Chapter Seventeen #2
She went to the adorned cupboard where several new sets of clothes hung up, all her favourites from the personal shopper’s catalogue. Emilio had wanted to spoil her. How had it gone so wrong?
She pulled out a suitcase and began haphazardly packing the clothes into the bag. This wasn’t her. She was meticulous about everything she did. He couldn’t let her leave, if not for his sake, then for hers and their baby’s.
‘Jasmine, if you want to leave so desperately, I will see you to the airport myself in the morning.’
‘No. I don’t want to be around you.’
‘I can’t let you leave.’
She scoffed. ‘And that’s why you kept this from me—because you knew I would leave!’
His family was falling apart. He’d been so close to having everything and now it was slipping through his fingers.
‘What about our baby? I won’t lose my child.’ He didn’t want to lose her either.
‘I will have my lawyers contact your lawyers. I’m sure we can come up with an agreeable custody schedule.’
Emilio could clearly read between the lines. ‘And we would have no contact.’
‘Not if I can help it.’ She slammed the suitcase shut and turned to face him. ‘And don’t bother coming home either. It’s mine, not yours.’ She wheeled the suitcase to the bedroom door. ‘I’ll send you a cheque for the clothes.’
‘ Per l’amor del cielo , Jasmine!’ He ran after her.
‘Do not come after me, Emilio. I don’t want to see you.’ She didn’t look back, slamming the suite door closed just before he could reach it.
He threw it open—but only made it a step.
His soul cried out for him to heed his impulse to follow her.
To bring her back. To make her understand where he was coming from.
But the urgency of that need, the desperation, was exactly why he couldn’t.
He had trained himself for years to ignore his impulses, but he didn’t want to now.
He was losing his family, the woman he loved.
But how could he turn his back on nearly a decade of control? How could he disobey Jasmine?
He was stuck. Stuck in this loop of who he should be and who he was. The man whose actions had driven his wife down the hallway and out of sight.
Gone.
Emilio’s back met the wall and he slid down to the floor, his chest caving open. Where did he go from here?
In this moment of utter night, Emilio’s phone began to ring. He didn’t want to answer it, but what if it was Jasmine? What if she had paused for a moment and would allow him a chance?
A chance for what?
Anything! He’d take anything she offered.
‘Jasmine?’ he answered, without even looking at the screen.
‘Emilio.’ It was his lawyer.
His stomach sank. Not Jasmine. She never wanted to see him again. That fact hurt so badly, it robbed the breath from him.
He didn’t want to talk to his lawyer now, but some rational part of his brain told him stay on the line. It was late—too late for this to be anything but bad news.
‘What is it?’ he managed to say.
The lawyer paused. ‘Are you okay?’
No, he wasn’t. He’d just lost his wife because of his own stupidity. ‘Just spit it out.’
‘If it’s a bad time, I can call later or tomorrow.’
‘If you didn’t need me to know urgently, you wouldn’t have called at all. Just tell me what happened.’
‘It’s about the vineyards.’
Emilio could hear the hesitation in the man’s voice, and he tried to steel himself for whatever was coming next.
‘I’m afraid you have no claim on them.’
‘What?’ That made no sense. They were his mother’s and she had left them to him.
It was simple. Those vineyards were his, and they would one day be his child’s.
His child, who would not be in his life every single day.
Whom he would see only when Jasmine allowed it.
He would have to make up for his absences.
He would have to be worthy of them somehow.
At least with the vineyards, he could give them a legacy that would always take care of them. Show them how much they were loved.
‘Explain.’ His gruff demand held none of the authority it usually did.
‘They can’t be bequeathed to you, because they were never your mother’s to begin with. It turns out that the conte had never actually transferred them to her and, upon his death, they passed to his successor.’
‘Enzo.’
‘I’m sorry, Emilio. I know how fond Valentina was of them. If there’s—’
Emilio cut the call. He couldn’t hear any more. He clutched the phone in his fist. Fury at how badly his mother had been betrayed fought for space alongside the anguish of losing Jasmine.
Jasmine left because you betrayed her. Who does that sound like to you?
It sounded like his father. Funny how life turned out.
Emilio had spent his whole life fighting his father, and had been adamant he would be different for his family.
But, when it came down to it, he had lied to his wife to hold onto what was important to him.
Exactly as his father had done with the vineyards.
Emilio dropped his head against the wall, pulling his legs towards his body. His flesh crawled. How had he ended up just like the man he despised?