Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
E lisabetta
The room is tense. My father strums his fingers against the tabletop, and I see him looking at his watch every five seconds.
He looks over his shoulder to his housemaid, Maria. "Is he here yet?"
"No," she says simply.
"Where the fuck is he?" he mutters under his breath.
He looks over at me and gives me a somber smile. "You look very pretty today."
"Thank you, Father," I say, but as I look at him, I can tell that this man is a stranger. This man, who I've known as my father, who I've loved as my father, is a stranger to me. He's been keeping secrets from me my entire life, and while he purports to love me, I don't feel it. It doesn't feel real, and in that, I feel like I don't feel real. I feel like I don't even understand who I am.
"So, did my fiancé stand me up then, Papa?" I ask him half-joking, though I'm nervous. What if Liam changed his mind? What if he realized that this entire thing is absurd? What if he realized that he doesn't actually wanna marry me and that the business deal should have nothing to do with that? What if he doesn't really love me?
"I am going to make a call," my father says as he stands up. "Stay here."
"Where else would I be going, Papa? It’s not like there are a million other men you have waiting in the wings to marry me, to save you and your business, right?"
He gives me a blank stare, but I can see the anger in his eyes. "I'll be back," he says.
I want to laugh. I want to tell him he reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I know that this is not the right moment.
I sit back in the chair and look around the room. It's large and reminds me of something from a history book. It's long and narrow with paintings on every inch of the wall. There are thick, dark, purple velvet curtains hanging from the ceiling to the floor with wide velvet tassels. The table is a dark, solid wood with crystal glasses and sterling silver cutlery on the table.
Maria stands back as my father leaves the room and walks over to me. "Some wine?" she asks, and I shake my head.
"No, thank you."
She steps back and stands next to the door, and I wonder what she's thinking. I wonder what she knows. She's been with my father since before I was born, and I think she loves him from the way that she looks at him and from the way that she's always at his beck and call.
And sometimes, I think he loves her, too, which is crazy because he's married, even though he rarely ever sees my stepmother. In fact, I don’t even know if he knows where she is.
I pull out my phone to text Liam, but I don’t wanna seem needy, so instead, I text Skye.
"What's going on?" I wait for her to respond, but I don't hear anything. I can hear my father shouting and screaming, and I wonder if he's on the phone with Liam. My heart clenches slightly. Maybe he has changed his mind.
"You'll be okay," I mutter to myself. Self-preservation has always been something I excelled at. I've always technically been alone, looking after myself. I had to protect my feelings and be one with who I was. I learned from a young age that I couldn't really depend on anyone to be there for me, like really and truly be there for me.
Skye was there for me as a sister and loved me, but she couldn't take care of me in that way. Ultimately, I learned that the only person there for you, who could make you feel fulfilled, was yourself.
I hear loud, clicking footsteps as my father comes back to the room. He stares at his watch again. "He's late."
"I gathered that, Papa. Perhaps he's?—"
"He's coming," he says as he takes a seat. He looks over at me, and his expression changes slightly to one of tiredness, to one of… I stare at him for a couple of seconds, trying to decipher what that look on his face is. Is it love? Regret? I'm not really sure.
"You remind me so very much of your mother when she was young," he says, standing up and walking toward me. He strokes the side of my face. "So beautiful and sweet and innocent."
"I'm not very sweet, and I'm not that innocent, Dad. I hate to?—"
"She was such a delight," he says. "She and I would talk for hours and hours about any and everything. She liked to sing, you know."
"I didn't know that." I shake my head.
"She wanted to be an opera singer." He chuckles. "She wanted to take the world by storm, but I'll let you in on a little secret. She couldn't hit the notes."
"Oh."
"But I didn't tell her that, of course. I loved her. I would do anything for her. She always said to me, 'I can always count on you. I can count on you to be the man that treats me with respect, with love, with kindness, that sees me for who I truly am.'"
"I'm glad she had you, Papa."
My heart feels sad for him. I can hear the pain in his voice. I can sense how much he misses her, and in that moment, I realize that the pain I've gone through is nothing compared to the pain he's gone through.
I think about what could have been, the relationship I could have had with my mother, the love she would have given me, the life I would have known, but he sad for a life he had that he no longer does.
"She used to shout at me, you know, go crazy in the middle of the night, hit me, grab knives." He blinks. "Do things, say things."
"Oh?" I stare at him in confusion. "I didn't know that. I’m sorry."
"I didn't understand what was going on at first, you know." His eyes look wild. "Of course, I still loved her, and she loved me. She'd wake up in the morning and not even remember. Sometimes she'd have a glass of wine when we'd be out and she'd start crying or screaming at people or at me and saying she saw things or they were coming to attack her and?—"
He touches his hand to his forehead. "She was my wife, the love of my life, the mother of my beautiful only daughter." He looks at me. "She…" He grabs my hand. "She loved you more than anything. Everything she did was to protect you. Everything she made me promise in life was to protect you."
He steps back and slams his fist against the table. "Am I protecting you or?—"
The doorbell rings then, and he stops. He rubs his forehead again and straightens his shoulders. His eyes meet mine, and he nods. "He's here."
"Tell me if he's old, Papa."
"Who?" he says, frowning.
"My fiancé. He's not an old man, is he?"
His lips twist up. "No, my darling, he's not an old man. In fact, you may even know him."
He leaves the room then, and that's when I realize that Maria is still standing there. She'd been watching the entire thing. She looks down at the ground as I try to make eye contact with her.
