9. Dante
DANTE
T his wasn’t happening.
I refused to accept what I saw in front of me because it couldn’t be real. I hadn’t seen the man in more than twenty years, yet I would’ve known him anywhere. It was the eyes. We had the same piercing eyes. Thankfully, that was one of the few traits we shared.
“I don’t understand.” Lenny squeezed my hand, trying to bring me back to reality, where she struggled to catch up.
She had never met him. He’d walked out of my life before I knew Lenny existed when we were little kids.
I didn’t possess a single photo of him. This was her first time setting eyes on the man who had shaped my understanding of so many things, not by his example but by his absence and lack of any redeeming qualities I might want to emulate one day.
A soft whimper at my left broke me out of my shock. I looked down at Mom, whose face had gone an alarming shade of gray. The way her chin trembled as she stared told me my instinctive response was wrong. She had nothing to do with this.
“Please, don’t hold it against me,” he murmured. My God, his voice. I forgot what his voice sounded like. How could it be? Twenty years softened and erased a lot of memories.
They had certainly aged him as well. He ran a hand over his thinning black hair now streaked with white. “I didn’t think you’d want your old man around at a time like this, but I… I wanted to see you. I wanted to tell you…”
I wasn’t particularly interested in what he wanted to tell me. There was a bigger problem at hand. I was surrounded by friends and family, but that didn’t mean I wanted any of them to witness this. Truth be told, I didn’t want to witness it myself. I wanted nothing to do with him.
Still, I couldn’t have him thrown out. Mom was upset enough. She shot me a panicked look that focused me. “We should have this talk somewhere else,” I decided, speaking through gritted teeth. “Somewhere more private.”
“You can use my office,” Clay offered as Mira hurried from the room. It was clear she was irritated. I would be, too, if a stranger off the street was welcomed into a private event by my staff without first being cleared by anyone.
“It’ll be fine,” I told Mom, then offered Lenny what I hoped was a reassuring nod. The last thing I wanted was to worry her. Fuck, we were so close to everything going off without a hitch. Why did he have to come out of nowhere to shake everything up?
Clay led the way out of the room, and I followed without giving the stranger beside me a glance. How could he do this? How did he know? I would ask him those questions when we were alone. Then, I would put him on his way. He had no business being here. He had forfeited any right a long time ago.
“I saw something in the newspaper about your wedding.” His voice was low, almost apologetic. The way it should’ve been. “I understand you’re part owner in this hotel as well. I’m not so good with that internet stuff, but I looked you up. This is impressive.”
That answered one question anyway. Thinking back, I vaguely remembered approving a press release mentioning the wedding and how it would be the first such event since Manning-Rinaldi took over.
At the time, I was feeling petty, hoping Lenny’s ex would see and know the better man had won out in the end.
That the woman he could never possibly hope to make happy had come back to me.
Hadn’t I learned by now the dangers of pride? It was almost laughable. My pettiness was coming back to bite me in the ass, forcing me away from what should have been a celebration.
Clay ushered us into the room off the lobby, but he held me in place with a hand on my arm. “This is unacceptable. I am so sorry. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
The damage had been done, though I didn’t hold it against him.
“Don’t worry. I won’t give you a bad online review,” I murmured.
Some of the strain written across his face eased, but not all of it.
He stepped out of the room, closing the door, leaving me alone with my father for the first time in decades.
There was something close to physical relief when I was able to turn to him and let the mask drop. It was just the two of us now. Nobody to play nice in front of. “What the hell is this? You pick now, of all times? Tonight? That press release went out weeks ago.”
At least I knew my memories of him as a pitiful joke were clear and true.
He seemed to shrink in front of me, cowering a little, but then I doubted I looked or sounded friendly.
“I have been fighting with myself ever since I saw the article,” he explained in a small voice full of shame.
“I told myself I shouldn’t. I knew you wouldn’t want to see me. ”
All his weak, almost sniveling response did was fan the flames of my outrage. “Then, for God’s sake, why?”
He wore the expression of a man waking up from a long sleep, wondering how he ended up where he was. Did he expect me to throw my arms open and let him weep on my shoulder?
“This was a mistake,” he decided as his gaze dropped to the floor. “I’ll go now so you can get back to your dinner.”
Something inside me snapped, compelling me to block the door.
“No. You don’t get to run away again. You showed up here, you disrupted everything, and I’ll be damned if I let you walk out now without at least explaining yourself.
What do you want from me? Money? Don’t tell me you weren’t intrigued when you found out I’m part-owner of this hotel.
I bet you did plenty of research on me after that, didn’t you? ”
“You’ve got the wrong idea.” He shook his head hard. “I don’t want anything from you. I only wanted you to know I’m still thinking about you. I still love you, son.”
“Love?” That I had to laugh at. “What do you know about it? You only ever loved yourself.”
“I hated myself.” There was no emotion behind it. His voice was flat, matter of fact.
“Well, that makes two of us then. You know what love is?” I countered, my anger rising along with my blood pressure.
“It’s Mom working two jobs to make sure I got a good education and lived in a nice house where I could be safe and thrive.
Love is the way I take care of her now, though I know I could never pay her back.
Love is not letting your addiction destroy your family’s chance at a future.
And then what did you do? You ran. You never said goodbye.
You could have been dead all this time for all I knew. ”
Through all of it, he remained still, silent.
Absorbing my words without reacting, without offering anything of his own.
