The Italian Inheritance

by Louise Rose-Innes

  “That’s it? You came because of the letter. You had no other proof that Giovanni was your father?”

  Anna shook her head. If only she did. But then as she’d said before, nothing in life was ever easy.

  “No, in fact up until I found the letter, I thought my father was killed in the Middle East. That’s what my mother told me anyway. I had no idea he could still be alive and living in Italy.”

  Vialli placed his empty cup on the counter top. Anna hadn’t touched hers yet. “So you have no other information about Giovanni Albertosi?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know where he lives, or what he does. I don’t even know what he looks like.” Anna gazed up at him, well aware that he was her only hope. Please let him be compassionate enough to help her? At the moment those dark eyes were giving away nothing.

  “How can he be your birth father if you have no other information about him? Surely your mother would have said something to you over the years. There must be papers...” The thought had crossed her mind too. It was a valid point.

  “She died when I was very young.” He didn’t need to know the details. Sadly there was no paper trail of her father, whoever he was. Her birth certificate had a blank space under the section, “Father’s name.”

  Vialli looked at her curiously. At least that was better than the suspicion of a few minutes ago. “The letter is not conclusive. There is no way to verify it.”

  “I know, but it’s all I have to go on. Can’t you see? I came because I need to know for sure.”

  Vialli nodded slowly. Anna prayed she was getting through to him. “Will you tell me something about him?”

  The eyes narrowed again. “What makes you think I know anything?”

  Anna sighed. Come on. Give me a break. Why all the cynicism?

  “Well, he’s your client for starters, which means you must know something about him. Like what he does or where he lives.” She studied his expression closely but Vialli didn’t react, so she continued, “Obviously he trusts you, since you screen everyone who comes looking for him. You’re also incredibly loyal considering you won’t let me near him and I’m hardly a threat.”

  She saw him wince and knew she was on the right track. He was overly protective of his client for some reason. Giovanni must be super-wealthy or something.

  “Will you help me?” She stared up at him pleadingly. When he didn’t immediately reply she added, “You are my only lead. If you don’t help me...” She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  If he didn’t help she’d have to go home. There was no point in running around Capri breaking into properties trying to find a clue to Giovanni’s whereabouts. That was foolish, desperate behaviour—and she was neither. Okay, maybe she was a tad desperate to find her father, but he was the only living relative she had. Surely that justified a small degree of desperation?

  “Ms. Crawford...” he began, thoughtfully.

  “Please, call me Anna.”

  “Anna. To be honest with you I can’t decide whether you’re telling the truth or you’re just a very good liar.”

  “Liar! But I...”

  “Please, let me finish.” He held up a hand. Anna looked down at her cup. This couldn’t be happening. She’d really thought at last she was getting through to him.

  “You broke into my property in the middle of the night. That is not a good indication of your honesty.”

  Anna blinked back tears of frustration. It was five in the morning actually, but she got the point. Breaking in had been an utterly foolish thing to do, but it was done, and she couldn’t undo it, so there was no point in crying over spilt milk. Granted, it didn’t paint her in a very good light, but he’d left her with so few options.

  “So what do you expect me to do now?” she asked him plaintively. “Go home? Is that it? I must just go back to London when I might well be Giovanni’s daughter?”

  Vialli leant forward, putting his hands flat on the table. He gazed directly into her eyes as if daring her to dispute him. “I’m afraid I can’t write a ten million dollar cheque just because you might be Giovanni Albertosi’s long lost daughter.”

  Anna stared at him in astonishment. Did he just say ten million dollars? This was getting weirder by the minute. “I don’t want ten million dollars,” she snapped. “I just want to meet my father. Why is that so difficult to understand?”

  Vialli ran an agitated hand through his hair. “Because Giovanni Albertosi left ten million dollars to an unknown illegitimate heir in his will.”

  Anna’s head started to spin and she felt sick. What had he just said? She didn’t give a hoot about the money. Her mind could only focus on what his words meant.

