What if Antonio was right? But what if he was wrong? Gabriel was the best thing she’d ever had in her life and Kim was terrified of losing him.

Then Antonio patted his knees and sighed. “I’d better go. I have another meeting before I fly back to Milan this evening. We will talk again?”

“Sure. Please give Emilia my best. And tell her I can’t wait to see her at the party.”

She stood and walked Antonio out as far as the door of the courtyard. He hugged her one last time before heading back to his car.

“As you Americans say, you got this. And of course, honesty has always been your finest trait.”

Kim looked up at the glorious blue sky and closed her eyes.

If only he knew.

Chapter 12

Then

Annie still couldn’t believe it. It was so surreal that anything like this should ever happen to her.

She looked down over the crystal-clear water and rocky promontories as they flew overhead.

It was the first time she’d been on an airplane and, though excited, she found herself equally nervous. She tried to keep her eyes from looking down but there was a certain morbid curiosity to it. Besides, she had a window seat, so looking down was practically inevitable.

Still, her mind kept going to the reason she was here in the first place, and to the person who had made this all possible.

Felicity Finch was dead. She died just weeks after her chat with Annie, but she only found out a few weeks after that when a solicitor arrived at the salon looking for her. He stood out immediately.

Six feet tall with a pasty complexion and shiny bald head, Rose’s place had never seen anyone like Patrick Campbell. No one knew who the man was or what he wanted, and the moment he asked for Annie she almost ran out the door. Had her mother sent him? Was he there to serve her with some trumped-up accusation of theft or worse?

The envelope he gave her was still in her handbag, along with Felicity’s letter:

Dear Annie,

I hope the words we shared did something for you. I hope that you find the true way for yourself and not choose a path that will lead to pain and hurt. When I heard you talk in the salon all those times about what you really wanted from life, I knew I had to help you reach your goal. I had to do for you what no one ever did for me. Give you a chance.

I hope you can forgive me, but if you don’t it won’t really matter because by the time you read this I will already be gone, but I asked Rose all about your past. I was saddened to know that our paths were more similar than I imagined.