I Vanished with the Don's True Heir novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: Chamomile

Every head at the counter turned.

Ginevra stood just inside the door and let them look.

Her hair was pinned up off her neck. Her lipstick was fresh. Her coat was buttoned only to the top of her stomach, so you could see the curve under the cream knit.

Four and a half months. She was showing now.

She found Livio first.

Her eyes filled, right on cue.

"There you are," she said softly. "Do you know how worried I've been?"

Livio didn't stand up.

"Go home, Ginevra."

"Home is where you are." She came down the aisle between the booths, slow, one hand on her stomach. "Home is where your son is."

Ginevra stopped at the counter and looked around her for the first time.

At the flat-top. At the napkin that said GOOD EGGS. At the ultrasound printout above the grill.

Her eyes stayed on the printout a beat too long.

Then they came to me.

"Caterina," she said. "Look at you. Out here at the end of the world."

"Lubec," I said. "Sit down. You came a long way."

She sat.

She chose the stool next to Livio's, and she set her purse on the counter between them.

"I didn't come to fight," she said, loud enough for the booths. "I came because somebody in this family has to be the grown-up. You ran off from a hospital. You hid from everyone. People were frightened for you."

"Your investigator was frightened for me," I said. "He left his card."

Her smile didn't move.

She took a long white envelope out of her purse and set it on the counter.

"What's that?"

"An offer," she said. "From the family. A house in Sarasota, in your name. Money every month. A good doctor. You'd never have to see any of us again."

"And?"

"And the baby takes your name. Not ours." She laid two fingers on the envelope and slid it toward me. "Livio deserves to be able to look at his own son without wondering."

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