Chasing Daisy

Christmas with my nonna in the mountains and we fixed the walls for her ourselves. Luis is quite a handy man, even though he could have paid for someone to do the job several million times over, but we always knew Nonna would never have allowed that.
    She passed away just after New Year and my mother and I attended her funeral together. She’s promised me she’ll go back to Italy with me to help me sort out Nonna’s things. Nonna left her house to me. I still can’t think of her without crying so I won’t say any more about that.
    Yesterday I bumped into Laura. I was tempted to put my head down and keep on walking, but I decided to stop and talk to her. She said she’s doing well, but she still misses Will. The darkest part of me wanted to let her know that she wasn’t the only one he left behind, but I could never do that to her. She told me that with blessing from his parents, she now heads a charitable foundation in Will’s name which helps underprivileged children around the world. Later that day I arranged an anonymous bank transfer of 10 million dollars, plus all the interest that I’ve accrued over the last few years. I think that Will would have been proud of me.
    I can see him clearly, now, and I know that’s a good thing. It means that I’m over him. A part of me will always love him, but Luis owns my heart now.
    Some might say that Luis and I have gone too fast by moving in together, but I believe life is too short to wait and see. He told me he fell for me the moment I shouted at him from across the street when he almost ran me off my scooter. I told him it took me longer than that. He doesn’t care. I love him now, and that’s all that matters.

 
Acknowledgements
     
    Thank you first and foremost to my readers. Your Facebook messages, online reviews and overwhelming support are what make this already impossibly great job of mine even greater.
    Thank you to my lovely, lovely editor Suzanne Baboneau for never dropping the ball, even though it’s been really bloody heavy at times. You’re nothing short of amazing. Thanks always to my friend and publicist Nigel Stoneman, who I still owe seven Bellinis to . . . And thank you to the rest of the team at Simon & Schuster – I appreciate your hard work and enthusiasm more than you will ever know.
    A massive thank you to Rebecca Finn – one time ‘waitress in a car park’ (her words, but I stole them), for sharing her experiences of being a bun tart with me. Thank you to mechanic Alastair Roome for allowing me to run down the battery in his mobile phone while I picked his brains about all things F1. (I decided I’m allowed some artistic licence so any mistakes are absolutely, entirely, one hundred per cent intentional. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.) And thank you to Neil Trundle for taking my whole family on a tour around the ridiculously cool McLaren Technology Centre – I borrowed only a little of the inspiration for my nowhere-near-as-good fictional team from it.
    Thank you to the following friends for being fabulously foulmouthed at my request: Giulia Cassini (grazie), João and Carol Bruno (obrigada), Blandine Jeunot (merci), and a big ‘cheers’ to Susan Rains for all her Americanisms.
    Thank you to Ian and Helga Toon, Bridie Tonkin, Naomi Dean, Miranda Ramsay, Jane Hampton, Emma Guest, Tina Fox, Sarah Canning, Kath Moulds, Rachel Lissauer, Suzie Zuber and Ellie Samuels for their help and feedback on various things. And thank you to Kath Moulds for the proof reading, and Jassiara Sooma for sharing her knowledge about Brazil, and in particular, São Paulo.
    Thank you – so much – to my mum, dad and brother, Jenny, Vern and Kerrin Schuppan, for giving me the best upbringing anyone could wish for. But it hasn’t all been fun: the near-death accident story that Will recounts to Daisy is borrowed from my dad. I remember seeing his crash live on television when I was a little girl, and I’ll never forget how my mum managed to stay so strong for us. I am overwhelmingly proud of both her and my dad, who, with all his success, is still the nicest person I’ve ever known.
    Most of all, thank you to my gorgeous, super-talented husband Greg. From Lucy in the Sky (‘ Another lump in her throat? She should get checked out for cancer’) to Chasing Daisy (‘They could give Roger Moore a run for his money with all their raised eyebrows’), his often hilarious, sometimes annoying advice has without a doubt made my books