get her own way?”
“No. As I said, we’ve been very strict about it. I should say, Miss Cassidy has been very strict about it, since she is the one who has spent the most time with Pia.”
Miss Cassidy.
Had to be the nanny.
Explained Pia’s perfect English, with its occasional scary overtones of deceased British royalty.
Gino pronounced the nanny’s name as Meess Cassidi, which was—so far—the only cute thing about him.
Once again failing to think before she spoke, Rox said, “I think sometimes a child needs to get her own way. She needs to know that people understand what’s important to her. And she needs to learn…oh…how to tell the difference between the things she really wants and should have, and the things that are just a passing whim or in conflict with what others need. Isn’t a blanket no just as bad as a blanket yes? Does anyone ever actually listen to her?”
Gino felt a steel band tighten around his head.
Had she made up her mind to sleep with Francesco? Did she think she was going to marry him? Was that why she’d suddenly shed her rabbity image and started offering opinions on issues that were none of her business? Did she think that they were her business now, because she was about to become a permanent part of the Di Bartoli family?
“I am not interested in discussing this with you any further, Dr. Madison.”
Short silence.
“No. Of course. I’m sorry.” She sounded more than sorry. She sounded chastened, as if she were really angry with herself. “I’ve been told before that I tend to do that.”
“To interfere in things that aren’t your business?”
“To speak first and think afterward. Foot-in-mouth disease.”
“What? A disease!”
She was diseased? He was bringing her into his home with his precious daughter and she was—
“No, no. Oh, gosh! Language barrier. American slang. It’s supposed to be funny. If you’re tactless, if you say things you shouldn’t have said, people say you’ve put your foot in your mouth. Foot-in-mouth disease. Get it?”
“Okay.” He couldn’t help grinning. Not so much at the allegedly humorous expression, but at her manic, anguished reaction to their misunderstanding.
“I’m so sorry if I gave you a heart attack there!” She was wincing and flapping her hands, clasping them together, begging him to understand, acting sincerely distressed. “I do that. I say things. And—oh my gosh! My blouse isn’t even done up right. You’re never going to beli—” She stopped, then fastened the slipped-through button that had caught his attention when she’d first come up to him in the terminal.
“Never going to what?” he asked.
He was curious.
And he’d started to have a theoretical inkling about what Francesco might have seen in her.
There was a beat of silence.
“Never going to forgive me,” she said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. It was a small misunderstanding.”
“No, um, I meant for my comments about the t-a-n-t-r-u-m thing.” She spelled out the critical word.
“I will forgive you if it’s not mentioned again.”
“Right. Okay. It won’t be.” She stopped flapping and clasping her hands, settled a little deeper into her seat and turned to look out of the window.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, Gino saw that Pia had fallen asleep. It was three-thirty in the afternoon. They’d be home in an hour and a half. If she slept until then, she’d be difficult to settle tonight, and he was essentially on his own. Miss Cassidy was taking a four-week paid break in England, at his request. It was the right thing, he was sure of it, yet he felt daunted.
Even utterly capable, immaculate, Paris-born Angele had been daunted by taking care of Pia. Gino and Angele had separated when Pia was just six months old, and of course she had gone with her mother—and with Miss Cassidy, whom they’d hired before their baby was even born. Miss Cassidy had been part of the divorce settlement, if you wanted to look at it that way, a live-in fixture at the spacious apartment Angele had rented in Rome.
During Angele’s illness two years ago…such an aggressive form of cancer… Gino hated to think about it…he’d moved Pia and Miss Cassidy back into his own apartment, but he hadn’t changed anything about their routine. He hadn’t felt it was his place. He had consulted with Angele’s older sister Lisette, also married to an Italian and based in Rome, and she had agreed.
“Of course, you must think of what my sister would have done and what she would have wanted!”
“I need you to help me with all of that, Lisette.”
“I’m here, Gino. You know I am.”
Pia had lost her mother. Miss Cassidy gave her continuity of care and affection. Gino himself had been very tied up with the acquisition of a rival company that year and with his complicated feelings about his ex-wife’s death. He worked long hours, and he traveled frequently.
“I’m not sure how much Francesco has told you about my situation,” he suddenly said, dragging Roxanna Madison’s rapt attention from the unfolding views of Tuscany in early spring.
As a horticultural expert, it made sense that she was enthralled. He should probably have left her in peace. But with Pia safely asleep and with the prospect of the three of them living under the same roof for several weeks, he wanted to make sure everything was clear. And he wanted it to come from him, not from Francesco over the phone, or from the staff employed at the Di Bartoli palazzo and surrounding tract of land.
“Um, not much,” she answered.
So he told her about Angele, Miss Cassidy, the apartment in Rome and his own growing belief, over the past few months, that he needed to get more involved with Pia, get more of an idea about the reason behind the tantrums. Was it because of her mother’s death? Was there some area in which her needs were not being met? He was her father. It was his duty to understand his little girl.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Roxanna said when he’d finished speaking, and he realized he’d gotten more personal and detailed than he’d intended and that he’d shown more vulnerability also.
It didn’t make sense. On top of the two narrow misses on major tantrums, those few moments of fearing that he’d lost Pia at the airport must have unsettled him more than he’d thought.
Still thinking about his daughter, he made the final turn into the graveled avenue that led to the estate, and the palazzo came into view, its terra-cotta-tiled roof softly washed by the thin late-afternoon March sunshine, and the first hints of spring green dusting the landscape all around.
“Ohhh, it’s beautiful!” Dr. Madison said beside him. “I mean, today. It looks particularly beautiful today. Compared to when I was last here, last week, when