Not that I wanted to hear any of it, but the part of me who remembered how it felt to wake up one morning in a suddenly single-parent household needed him to care enough to say something.
“I have no excuse.” His thin shoulders rose, then fell in a shaky breath. “I was deep in my illness. I told myself it was better if you were without me because no matter how I tried, I couldn’t beat it. I kept betraying you and your mother.”
“I thought you said you have no excuse,” I reminded him with a smirk.
“It’s not an excuse,” he snapped, nearly shrinking back again like he forgot himself for a second. “It’s the truth. I only wanted to explain.”
“Congratulations. You’ve explained. And now you can go because I have waited too long for this day to let you ruin it for my fiancée.
” Or for myself, but it was Lenny who mattered now.
I had stopped caring a long time ago, I realized, something I’d only suspected before now.
There was nothing left in my heart for him. Not even hate.
“I’m proud of you.” His features pinched in pain, but he held my gaze, unflinching. “I needed you to know that. For coming as far as you have, for finding a nice girl, for taking care of your mom in a way I never could. You’ve done a good job.”
How dare he? He had no right.
I hadn’t asked.
I didn’t care.
And yet.
“Thank you,” I replied. His brows lifted a fraction like he was surprised. That would make two of us. Thanking him was the last thing on my mind. “I appreciate it. I’ve done what I can.”
There was so much more. Questions, accusations, but none of them mattered.
Nothing would change. From the look of him, life had not been kind in the years since he last said good night to me before I went to bed in my closet of a bedroom.
That little boy would still wake up in the morning and wonder where his father went or when he would come back.
Eventually, he’d wonder why. And how it was possible to walk away without saying goodbye or ever checking in.
Those days were long past. Tonight, tomorrow, they were about the future—my future with Lenny. I wouldn’t linger in the past another minute. He’d gotten his closure, and I’d made sure he knew what he’d left behind.
When he held out his hand, the only thing I could do was grip it tight. “Congratulations on your wedding,” he added. I murmured my thanks and stepped aside so he could go. There was nothing else. He didn’t ask for anything, not even an invitation. Could I believe he only wanted to see me?
There was too much swirling in my head to let me leave the room right away, pressure in my chest making it a challenge to breathe.
Sudden shock would do that, but I’d get over it.
Nothing had changed. I had never carried around the desire to see him one more time and bitch him out, not even when I was a teenager who would gladly have pissed on his grave if I’d found out he died.
Lenny had asked me about it more than once back in high school if I wanted to look for him at any point. I felt back then the way I felt as I processed what had just taken place. I didn’t need him.
Only a moment passed before a soft tap sounded from the other side of the door. “It’s me,” Lenny murmured. “Can I come in? I couldn’t wait back there.”
“Sure.” I lowered myself onto a leather sofa to the side of the door, resting my elbows on my knees and propping my head in my hands.
“Oh, Dante.” Lenny sat next to me, putting an arm around my back, her chin on my shoulder. “What do you need? What can I do?”
That would be the first thing she thought of. Always worried about me. “Surprisingly, I don’t feel much of anything,” I admitted. “I wish he hadn’t done it, but it’s over now, and he said his peace.”
“Did you say yours?”
“I didn’t have much to say.” Lifting my head, I looked at her, searching for answers in her beautiful, beloved face. “Is that wrong, do you think? I could’ve said a lot more than I did, but I didn’t feel like it was necessary.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t owe him anything. You only owe yourself.” The touch of her hand on the back of my head was comforting and welcome. Necessary.
I understood her point. “I don’t have any regrets,” I decided.
“There might’ve been times in the past when I asked myself what I would say if he ever appeared out of nowhere.
But while he was here, standing feet away from me, looking beaten down and alone and wasted, I realized he had already paid enough.
It would’ve been like kicking a sick puppy. ”
“I know this is going to sound wrong… but I’m proud of you,” she whispered. “I really am. You handled that with so much grace.”
“Me?” I asked with a soft, disbelieving laugh. “You had a stranger walk in on your rehearsal dinner and throw everything off-track.”
With a snicker, she pointed out, “We also had Rowan and Spencer’s baby stealing focus for a minute there. Par for the course, right? It’s life. There’s no predicting certain things. You just have to roll with it.”
“Do me a favor, will you?” I angled my body toward hers, taking her hands in mine.
There were still times like this when I looked at her and wondered how it was possible she loved me.
What had I done to deserve someone this thoughtful, loving, patient?
Three qualities I hadn’t exactly practiced in the years before we became part of each other’s lives again.
“Name it,” she whispered with a smile that shone in her sapphire blue eyes.
“Never stop loving me. Because if you did, I would be lost. You are the one thing I will always need.”
“It just so happens I wasn’t planning on loving anybody else for the rest of my life.” She leaned close, touching her forehead to mine. “So, I think we’re in good shape.”
“Well, almost.” When she arched an eyebrow, I explained, “We still have a room full of people waiting for us to return.”
“I guess we had better not be rude.” Still, we lingered over a few kisses, which went the rest of the way toward releasing any lingering tension.
By the time we stepped out into the lobby with Lenny’s hand in mine, I realized my father had inadvertently given me the best wedding gift I could ask for.
He gave me the chance to be a better man.
He reminded me how far I’d come without him, despite him.
And he reminded me of how much further I planned to go.
So long as I had this woman by my side, there was no stopping me.