I take my seat again and wait. I can hear Father opening the door and speaking to who I presume is Liam. I hear a couple of laughs and then footsteps. My heart races. This is it. I wonder if I'm as good an actress as I hope I am. I need to pretend that I have no idea what's going on.
My father steps into the room. "Darling Elisabetta, I want you to meet?—"
Liam steps in then, and my father throws his hand up in the air.
"Liam! What are you doing here?" I say in mock surprise. "Don't tell me that I left some work on the desk and you've come all the way here to?—"
He gives me a wry smile, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. My heart pounds for a couple of seconds. He's changed his mind.
"Elisabetta, Liam is your fiancé."
"What?" I screech, but it doesn't sound real.
Liam steps forward. "I am sorry for keeping this a secret from you, but your father, well, he didn't want you to know just yet."
"What? Dad, how could you do this to me?" I stare at him, and his face blanches slightly.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want this to happen. I… I'm broke, darling. I have nothing left. I…"
He looks down in shame, and I wanna cry for him. All of a sudden, he reminds me of a frail old man, and he's not even that old.
"How could you lie to me, Liam? How could you not tell me?"
"I suppose it was because I wasn't able to." His voice cracks. "Your father threatened to call off the deal, and well, I didn't want to be the one to give him a reason to."
He pauses and looks over at my father. "I need you to sign the contracts today."
"I cannot do it today," he says, shaking his head. "I'll leave you two to talk. I have somewhere I have to be." He looks at his watch. "I have to go. I will see you both tomorrow. We'll chat then."
"I need you to do it right now, Franco," Liam says annoyed. "I need to ensure that you're not taking my money and?—"
"I will sign the contracts. I have to go."
My father walks over to me, grabs my hand, and kisses both cheeks. "Please forgive me, darling, for everything, but this was the only way."
He looks at Liam and shakes his hand. "I trust that you will be kind to my daughter. She didn't ask for this life."
He heads back to the entrance. "I'm off, Maria. Please serve them afternoon tea."
"You like tea, right, you English?" He looks over at Liam, and Liam just nods. "Ciao, bella." He walks out of the room.
Liam and I just stare at each other, and I wait for the door to close.
"Wow, you put on quite the performance," I whisper as Maria leaves the room.
"You did, too," he says. "Looking as pretty as ever."
"You, too. Is everything okay? What did Lucinda have to say?"
"My businesses aren't doing that well. Well, my main business."
"What is your main business? I don’t think I really knew."
"I put the majority of my fortune into a manufacturing company called Brigade last year," he says matter-of-factly. "It was owned by a billionaire by the name of Finneaus Fillmore."
"Whoa, the guy that's on like the Forbes' richest man in the world list?"
"Yeah, him, and let's just say, it turns out he was a bit shady or, I guess, a lot shady. And stocks have sunk and?—"
"Wait, what?"
"It's a long story," he says, shaking his head. "But needless to say, I need this contract with your dad to go through so we can move forward quickly with this hotel chain."
"Oh, is that why you were asking him to sign it today?"
He nods. "But tomorrow will be fine. How are you?" he says, staring at me. “You look flushed."
“It was weird. Before you got here, for the first time in my life, my dad was opening up to me."
"Oh, wow," he says as we take a seat. "Did he tell you why he was doing this?"
"He started talking about my mom," I say softly, "and how much he loved her. He said she wanted to be an opera singer, something I never knew, but supposedly she couldn't really sing, which makes sense because I can't carry a tune.
"But he also said some weird stuff like?—"
"Like what?" he says, frowning. He leans back, and I can tell that he's tense.
"Just that she would start screaming and shouting. And I don't know, I'm wondering if the night that she died, maybe they argued and she got into a car crash, and he feels guilty or something."
"Maybe," he says, nodding. "Did you ask him?"
"No, we were still talking, but then you arrived, and I guess that was more important." I grin at him and touch the side of his face.
"Hey, you okay? Like, you know I love you because of you and not your money."
"I know," he says gruffly. "It's just been a weird afternoon." He stares at me. "So, you really enjoyed hearing about your mom, right?"
"I did. It made me feel close to her in a way that I never had. He's never really spoken about her before." I shrug. "But hey, maybe he'll tell me more on this trip.”
"Yeah." He nods. "Maybe he will."
"So, do you still love me, or are you trying to call this whole thing off?" I say, pouting at him.
"I still love you. Why?"
"You just seem really off, and I understand that business is not going well, but I hope it has nothing to do with me and the situation." I wave my hands in the air. "Because if you don't wanna marry me, I will tell my father that he needs to go through with the deal anyway and?—"
"I wanna marry you, Elisabetta. I do. Of course, I do.”
“I mean, just a couple of hours ago, you were saying that we would be casually dating, but?—"
"I spoke out of my ass," he says. "You would be my woman. We both know that." He grins. "I mean, sometimes when lightning strikes, you don't have to have it strike a second time before you know that it hit you."
"Are you saying that lightning struck you?"
"I'm saying that when you came into my life, it felt like lightning had struck me." He pulls me forward and gives me a kiss on the lips. "I just wanna be a man that is worthy of you."
"You are. You're absolutely amazing, and don't ever let anyone make you feel like you're not."
"I think I am the one who should be saying those words to you," he says softly. "You're the love of my life, Elisabetta, and I thank God every day for allowing you into mine because I don't know what I would do without you."