  He couldn’t be... Surely not... Not now that she’d finally found him...After all this time...

  Her hold on the coffee mug tightened. “You mean....he’s...he’s...?” she stammered, unable to say the words.

  “Yes.” Rafael confirmed her worst fear. “Giovanni Albertosi is dead.”

  If Anna wasn’t sitting down she would have fainted.

  “No...” she whispered beginning to shake. “I don’t believe it.” She stared desperately at Rafael. “When did he die?”

  “Six months ago.”

  Anna dropped her head into her hands. It wasn’t fair. She’d come all this way, after all these years only to miss him by six months. Life was so cruel. She’d been orphaned at the age of twelve, then when she finally found out she did have a father, he died six months before she got to him. The bile rose in her throat.

  “Excuse me,” she whispered, rising from the table. “I need to use your bathroom.” Vialli pointed back towards the entrance hall. Anna ran.

  Inside, she leant back against the cold wall, gasping for breath. He was dead. Her father was dead. She shook her head in disbelief. It was hard to believe what was happening. After coming all this way to see him, he wasn’t even here. Oh, the irony! Anna nearly sobbed with despair. She’d so badly wanted to meet her father. Even if she never saw him again, just the fact that she had a dad would have been enough. It would have meant she wasn’t an orphan. She had a family. Now she’d never have that. She’d never know for sure that he sired her, or what happened between her mother and Giovanni that caused them to split up. Her multitude of questions would remain unanswered for eternity.

  With supreme willpower she managed to get her breathing under control. It wouldn’t do to fall apart now. For the last thirteen years she’d survived on her own, knowing, or rather thinking, she was an orphan. She’d learnt to depend on herself, something she was proud of. Look how far she’d come? She had a good job at the hospital, great friends and one day she’d have a husband and lots of kids. Life was good.

  So her father was dead. Big deal. She hadn’t known him anyway. Theoretically she was no worse off than before.

  At that point her legs turned to jelly, so she collapsed on the edge of the toilet seat. That was the problem. She hadn’t known him. If she’d just gone through her mother’s things a year ago... That damn box had been in the attic for years. She would have found the letter and gotten to Giovanni before he’d died. At least then they would have had some time together. Now he’d never know that he had a daughter either.

  A thought struck her. Hang on a minute! What was it Vialli had said about ten million dollars? She stood up and made her way to the wash basin. He’d said Giovanni had left ten million dollars to his unknown heir.

  An unknown heir!

  Could he have meant her? Was it possible that Giovanni had known about her all along?

  Anna splashed her face with cold water and felt better. More questions. Would she ever find the answers to all her questions? Well, there was one way to find out.

  “What was it you said about an inheritance?” she asked him the second she walked back into the kitchen.

  “Oh, so now you’re interested?”

  Anna ignored his jibe. “Please. I’m interested in whether he knew he had an hei
r. Did he know it was a daughter?” She could scarcely breathe, waiting for him to reply.

  “I believe so,” Rafael said carefully.

  “How?” Anna asked immediately. “How did he know he had an heir?”

  Had he always known, she wondered. Imagine if Giovanni had been aware all this time that her mother had given birth to his child, yet he had chosen not to contact her, not to have anything to do with his child while she was growing up. Was that even a possibility?

  She stared at Rafael with undisguised anticipation.

  “I don’t know,” admitted Rafael. “He never told me the details. I was as surprised as anyone when a few days before he died, he called me into his room and told me he had a daughter. He said he’d made a terrible mistake and wanted me to find her.”

  “Yes?” Anna was enraptured. Giovanni had known about her! He’d known the whole time that he had a daughter, but had refused to acknowledge the fact until he knew he was going to die.

  “Isn’t it amazing how death can make people want to right past wrongs,” she mused. At Rafael’s scornfully raised eyebrows she elaborated. “It was guilt, you see. He knew all the time that I existed, yet he’d done nothing to contact me. He obviously didn’t want to disrupt his cushy lifestyle by admitting my existence to the world.”

