“Please stay,” she implored. “We’ll just talk.”
He hesitated briefly, then shut the door behind him.
Lillian removed her sandals and padded into the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”
“That would be nice. Thank you.”
She set to work, spooning grounds into the stainless steel percolator, knowing full well that it would keep her up all night, but she didn’t care. Anton was here.
He moved to the sofa and sat down. “I can’t help but wonder now, in light of what’s happening, if my wife just married me for my money.”
Lillian poured water into the coffeepot and flipped the switch. “I’m sure that’s not true. You’re an incredible man. A woman would have to be mad not to fall in love with you.”
He chuckled softly. “That’s very kind. For the record, I wasn’t fishing for a compliment, but I do appreciate it. Nothing to get a man down on himself like a woman telling him she never wants to see him again.”
Lillian sat down next to him on the sofa. “She didn’t actually say that, did she?”
“Not in so many words, but the overall message was the same.” He exhaled sharply. “The fact is—if she loved me, she wouldn’t want to be apart, no matter where I lived. But I suppose you could say the same thing about me. Maybe I’m making my choice, too—this winery over everything else. But she never asked me to sell it and move to LA. I don’t think that’s what she wants.”
Lillian laid her arm across the back of the sofa and rested her temple on her finger. “Do you love her?”
He thought about that for a moment, then lowered his eyes. “Not enough, I suppose. My children, though . . .”
Nodding with understanding, Lillian stood up to check on the gurgling coffeepot. “Tell me about how the two of you met.”
He spoke while watching her retrieve two mugs from the cupboard and prepare a serving tray.
“It was just after I’d recovered from my illness and my brother bought me out of the company. I didn’t really know what to do with myself at that point. I met Kate at a charity event for the homeless. She was working for the caterer, serving drinks and canapés. Later, she told me that for her, it was love at first sight, and maybe it was for me too. She was gorgeous, and I was taken with her American accent. We flirted, and before you knew it, we were heavily involved. A year later we got married, and everything seemed fine. She enjoyed living in London, and I thought we’d do anything for each other, go anywhere together. We came to Italy on a holiday, and we both fell in love with the place. When I spotted this winery for sale, she seemed in love with it, too, but maybe she was just caught up in the moment, or she was humoring me. Or maybe she thought I wouldn’t actually go through with it—go so far as to buy a winery in a foreign country and move there permanently.”
Lillian set the mugs on the tray and poured the coffee. “Go on,” she said.
He sat back and stretched out. “The winery took up a lot of my attention that first year. I was busy, and she didn’t show much interest in the business side of things, much less the work in the fields. Harvesttime is backbreaking work. Long hours. That’s when she started to get homesick for LA. So her solution was to get pregnant and start a family. I wanted children from the beginning, so I was game. Our first child—my daughter, Sloane—kept her happy for a while, until another harvest season rolled around, and she complained constantly about me being gone all the time. We fought about that, but we got through it, and she got pregnant again. Everything was fine for a while, but Kate never had any interest in the workings of the winery.”
“Which is your passion.” Lillian brought the tray of coffee to the sofa and handed Anton his cup.
“Yes. Whenever I talked about it, she was bored to tears and made no secret of it. She saw it as something that took up my time and attention. Maybe she was jealous of it, in a way.”
“It’s strange to be talking about this,” Lillian said as she sat down, “because sometimes that’s how I feel about Freddie’s manuscript. I know I can’t compete with his passion for his book, and it’s disheartening.” She paused. “But let’s not talk about that.”
Anton spooned sugar into his cup.
“Tell me more about Kate,” Lillian said.
He sat back again and sipped his coffee. “Well . . . she was always a city girl. She preferred shopping malls, while I preferred the outdoors. Although, in my defense, I do believe she misrepresented herself when we were dating. She was always keen to go camping and cycling with me. That stopped as soon as we tied the knot. She might have gone with me to a beach on a Saturday afternoon, but otherwise it was dinner out, movies, dance clubs. Maybe the willingness to go camping was all just an elaborate scheme to lure me in, and I fell for it.”