The Complete Legacy Series: Books 1 - 6 Read online

  Chapter 2

  Lia had always thought that Douglas was so genuine and kind. She had no reason to doubt his intentions or question what he was trying to say to her now—what they were all trying so gently to say to her. She let her shoulders slump as the tears came freely and she felt Blu reach for her hand across the table. Somehow she had found her way into this funny little group of people—her daughter’s little family—another undeserved gift that Arianna had given to her. Lia smiled in spite of the tears because she knew how much her daughter would have loved that. It was one promise that Lia had kept so far.

  “Do you not want the restaurant? Do you think that Thyme and Italy are too much for you right now?” Blu asked, and Lia could see the genuine question on her face.

  Lia’s thoughts turned again to a memory of Arianna, of the two of them in the sweet little restaurant that they’d discovered together in Tuscany. She couldn’t help but smile as she remembered the little joke that they had shared about the name of the restaurant being Lia’s favorite herb to cook with. She was so happy that Arianna had even known that much about her. It was crazy luck, really—the timing of it all. But Lia knew that it hadn’t been luck at all.

  It was destined that she would know her daughter before she died, and Lia also knew that Arianna had felt especially connected to the conversations that they’d shared together during their time in Tuscany. She had chosen Thyme for her because she knew what it would mean to Lia. Why couldn’t she just accept it?

  Lia took a deep breath as she contemplated that question in her head, and the question that Blu had asked her. Could she make a life for herself in Italy? And the restaurant—Thyme was everything that she’d ever dreamed of. She felt it deep inside; and suddenly, without even really thinking about it, she was nodding her head in response to Blu, who was asking her for a second time if she wanted to go to Italy.

  “Yes, I do want it.” She looked up at her friends. “I want it so badly. For myself, but also for Ari. I still have to pinch myself to believe everything that she’s done for me.” She cleared her throat to keep herself from letting out a sob as she continued.

  “I don’t deserve any of it. I would give it all back and more to have her back with me. To know her for more than the short time I knew her. It was all way too soon, and I guess I—I can’t help but feel guilty for taking it.” She couldn’t keep the tears from falling again but she could sense something shifting inside her. It felt more like a release of sorts than the tears that had been burdening her almost daily since Arianna’s death.

  Gigi leaned in once again to give Lia a big hug. “We all would rather have Ari than the things she’s left us. But she knew that, Lia.” She looked at Lia as if for permission, before continuing.

  “And I say this, not to hurt you, because I know that you made the best decisions you knew how to make when you gave Ari up.” Lia nodded for Gigi to continue. “I’ve known Ari since she was a little baby, and that girl had everything money could buy. I had seen her go through so many phases, and a lot of them weren’t pretty. You would have thought she was a spoiled brat when she was a teen-ager, and she was.”

  Douglas looked at Gigi, and Lia thought maybe he was wondering, as she was, where Gigi was going with her speech.

  The look Douglas was giving her did not go unnoticed by Gigi as she continued. “I tell you this because of all the things that I’ve seen Arianna do and have during her lifetime, I’ve never seen her as happy as those final months that she spent with you, Lia.” Gigi reached over to the table to get a napkin to wipe the tears that were flowing freely now.

  “She had truly grown to love you and considered herself to be your daughter. She thought so carefully and prepared so well before she died. Douglas knows this more than anyone. During the final months of her life, she became the woman that she was always meant to be, and I think it gave her great joy to think of our needs.” Gigi looked around the table, and it was then that Lia noticed that Jemma had crawled up onto Blu’s lap, taking in the conversation with the wide eyes of a child who knew that she was witnessing an adult conversation.

  “She knew us well and she knew the things that would make us happy, not instead of having her here, but in spite of her having to leave us.”

  Douglas and Blu nodded in agreement, and Lia noticed Blu hugging Jemma to her as if to solidify that the little girl was a part of the great legacy left by their dear friend that had loved them all so greatly.

  Lia looked around her and smiled widely. “So it’s settled, then. I hear you all loud and clear. I will make my pilgrimage to Italy—under one condition.”

  Her friends waited for her to continue, but not before Jemma piped up from the table.

  “What is it, Lia?” she asked with her eyes wide.

  The adults laughed as Lia continued. “I want you all to promise me a big reunion—I’ll throw a party, in fact.” She turned to Douglas and Gigi. “When did you say that you’re going to Italy for your honeymoon?” She’d be excited at the prospect of seeing her friends very soon after her move.

  “Now that is an excellent idea, and one that I think could very likely happen,” Douglas said with a wide grin as he turned to Gigi, waiting for a reminder on the dates.

  “In fact, we leave six weeks from today,” Gigi called out from across the room, where she’d gone to check her calendar.

  “Blu, do you think you can clear your schedule?” Lia gestured to Jemma. “And I don’t suppose this one can get some time off from school?” Lia winked at Jemma.

  “Oh, can we go, Mom? Can we? I want to go back to Italy again.” Jemma seemed beside herself with excitement, while waiting to hear Blu’s response.

  “Oh, I think we can arrange something.” Blu winked at Lia.

