Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
T O SAY HE GLOWERED through the rest of the night was an understatement, but in a testament to how sickeningly happy Rocco and Maddie were in each other’s company, they were too wrapped up in their own little love bubble to notice. Which suited Francesco brilliantly.
After dinner, he caught a cab to a bar, ordered a whisky, and contemplated starting something with one of the many beautiful women he could see. In his experience, it didn’t take much effort to charm someone into coming home with him.
Despite that, just the thought of it seemed to represent a monumental effort, so he polished off his scotch, threw some money on the bar and left again, choosing to walk the kilometre or so to his place rather than hail another cab. He needed to blow off steam.
What he wasn’t expecting, when he got to the front of the building, was to find Raf, leaning against one of the pillars.
“This place is like fucking Fort Knox,” he snapped. “And don’t you ever answer your phone?”
He’d turned it onto flight mode after Willow had left, to stop himself from calling her to explain. The truth was, he had no idea if he needed to explain, or where he’d even start. He just knew he’d messed up tonight, but he couldn’t begin to process why.
“What are you doing here?”
“I got bored of New York.”
Francesco raised a brow, as he moved towards his brother and wrapped him in a hug. He felt slim. Too slim.
“Come upstairs,” he muttered, even when it was the last thing he felt like doing. He wanted to be alone.
No, that wasn’t true. He wanted to be with Willow, but that was a dangerous thing to want so he refused to feel it.
“You’re not busy?”
“Do I look busy?”
“That’s no reason to think you won’t be entertaining later.”
A muscle ticked in Francesco’s jaw. “I wouldn’t have invited you if I didn’t mean it. Come upstairs.”
He flicked his phone and the security doors opened.
Once inside Francesco’s penthouse, Raf looked around, so Francesco realized his brother hadn’t been here. “Nice place,” he said, echoing Willow’s words, that first time she’d come.
His heart thumped slowly, painfully. He stalked to the bar. “Drink?”
“Is that even a question?”
“How are you?”
Raf dragged a hand through his hair but his obsidian eyes were focused on Francesco. “I feel like that’s something I should be asking you.”
“Why?”
“You look like shit.”
Francesco barked out a short laugh. “Thanks.”
“You look…angry.”
“I’m not.”
“Or upset.”
“Jesus, Raf. I’m fine. You’re projecting.”
“If you say so.” Raf took the proffered drink then moved to the large windows, with their stunning view of the park. “Where have you been?”
“Dinner with Rocco and Maddie.” He omitted Willow’s name on purpose. Raf wasn’t aware of the ruse, and he wanted to keep it that way.
And yet, a moment later, Raf asked, “And Willow?”
Francesco’s heart thumped faster, as he whirled around to face Raf.
“Maria mentioned it.”
Guilt, and something else, sliced through Francesco. “Did she?” He hesitated. “When?”
“A couple of days ago.”
Francesco closed his eyes on a wave of something far too complex to comprehend.
“I thought it strange that you hadn’t mentioned it. Maria says you’re good together.”
Francesco pulled a face, then drained his glass, before replacing it on the kitchen counter. “Looks can be deceiving.”
“What does that mean?”
And despite their ruse, and their promise to maintain it, with Raf, who’d been through so much, and been so open with Francesco, he felt a pull towards absolute honesty.
“Just that. It’s not always what it seems.”
Raf grunted. “Don’t I know it.”
Francesco winced.
“Did Willow lie about being pregnant to trap you into marriage too?” he asked, sarcastically, his voice grating with hurt. Francesco reached out, putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” Raf grunted. “We weren’t talking about me.”
“We don’t have to talk about me.” Then, with a shake of his head, “There’s nothing to talk about, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Don’t do that. I hate that you didn’t tell me about Willow.”
“It’s not a big deal. It’s casual.”
“You’re dating one of our oldest family friends—that can’t not be a big deal.”
Francesco’s gut twisted. “It’s casual,” he repeated.
“Does Willow know that?”
He thought of Willow, and how she’d been that night. When he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her, and she’d held onto him like she never wanted to let go. His insides churned with a strange and horrible tangle of feelings. “Yes,” he blurted out, hoping it was true. Hoping that he hadn’t hurt her. Hoping that she didn’t hate him.
He couldn’t bear that.
“We’re really fucked up, aren’t we?” Raf said, his lips twisting in a ghoulish smile. “I mean, I know we’re like him, but I didn’t realise how like him until now.”
Ice seemed to trickle down Francesco’s spine.
“I suppose it would be impossible for us to have normal relationships with women, after seeing the way dad was.”
Francesco grunted. He’d thought the same thing a million times but hearing it out of Raf’s mouth made a part of him want to fight it.
“Rocco’s happy,” he pointed out.
“He can be the exception to the rule.”
Francesco moved away, refilling their glasses generously. He felt like getting drunk tonight. He felt like drinking to the point of obliterating his ability to think. To miss her. To do something stupid and promise her things he knew he’d never be able to deliver.
“Can I ask you something?”
Raf made a noise that Francesco took for acceptance.