  “Giovanni wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a coward. He would never have shirked his responsibility.”

  “So you say, and yet he knew he had an heir he’d never bothered to find. How do you explain that?” She stared at Rafael defiantly.

  Rafael couldn’t. He didn’t know any of the details. By the time Giovanni had told him his fantastic story, his mind had become confused with fever. Rafael had asked for details, anything that would help verify Giovanni’s amazing claim.

  Giovanni, however, didn’t know enough, and if he did, he couldn’t recall at the time. The old man had mumbled about a woman he’d loved a long time ago. A grave mistake, he’d called it. But there was a child. A daughter. He didn’t know her name.

  “What was the woman’s name?” Rafael had pressed urgently, sensing time was running out.

  But Giovanni had only shaken his head. “English rose,” he’d whispered. “My pure English rose.”

  He’d gripped Rafael’s hand. “Find her,” he’d rasped, the pneumonia making it difficult for him to breath. “Find my daughter and make her my heir.”

  Then he’d fallen into a restless sleep. The following day Rafael had altered the will and given it to Giovanni to sign. The man had been so weak at that point his signature was barely legible.

  The next day he’d succumbed to the infection and died. Rafael had been at his bedside. He’d never mentioned the woman or his daughter again.

  To be honest, Rafael was completely confused as to why Giovanni had chosen now to divulge this important information. Surely it was a conversation they could have had at anytime over the last twenty years. But Giovanni had obviously had his reasons, and Rafael had to respect that.

  The thought had crossed his mind that perhaps Giovanni was delusional by that stage and didn’t know what he was saying. Rafael still had the old will in which he was the sole benefactor of Giovanni’s fortune. The full twenty million would go to him. How easy would it have been to simply destroy the new will and quietly inherit his mentor’s fortune? But Rafael couldn’t do that to the man that had saved his life, schooled him and then nurtured him into the adult he was today. So instead, he had to be content with his half of the money. Ten million dollars was nothing to scoff at and Rafael, who at one stage in his life had not even a penny to his name, was immensely grateful.

  What he wasn’t so grateful for was the impossible task of locating the missing heir to the Albertosi fortune. He studied the beautiful woman in front of him. She’d had him going there for a minute with her stricken expression and visible grief. But then she’d turned on him and demanded to know about the inheritance. An amateur’s mistake. A true conman, or in this case woman, would have let it go for a few days, knowing he’d make enquiries. Then, if her story checked out, he’d have to go to her.

  “Look, I don’t know why Giovanni suddenly decided to leave half his fortune to an illegitimate daughter,” he finally said. “It may, as you pointed out, be guilt, but it’s more likely a sense of obligation on his part. Like I said, Giovanni was an honourable man. I knew him well. He wouldn’t run away from a problem like that.”

  “A problem?” Anna spluttered in disbelief.

  Okay, bad choice of words. Rafael sighed. This was getting messier by the second. “Do you see my problem, though?” he insisted. “Giovanni made me executor of his will. That means I have to vet every girl that comes along claiming to be his illegitimate daughter.”

  “What do you mean every girl?” Anna had reclaimed her position at the table. Rafael noticed she hadn’t touched her coffee. It was now stone cold. He wanted more. Half turning he put the kettle back on.

  “Have there been others? Is that why you’ve been so suspicious of me? You thought I was lying like the other girls?”

  “Yes,” Rafael admitted, “There have been four others already. You’re the fifth. The story made the national news. Everybody knew about the unclaimed fortune.”

  “So the other four...?”

  “All fakes.” Rafael leant forward onto the plunger. Steam hissed into the air. “Every last one of them.”

  Anna was all ears now. “How did you know?”

  “I had them checked out,” he said vaguely. She didn’t need to know about his private investigator.

  “Well, I can assure you I’m not a fraud.”