  “Good, it’s settled then.” Lia walked across the room to retrieve the bottle of wine that Douglas had opened. “Now, how about a toast to the happily married couple?”

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Gigi, reaching out her glass for a refill as Douglas leaned over to kiss her on the lips.

  “To my bride,” said Douglas as everyone raised their glasses in a final round of toasts.

  “And to Ari,” Gigi said, “for without her, who knows if this handsome man ever would have taken me seriously.”

  The group laughed as they raised their glasses again in a toast to Arianna.

  Chapter 3

  Lia pulled her bathrobe tight as she walked to answer the door of her apartment. She wasn’t expecting someone this early in the morning; it was unusual, to say the least.

  She peered out the peephole, grinning as she opened the door for Gigi, who was carrying a stack of moving boxes.

  “I come bearing gifts.”

  Lia took the boxes from Gigi’s one hand as Gigi reached for the coffee carrier in her other. “Including your favorite double espresso from down the street.”

  “Nice. I’ll take it, thanks. Have a seat.”

  “Sorry to barge in unannounced,” said Gigi, but Lia smiled to herself as she thought that Gigi looked anything but sorry.

  “I thought I’d come by to help you do some packing.” Gigi glanced at Lia. “And I guess I didn’t want to give you the chance to say no. You know, I figured maybe you could use some moral support.”

  “Well, that, my friend, could be very true.” Lia thought to herself that Gigi didn’t even know the half of what she’d been feeling since the wedding and the big conversation that had taken place between her and her friends. She’d gone back and forth in her own head about making the decision to really leave. It seemed an impossible task to actually get from where she was now to her new home in Italy. But Lia had a sneaky suspicion that her friends were going to hold her to the promise that she’d made just a few days earlier. She looked at Gigi sitting across from her and sighed. Gigi’s being here right now was proof of that fact.

  “Well then. Where shall we start?” Gigi said, not missing a beat and barely taking the time to sip her coffee.

  Lia
laughed. “Well now, aren’t you just raring to go?” She got up from the sofa where they were sitting. “Let me just go slip some jeans on and I’ll be right with you. I guess we may as well start in the kitchen.”

  Gigi got up too. “While you’re getting dressed, I’m going to go get something else from my car.”

  “More boxes?” Lia called from her bedroom.

  “Nope. It’s something of Ari’s.”

  Just like that, Lia felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. She sat down heavily on the bed and tried to take a deep breath to calm herself and to stop the tears that threatened to fall. Just when she’d thought that she couldn’t possibly shed another tear, they came so easily.

  She’d never known grief like the grief she’d felt since Arianna’s death. One might have thought it would be easier on a mother that hadn’t raised her own child, but that wasn’t the reality that Lia found herself in. She grieved for the woman that she had come to know as her daughter, but she also grieved for all of the years and mistakes that she had made prior to their meeting. Her grief was an onion that needed to be peeled back every day. Layer upon layer of shame, guilt, and anguish to discover, and it didn’t really seem to be getting any easier.

  Lia heard Gigi come back in, and she struggled to compose herself. She threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and crossed the hall to the bathroom, where she quickly splashed some cold water on her face. “I’ll be right out,” she called.

  “It’s okay. Take your time. I don’t need to be anywhere today if you don’t,” said Gigi.

  Lia composed herself, and then met Gigi in the kitchen; she was already assembling some packing boxes.

  “Do you want to pull out the things that you don’t think you’ll be needing right now?” said Gigi.

  “Asking a chef that is like asking her to choose among her babies.” Lia laughed. “I’m sure there are some things I can put away. Gigi, I don’t have a set date yet, you know.”

  Gigi gave her a quick look, which Lia decided to let pass for the moment as they packed a few boxes in easy silence.

  Lia stopped her packing suddenly to face Gigi. “So what’s in the box?” She recognized it as the one that Arianna had so carefully picked out while they were at the market in Florence together. Even the quick memory felt sharp and painful.

  Gigi took her by the hand and guided her back to the sofa where she had placed the box. They sat on either side and Gigi carefully removed the leather lid, exposing the treasures that lay inside, on top of the deep red velvet lining. At a glance, Lia could see how much of Arianna was in that box.

  “These are the things that Ari wanted her daughter to have.” The two women looked at one another as Gigi continued. “When the time is right.”

  Lia nodded in silent acknowledgement about the contents of the box. Arianna had mentioned it to her also—before she died. Lia struggled to hold back the tears that threatened once again. She hadn’t really known her daughter for long at all, but so many memories were there, all of them bittersweet. Lia sighed and moved the contents of the box just enough to get an idea of the items inside. She was fully aware that there had been a second urn of Arianna’s ashes. One that matched the one in Lia’s keeping, one of the pair that Arianna had picked out herself with Douglas’s help. And here it was suddenly in front of her. In the box, so carefully packed for the daughter that Arianna would never know. The daughter that would never know how amazing her mother had been.

  It wasn’t over for Lia when it came to making amends with Arianna. It was almost an unbelievable twist of fate that Arianna, too, had been faced with similar choices in her own young life, though unwillingly; at the pressure from parents, irrevocable decisions were made. Decisions that would separate mothers and daughters. Lia would try to right the wrong once again. To the best of her ability, she hoped to one day meet her granddaughter, and she would gladly pass on the memories and wishes of her mother to her.