“How come you stayed with Marcia so long?”
Raf took the drink then went to the sofa, sitting on the edge of it, long legs spread wide. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s say you and I are the same,” Francesco said, cradling his own drink as he took the seat opposite Raf and stared at his brother. “That because of dad or whatever, we’re never going to be able to commit to a woman. That we’re just not interested in that.”
Raf grunted.
“I always thought the best way around that was to keep things light. I’m hardly a monk, but I’ve never made a woman a promise. I’ve never made her think I want more than a few nights.”
“And Willow’s okay with that?”
Francesco’s blood went from ice to arctic sheet frozen. “She knows what I’m like,” was the closest he could come to agreeing, because he had no idea if she was okay with anything that had happened between them. Hell, he had no way of knowing if she was okay, period.
Raf sipped his drink. “Marcia knew what I was like, too.”
Francesco sat back, waiting for Raf to continue, somehow just knowing he wasn’t done. “Right from the beginning, I was honest with her. Marriage was off the table. I told her— fuck, ” he shouted, as he dragged a hand through his hair, his features tortured. “I fucking told her I would never get married except for the sake of a kid. After the way dad was, I knew that was non-negotiable. I’d want my kid to have a stable home. Maybe she thought I’d change my mind. I don’t know. But she clearly got tired of waiting.”
Sympathy was a rushing wave inside Francesco. “But why didn’t she try to fall pregnant before this?”
“She probably did,” he muttered. “I always believed her when she said she was on contraception. Even then, I never took chances. I was careful, too. Except for one night, when we’d been to a friend’s party. I’d been drinking. I barely even remember it, but the next morning, she told me we hadn’t used a condom. That was three weeks before she told me she was pregnant. You know the rest.”
Francesco felt absolute hatred then, for the woman who’d used Raf so shamelessly to get what she wanted. And yet, loving someone who didn’t love you back had to hurt like a bitch. He couldn’t condone what she’d done, but he had no doubt she did love Raf, in her own way. And seeing the rest of the family marrying off, one by one, knowing Raf would never give that to her…
“Do you miss her?” Francesco asked, leaning forward, wondering why the answer meant so much to him.
Raf’s eyes sliced through Francesco, causing him to shiver. “That’s the weirdest thing. I don’t. It’s like learning what she’s capable of obliterated any good feelings I ever had for her. She’s dead to me. I just can’t believe I spent so long thinking we had this thing that worked.”
Francesco nodded slowly. “Did you love her?”
“I was kind of happy,” Raf said, with a frown. “I was comfortable,” he corrected. “I didn’t realise how much more she wanted from me. How much she was starting to resent me, for holding out on her. I should have ended it a long time ago.”
Francesco nodded, but it wasn’t really Raf he was agreeing with, but himself, and his decision of a few hours ago. He’d never be able to give Willow what she wanted and deserved, and if they kept seeing each other, and he kept holding himself back emotionally, she’d come to resent and hate him too, like Marcia had Raf. The best thing he could do was to stay out of her life, and that’s just exactly what he intended to do.
Her text came through the next day, just before lunch, when Francesco was midway through sharing a greasy pizza with Raf, neither of them feeling that fresh after the night before.
It’s done. Thanks for everything. Take care of yourself.
Which made his gut drop to his feet, never mind the amount of scotch he and Raf had drunk.
He had to fight an urge to call her, to ask how her dad had taken the news. And a protective instinct to make sure she was okay, because he knew Meredith wouldn’t have taken the news lying down. God, he hated that woman.
But he did neither of those things. He slipped his phone back in his pocket and kept talking to Raf like nothing had changed. Because while she might have gone through with their fake break up, for some reason, he didn’t feel like doing the same thing.
“Jesus, sorry, mate.” Francesco glanced at the text from Rocco, to the dark grey sky overhead, frowning as he tried to make sense of his brother’s message.
A second later, a screen shot came through, and Francesco’s body felt hot and cold all over. It was from one of those society magazine’s insta account, and it clearly showed Willow and someone else, in each other’s arms.
Willow Von Bates, socialite stylist to the stars and eldest daughter of Baxter Von Bates, most recently rumoured to be in a relationship with Italian billionaire Francesco Santoro, seen here with a mystery man.
Mystery man, his ass. He’d put money on that weedy looking guy being her beloved Tom. Tom who she said it was over with. Tom who definitely wasn’t good enough for her. Tom, who he’d predicted would star in this exact goddamn scenario if they weren’t careful.
He stared at the photo as if just by looking at it he could elicit more information.
“You okay?”
Another message from Rocco.
He ground his teeth. “Fine.” And because he didn’t want anyone thinking Willow had cheated on him, he added, “We broke up a while ago.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
His phone started to ring, and he considered not answering it, but knowing Rocco as he did, Francesco realized his brother would just take that as an invitation to keep hounding him.
He swiped it across. “What?”
“Nice,” Rocco said, but let it go. “What happened?”
“Nothing. It fizzled out.”
“It didn’t seem like something that was going to fizzle out.”