  That remains to be seen, thought Rafael, pouring himself a fresh cup. He offered her another, but she shook her head. Taking his mug, he joined her at the table. She looked pale, but the way she held her head was so elegant, almost regal, that it was hard to believe she was in any distress. She certainly didn’t appear to be grieving.

  “Look, I’m going to have to verify your details,” he said bluntly. “It’s procedure.”

  She gave a small nod.

  “Will you come to my office tomorrow morning and I’ll get the relevant information from you. I’ve already got your name and address, I think. But I’ll need copies of your birth certificate, your mother’s death certificate and so on...”

  “You won’t find any reference to Giovanni,” she told him quietly. “My birth certificate only carries my mother’s name.”

  “It still verifies who you are,” he insisted. “I’m going to need it.”

  “Do you mind if we continue this conversation another time?” she asked suddenly, getting to her feet. “I’m sorry, but it feels wrong talking about the money now. I’ve just found out my father’s dead. It’s a lot to take in.” Her voice faltered. “Especially since I never even got a chance to meet him.”

  At Rafael’s quizzical look she repeated, “Do you mind?”

  “No, of course not.” He drained his cup and stood up. “I’ll show you out.”

  He walked her to the front door. The key clattered in the lock as he turned it. Anna followed him silently to the gate, which he held open for her.

  “See you tomorrow,” he confirmed, hoping he wasn’t doing the wrong thing by letting her go. If she was lying, she’d be long gone in a couple of hours now that her ploy had been discovered. “Come in around eleven tomorrow. I’m afraid I’m not in the office today, otherwise we could get all this cleared up sooner.”

  She gave him a brief nod, but no smile touched her lips. As he watched her walk slowly up the path, Rafael wondered if he’d ever see her again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “You have one week.”

  The words echoed though Rafael’s mind over and over again. Damn Antonio Mancini. The man would not budge. In fact, his building plans had all been approved and there was nothing Rafael could do to stop the process. Rafael’s modest shelter for street kids would now have to be moved. That meant he needed to start looking for new premises immedia
tely.

  He got Christina, his P.A. on the phone and ordered her to start contacting estate agents in the area for viewings this afternoon. No sense in wasting any time. This was one fight he wasn’t going to win.

  The thought irked him immensely. He wasn’t used to losing. Looking back over his career so far, there weren’t many situations in which he’d been out manoeuvred. Usually it was the other way round. Rafael had learned the fine art of manipulation early in life. As an orphan, he’d had no choice. It was necessary to do whatever he could to survive. That was the reason he didn’t trust anyone either. Always watch your back. If you didn’t, you opened yourself up to surprise attacks. He’d learnt that the hard way.

  Rafael sat down at a street cafe with a view of the bustling Naples harbour and ordered an espresso. Soon he spotted his old friend, Rico, striding towards him through the throngs of harbour workers.

  “Ciao, Rafael.”

  Rafael shook his friend’s hand and gestured to the seat opposite. Rico eased his long frame into the chair and immediately the hovering waiter came over and took an order for another espresso.

  “What can I do for you today, amigo? Some more spying on our friend, Signore Mancini?”

  Rafael grinned. “No, not this time. I need information of a more personal nature. A woman.”

  “Ah, let me guess. Another lost daughter comes in from the cold, huh?” He laughed at Rafael’s nod. “Who is it this time? I hope she is at least English, no? I’m not wasting my time again.”

  “She is very English,” confirmed Rafael reluctantly. “She presents a compelling case.” He pulled the letter from his pocket. “She had this with her.” He handed it over to Rico who read it with interest.

  “Seems legitimate enough,” he concluded. “Is there a reason why you doubt her story?”

  “What makes you think I doubt her,” asked Rafael frowning. “You know I’m obligated to check them all out, no matter how unlikely they may seem.

  “I know you my friend. I can tell you’re not sure.”

  Rafael sighed. “It is true. One minute I think she is being truthful and then she does something so suspicious that I can’t help but doubt her innocence.”