Chapter 16 - Thomas Foster’s Last Wish
Rosanna waited until after Alessandro and Emma’s first official date.
She claimed this was restraint.
Margaret called it interference delayed by twenty-four hours.
The date itself went surprisingly badly.
Not because Alessandro and Emma disliked each other.
Because both suddenly became aware they were on a date.
At the estate, conversation came easily.
At the restaurant, Alessandro asked Emma what music she liked as if conducting a job interview.
Emma asked Alessandro about hobbies.
He stared blankly.
“You have no hobbies?”
“I work.”
“That’s not a hobby.”
“I read.”
“For work?”
“Mostly.”
“That also doesn’t count.”
He frowned.
“What do you do?”
“I bake.”
“Professionally?”
“No.”
“So wasting ingredients counts as recreation?”
Emma stared.
“You’re terrible at dating.”
“I was engaged.”
“That is evidence supporting me.”
He laughed.
After that, things improved.
They talked about their fathers.
Not Vittorio’s crimes or Thomas’s betrayal.
Small memories.
Vittorio teaching Alessandro to drive.
Thomas teaching Emma how to change a tire when she was thirteen.
Alessandro admitted he hated olives.
Emma admitted she secretly watched terrible reality television.
By dessert, neither cared that security sat two tables away.
When Alessandro brought Emma home, he did not kiss her.
He simply said:
“I’d like to do that again.”
Emma smiled.
“So would I.”
Rosanna watched from an upstairs window.
Margaret called her.
“Stop spying.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you.”
Rosanna laughed.
The next morning, Rosanna summoned everyone to breakfast.
Emma immediately became suspicious.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“That tone means something.”
Rosanna produced the old letter.
“This belonged to your grandfather.”
Margaret recognized the handwriting.
“Where did you get it?”
“Thomas sent it after Vittorio’s first attempt to apologize.”
Emma opened it.
Most of the letter repeated ideas they already knew.
Anger.
Disappointment.
Refusal to accept easy restitution.
Then the final paragraph.
Rosanna, you were always kinder than Vittorio deserved. If our children ever cross paths someday, I hope they meet without inheriting our bitterness. Maybe they can become friends and prove two stubborn old men didn’t get the final word.
Emma stared.
Alessandro read over her shoulder.
Rosanna smiled.
“I thought it was interesting.”
Emma narrowed her eyes.
“You waited until after our date.”
“I have excellent timing.”
Margaret laughed.
“Thomas said friends.”
Rosanna shrugged.
“I’m old. Let me interpret creatively.”
Emma folded the letter.
“No matchmaking.”
“I did nothing.”
“You stared at us through the window.”
Rosanna looked offended.
“How did you—”
Margaret pointed at herself.
Rosanna sighed.
“You people are exhausting.”
The letter did not create Emma and Alessandro’s relationship.
They both insisted on that.
But it gave them something neither expected.
Permission to build something unrelated to the old betrayal.
Not repayment.
Not guilt.
Not destiny.
Choice.
That mattered.
Over the next year, their relationship grew quietly.
Emma moved out of the staff quarters almost immediately after accepting her new role.
She rented an apartment in the city.
Alessandro hated it.
“Your commute is ridiculous.”
“It’s thirty minutes.”
“You could live here.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I need a front door that does not belong to your family.”
He understood.
Eventually.
Rosanna visited Emma’s apartment and declared the kitchen inadequate.
Emma banned her from real-estate opinions for a month.
Margaret adored watching Alessandro lose arguments to her daughter.
Claire returned to England with Arthur visiting regularly.
Thomas, her son, spent summers in New York and became close to Rosanna, who treated him like another grandchild.
Vanessa served a reduced sentence after extensive cooperation.
She wrote Rosanna one letter.
Not asking forgiveness.
Simply apologizing.
Rosanna read it twice.
Then stored it.
“Will you answer?” Emma asked.
“Someday.”
“Why not now?”
“Forgiveness should not be rushed merely because someone asks nicely.”
Emma nodded.
Daniel received a lengthy prison sentence.
Several associates faced charges.
Some allegations regarding Samuel DeMarco’s death remained legally unresolved, but his role in the financial conspiracy became public.
Vittorio’s reputation changed too.
The Conti family released records voluntarily.
There was scandal.
News coverage.
Lawsuits.
Some partnerships ended.
Alessandro kept his promise.
No hiding.
One reporter asked during a press conference:
“Do you believe releasing these documents damages your father’s legacy?”
Alessandro answered:
“The truth is part of his legacy whether I release it or not.”
The quote spread widely.
For once, Alessandro didn’t care.
The Foster Foundation grew.
Emma refused to become its public face.
Margaret did not.
She discovered she loved giving speeches.
“You’ve created a monster,” Emma told her brother.
“No,” he said. “Money created her.”
Margaret overheard and threatened to remove him from the family group chat.
Life became ordinary in strange ways.
That was perhaps the happiest part.
Rosanna gardened.
Arthur learned video calling.
Claire’s son attended college in New York.
Emma’s brother graduated without debt.
Alessandro learned to cook three meals, two of which were edible.
One evening, eighteen months after the canceled wedding, Alessandro invited Emma to the carriage house.
