Zia’s blood turned to ice and the pain that lanced through her was worse than anything she’d ever known. ‘You bastard,’ she interrupted bitterly. ‘You’re not a father. You’re a disgrace. You never wanted me. You didn’t help Tori when she was ill and desperate. And now you want me to pay you to acknowledge your paternity?’ In English she added, ‘Piss off.’

His face sagged into lines of ludicrous dismay. ‘But Zia …’ He halted.

Trembling with rage and sick with disappointment, she locked the apartment, uncaring that Gerardo was still staring stupidly. Then she halted.

Fiorella was no longer in her chair at the other end of the terrace. She was gazing from Zia to Gerardo with wide, thunderstruck eyes. Zia was ashamed to realise she’d forgotten the older woman was nearby. Unable to remember what was said in Italian and what in English and gauge how much Fiorella might have understood, she stalked across the terrace leaving Gerardo and Fiorella standing as if turned to stone. Ignoring the scratch of scrub on her bare ankles she crossed the drive and stormed through the gap in the cypress trees towards Il Rifugio.

Your man told me.

I’ll help if you need it. I’ll do whatever it takes.

Fury boiled inside her. If she’d known that he’d meant Piero would decide if she needed help and, behind her back, inform Gerardo who she was and even about Vicky’s poignant collection of letters, she would have made it clear how unacceptable that would be. How dare he? How dare he? In feeling entitled to assume control he’d forced her to confront exactly how shitty her father was.

Half-blinded by tears, she followed the noise of Piero’s woodworking machines. Inside the door to his workshop, she halted. He was shirtless, a sheen of sweat on his skin despite the open doors.

He must have caught sight of her because he completed passing a piece of timber through the machine and turned it off, its roar diminishing to a moan. ‘I’m glad to see you. Papà and Emiliano—’ He broke off. Then frowned. ‘What’s the matter?’ He reached her in five strides. ‘Not Lucia?’

She shook her head. ‘How could you?’ Her voice was so broken it hurt her throat. ‘How could you tell Gerardo I had money and I wanted him to get me an Italian passport? Now he’s put the two things together and asked for a fee.’

‘What?’ His eyebrows clanged down to meet the bridge of his nose.

‘It was up to me,’ she cried, clenching her fists in helpless fury. ‘It was my decision when, or even if, I talked to him. How do you think I felt when my own father asked me for money to sign a form or two? Didn’t you care, so long as you got what you wanted?’