“Come on, like you noticed anything about Willow and me that night. You only had eyes for Maddie. Which is no problem. It’s how it’s meant to be when you’re in love.”
“And you’re not in love?”
“What is this, a daytime talk show? No, I’m not in love.”
“Sure seemed like it.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” he said, wondering if he should trademark the phrase, given how regularly he’d started saying it.
“What happened?”
“We just broke up.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
Francesco ground his teeth, and figured a version of the truth was better than a lie. “That guy she’s with—Tom—they have a history. I guess she missed him, or whatever.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Seriously, why does any of this matter?”
“Aren’t I allowed to worry about my brother?”
“Worry about Raf all you want. I’m fine.”
Rocco sighed heavily. “You really are dumb as shit sometimes, you know that?”
Francesco contemplated disconnecting the call.
“I mean, I was too, til I met Maddie, so I get it. Fuck, man. Sometimes you just have to take the leap, you know.”
Francesco shook his head. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Why not?”
“Because you love Maddie.”
“Yeah, I love Maddie. But I almost lost her, because it took me so long to wake up and realise it. I was stupid, and I think you’re probably being the same kind of stupid.”
Francesco shook his head. “It’s different.”
“Is it? How?”
“Can we not talk about this?”
“If it’s no big deal, why’s it a problem to talk about?”
“You’re really pissing me off, now.”
“I think you’re messing up your life.”
“Just as well it’s my life to mess up, then. Why don’t you call Raf? He’s the one who could do with your amateur psychology services, not me.”
“He’s next on my list.”
“Great, just give me a sec to warn him,” Francesco snapped.
“You’re in a disgusting mood, and I think it’s because you hate the sight of her with that guy. I think you’re hung up on her. I think you’re standing in the way of your own happiness, and you need to?—,”
“I need to go,” Francesco interrupted and then, because this was Rocco, and he knew his brother meant well, “Thanks for calling.” He hung up before Rocco could say another word.
“Who the hell is he?” Meredith’s voice was best described as a screech, and Willow winced, wishing she’d thought to ignore the call.
“Who’s who?” Willow asked, with literally no clue why her stepmother sounded like she was about to have a total meltdown.
“The man you’ve been photographed with. It’s all over the papers. Oh, Willow, how could you do this to me? I’d told everyone about you and Francesco. I thought it was serious. And now to see you in the papers with some…some…who is he?” Meredith repeated, but Willow had stopped listening after the first sentence of Meredith’s tirade anyway.
The man you’ve been photographed with.
She pulled her phone from her ear and put it on speakerphone, so she could open a browser and search her own name whilst still ostensibly on the call to her stepmother.
A recently published article came up, from one of those glossy gossip magazines, showing three photos of her and Tom, taken about three seconds apart, so it was just literally his arms around her as they pulled in for a very chaste, polite kiss goodbye.
Who knew a ten minute catch up in a park to swap some of their things that had been left behind at one another’s houses would cause such a stir?
“He’s just a friend,” she said, hating the invasion of that. Hating even more so that the article made reference to her ‘relationship’ with Francesco, so their names would be forever linked on the internet.
“You look very intimate for being ‘just friends’.”
“We were saying goodbye.”
Meredith made a noise of disbelief. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is for your father and me?”
“I—what?”
“Your break up. You’d actually managed to land one of the most desired bachelors, someone we could be truly proud of, and you couldn’t even hold onto him for a month. Honestly, Willow. It’s enough to make us despair.”
Willow heard the words—the sort of words that had been levelled at her so many times over the years, and she’d been able to ignore, or downplay. But this time, they landed differently. Or perhaps it was that she was different now. Whatever else had come about through her relationship with Francesco, his view of her had made her stronger. Had made her less willing to accept this kind of BS from her stepmother.
“Well, thank you very much for your concern, but my private life is really none of your business.”
Obviously, Meredith had never been spoken to so frankly by Willow, and she showed her shock by gasping down the phone line. But it only hardened Willow’s resolve.
“You ungrateful, unbelievable…”
“I am not ungrateful,” Willow interrupted. “I appreciate that raising some other woman’s child was not in your life’s plans, but you’re done now. I’m not a child anymore, but a fully grown woman, and my life, my choices, are all my own. I’m sorry if you don’t agree with them, but I’m not going to date—or avoid dating—anyone, based on your opinion.”
“Your father will be hearing about this?—,”
“Great. Wonderful. He should get this message too, though he’s far less inclined to interfere than you are.”
“If you don’t apologise, this minute, you can forget about coming home anytime soon.”
Something dipped inside of Willow, because that was truly one of the most hurtful things her stepmother could have said. To take away the ability to come home…to be expelled, officially, from the family. It cut deep.
“Fine,” she said, like her heart wasn’t breaking. “That’s probably for the best. Tell the girls I’ll be in touch. Take care, Meredith.”
She disconnected the call and let out a large sob, but it was a sound of relief, as much as grief. She collapsed onto the edge of an armchair and stared at the wall, shaking in disbelief at what she’d just done.