  She turned to Gigi now with the obvious question that loomed unsaid between them. “Has Douglas had any luck finding the parents?”

  “We were going to tell you the latest the other night, at the wedding. But then—well, with everything that happened, it didn’t seem like the right time.”

  Lia sensed some bad news coming and instinctively sighed. “Go on.”

  “The private detective that he hired did locate the adoptive parents.”

  Lia sat up straight, feeling both excited and terrified at the prospect of learning about her granddaughter. The only thing that she knew up until now was that she would be about seven years old. “Where are they living?” she asked Gigi.

  “Douglas couldn’t really talk about specifics, but I do know that they are living in Connecticut.”

  Lia nodded for Gigi to continue.

  “So the parents did speak to Douglas after a few phone calls. I’m sure that they were taken aback, because the adoption had been closed and they were pretty much assured that this wouldn’t happen.”

  “I can only imagine how surprised they must have been.” Lia couldn’t help but contrast this to how Arianna must have felt the first time that Lia had phoned her. She later told her about the huge mixture of emotions and how difficult it had been to process everything. But Lia also now knew the other circumstances that Arianna had been dealing with. The things she wouldn’t find out until much later that had greatly influenced the time that they’d been able to have together.

  Gigi went on. “So after many attempts, he finally assured them that he just wanted to speak with them about their daughter’s birth mom. He told them that she had passed away, but that he had promised her that he’d do his best to one day find the little girl that she’d given birth to.”

  “As you can imagine, I’m sure the news of Arianna’s death was not only shocking but reassuring in a way. Just in the sense that there wasn’t a biological mother out there threatening to be emotionally involved in the life of the daughter that they’d raised. Well, that’s how I would imagine feeling myself, anyways.”

  Lia nodded in agreement. She had often wondered about this herself over the years, and it was one reason that she hadn’t tried to contact Arianna earlier. She might not had ever gotten the courage up, if she was being honest with herself. But then the accident happened and something inside of Lia felt that losing her adoptive parents might just be too much for the daughter she, herself, had never known. Making that initial phone call to Arianna had been the biggest risk and the biggest reward that Lia had ever known, and she would always be so grateful for that time that they’d had together.

  She only wished now that Arianna would have had the same opportunity with her own daughter. It was a terrible twist of fate, really. Unfair to lose your life so young; Lia still couldn’t quite get over the shock of it all.

  “So what did they say to Douglas? Did he tell them about the trust?” said Lia.

  “Yes, they took some time to think about everything and when they called Douglas back a few days ago, they said that they’d decided to wait. Their daughter did know that she was adopted. They haven’t hidden that from her, and she’s too young to ask many questions, really. Basically, they said that they wouldn’t be sharing anything with her until she was old enough to start asking questions. Once she’s eighteen, if it becomes important to her, they would put her in touch with Douglas.”

  “But the trust? Did Douglas tell them about the money?”

  “He did, yes. He told them that there was a lot of money set aside for their daughter and that Arianna’s wishes were that she have it as soon as possible. That the will would make them the guardian of the trust before she turned eighteen.”

  “And they didn’t want to do that?” Lia asked, truly feeling a bit shocked.

  “You know, Douglas said that the parents didn’t seem very bothered about the money. They didn’t ask how much it was, and Douglas didn’t volunteer it once he knew how adamant they were with their decision. His gut feeling is that the girl will eventually start asking quest
ions, and at that time the money will be one of many surprises to her. And if that never happens, once she turns eighteen, the parents will speak to her about the money and then the decision will be hers.”

  “So in other words, it’s going to be a long time before I get to meet my granddaughter?” Lia said more to herself than to Gigi, really.

  “Yes, I suspect that’s true.” Gigi gave Lia a quick squeeze. “And in the meantime, you are the keeper of the treasures. Shall we look at them together?”

  Lia shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Not right now.” She put the lid back on the box. “I’ll save that for another time if you don’t mind.”

  Gigi nodded her understanding as she pulled something out of the handbag beside her. “So there’s another reason for me turning up unannounced with the packing boxes so early this morning.” She handed Lia a rectangular envelope.

  “What’s this?” Lia had the feeling that she might be surprised by the contents of the envelope, and not exactly in a good way.

  “It’s your plane ticket. To Florence.”

  Lia narrowed her eyes and tried to calm herself as Gigi continued.

  “Douglas bought it for you yesterday, and the flight leaves one week from tomorrow.”

  “Gigi, one week? Seriously? That’s not nearly enough time for me to be ready.” Lia didn’t try to hide the annoyance that she was feeling now.

  Gigi laughed, and Lia suspected that she’d known the reaction that she would get from her.

  “It is actually changeable. You can change the date if you need to. So relax.” She reached over to give Lia another hug. “But after our conversation the other night, we just thought maybe getting this, putting it in your hand, might actually help you to take the step. And it’s why I’m here with the boxes to let you know that I’ve cleared my schedule for the next week to help you with whatever you need. And Lia—”

  Lia, still a bit shocked, nodded for Gigi to continue.