She stopped at the door.
“No.”
He frowned.
“You haven’t even come inside.”
“This is where emotionally significant conversations happen.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re predictable now.”
He smiled.
“Come inside.”
The office had changed.
Vittorio’s desk remained.
But the wall safe was gone.
The files were now archived with historians and legal custodians.
On the bookshelf was a framed photograph.
Thomas Foster and Vittorio Conti as young men.
Before money.
Before betrayal.
Emma stared.
“Where did you find that?”
“Your mother.”
“Of course.”
Another photograph stood beside it.
Rosanna and Margaret at the Foster Foundation opening.
And another.
Claire and Arthur.
Then one of Emma.
Laughing.
She turned.
“When did you take that?”
“I didn’t.”
“Who did?”
“My mother.”
“Of course.”
Alessandro stood behind her.
“I spent a long time believing this room represented everything my father left me.”
Emma looked around.
“Now?”
“Now I think inheritance is mostly deciding what not to repeat.”
She smiled.
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“It was.”
“Uh-oh.”
He took something from the desk.
Emma immediately said, “Alessandro.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“It’s a ring box.”
“Yes.”
“That is exactly what I think.”
“Open it.”
“No.”
“Emma.”
She opened it.
Inside was not an engagement ring.
A small brass key.
She frowned.
“What?”
“The carriage house.”
“You’re giving me a key?”
“To this building.”
“Why?”
“I’m converting half of it into offices for the Foster Foundation.”
Emma stared.
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“You should have asked.”
“I knew you’d say no.”
“That is not a defense.”
“I learned it from my father.”
“Terrible example.”
He laughed.
Emma closed the box.
“You’re impossible.”
“Yes.”
She handed it back.
He didn’t take it.
“Keep it.”
“Why?”
“Because this place began as one family’s secret.”
He looked around.
“I’d rather it become something useful.”
Emma’s eyes filled.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
She placed the key in her pocket.
Then Alessandro reached into the desk again.
Emma froze.
Another box.
“No.”
He laughed.
“This one is what you think.”
“Alessandro.”
“Before you panic—”
“I am already panicking.”
“I’m not asking because of our families.”
She stared.
“Not because your grandfather wrote a letter.”
He stepped closer.
“Not because my father owes yours anything.”
Emma’s eyes filled.
“Not because you saved my mother.”
He opened the box.
A simple elegant ring.
“I’m asking because my favorite part of every day is the part where you argue with me.”
Emma laughed through tears.
“That is a terrible proposal.”
“I wasn’t finished.”
“Continue.”
“You make this house feel like a home without pretending it’s perfect.”
Her smile faded into something softer.
“You make me tell the truth even when you aren’t trying.”
He took a breath.
“And because I love you.”
Emma stared at him.
Alessandro looked more nervous than the first time he had asked her to dinner.
“Emma Foster, will you marry me?”
She covered her mouth.
For several seconds she said nothing.
Alessandro frowned.
“This silence feels punitive.”
“It is.”
“Emma.”
She laughed.
“Yes.”
His expression changed instantly.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
He stood.
She kissed him before he could say anything else.
For once, the carriage house held no secrets.
Only laughter.
When they told Rosanna, she screamed loudly enough for Marco to enter thinking there was an emergency.
Margaret cried.
Then threatened Alessandro.
“Standard mother speech,” she explained.
Emma’s brother demanded to be best man.
Alessandro said absolutely not.
He became best man.
Claire traveled from England.
Arthur volunteered to coordinate transportation.
Nobody allowed him near medication.
He accepted the joke with grace.
Then Rosanna asked the obvious question.
“When?”
Emma and Alessandro answered together:
“Not four days from now.”
Everyone laughed.
They chose spring.
Small ceremony.
Family.
Friends.
No hidden cameras.
Rosanna objected.
“Some cameras.”
“Normal cameras,” Emma clarified.
“Yes.”
The preparations began.
But Emma insisted on one final condition.
Before they married, she wanted to visit Vanessa.
Alessandro did not understand.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to walk into a marriage still carrying anger from yours.”
“She hurt my mother.”
“I know.”
“She hurt you.”
“I know.”
“You don’t owe her anything.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Emma looked at him.
“Because forgiveness isn’t always something you give someone else.”
And three weeks before her wedding, Emma Foster sat across from the woman who once believed she would become Mrs. Conti.
Vanessa looked at Emma’s engagement ring.
Then smiled sadly.
“So it’s you.”
Emma shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“It isn’t about replacing you.”
Vanessa stared.
Emma continued.
“I came because I want to stop letting what you did occupy space in my life.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
“Do you forgive me?”
Emma thought carefully.
“I’m getting there.”
Vanessa nodded.
“That’s more than I deserve.”
“Maybe.”
Emma stood.
Vanessa stopped her.
“Emma.”
She turned.
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“Take care of Rosanna.”
Emma smiled.
“She mostly takes care of us.”
Vanessa laughed.
Then Emma left.
Outside, Alessandro waited.
“Done?”
“Done.”
He held out his hand.
She took it.
Three weeks later, the Conti estate filled with flowers again.
May you like
But this time, no one was pretending.
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