have…freckles? Or will I look like my mother?’

Luca’s smile faltered, but only for a second, then it was back in place, extra-bright. He held out his arms and Mila readily scampered back into them, settling on his lap quite happily. ‘You will look just like your mother, I think.’

Mila looked Gracie over once more then nodded, seeming to find that answer satisfactory. ‘OK.’

‘She speaks English so well,’ Gracie said, aiming to swing the conversation to a less loaded subject.

‘We spent several months in England a couple of years ago and she learned to speak both languages at the same time. She spoke a strange hybrid language of her own for some time but it soon sorted itself out. In recent months I fear she has begun to lose the skill, since we have not encouraged it nearly enough at home.’

Luca seemed a million miles away as he ran a hand over his daughter’s curls. ‘So why have you come to our fair city?’ he asked, changing the subject again.

Gracie waited for the usual intense regret to stab through her at the question. But instead she felt a calmness come over her at the thought of confiding in him. Maybe because of the empty glass of wine on the table before her. Maybe because of the remembrance of the impossible smile on Neptune’s stone face. Or maybe because of the infinite kindness residing in Luca’s deep, dark eyes.

Whatever it was that gave her the courage, she sucked up her apprehension and said, ‘I have come to Rome to find my father.’