Chapter 31
31
DARIO
Brodie was leaning against the wall of Dario’s office, phone in his hand, ready to make the call.
And Dario still couldn’t pull the trigger.
He was slumped on the sofa, Nicky next to him, and Matty was perched on the desk, all of them looking to him for a decision. One that he couldn’t bring himself to make.
The last couple of hours had been excruciating. He’d interrupted his dad just after his dinner with Minnie and asked him to come talk to him one more time to plead his case.
Gino had reluctantly agreed, and as he’d walked to the office, Dario had felt a stab of grief for what he was doing to the elderly man beside him, a father who seemed to have aged even since this morning. Pain did that. Sadness did that. And Dario knew that, because he was feeling all those things too.
For a brief interlude earlier, he’d managed to forget that the walls were closing in. When Ailish, Gwen and Rhonda had arrived, they’d made him feel human and hopeful for the first time in weeks, but the sight of his father, lowering himself into the chair, had slammed the door shut on any happiness he could possibly feel.
For the second time today, he’d told Gino the facts, the pros, the cons of the deal. The list of pros was long – clearing their debts, escaping the burden of a restaurant that had become unprofitable, saving them from ruin and giving them financial security going forward. But the cons? Now that Carlo had offered to take on Matty, and Dario had agreed to make sure Sonya would be taken care of, there was only really one – he would be ripping out his old man’s heart, destroying Gino’s life’s work, quite literally bulldozing his memories to the ground.
When he’d gone through it all again, his dad had raised his eyes and Dario had seen tears there. The man who had never cried in public in his life, not even when Mum died. Back then, he’d just locked himself away, and then shocked them all by giving the restaurant to Dario. He’d never understood what led his dad to that point, but whatever it was, now he was repaying that gift with a whole world of pain.
‘There’s no way out of this, Dad. I need to know that I have your blessing. I beg you. Please.’ In desperation, Dario had even gone low, dug right into the depths of the barrel with the one thing that might just sway him. ‘Mum wouldn’t have wanted this, Dad. She wouldn’t have wanted us to keep killing ourselves to keep this place alive, and she’d never have stood by and watched us sink further and further into debt, until there was nothing left. And that’s the only way that this ends if we don’t take the deal. Mum would have let this go, because she knew that we, our family, were more important that the bricks in these walls.’
That had lit a fire, but not the one that Dario had hoped for.
His dad had slowly raised his head, fixed his dark, glistening eyes on Dario, and spoke in a voice that sounded almost haunted. ‘Don’t you dare tell me what your mother would have done. I knew my Alicia so much better than you. She lived for this, for our dream.’ In pretty much a repetition of what had happened this afternoon, his dad had risen from his chair and eyed Dario with such disdain that he’d felt like he was a child again. ‘I haven’t changed my mind,’ he’d said. ‘When your mother died, I gave this business to you. I gave it to you because I trusted you with its care. And because I gave it to you, I now have no power. So you need to be the one to decide its fate, Dario. It’s in your hands. But don’t ask me for my blessing, because as I told you earlier, I won’t give it.’
Dario had watched as the most stubborn man who had ever lived walked out of the room.
Fuck.
That was when he’d gone out into the restaurant and over to his friends’ table. He’d have given anything to have been able to sit down with them, have a glass of good red wine and pass the rest of the night in laughter and happiness. That was what life should be about and he’d been missing that for far too long. When he got out of this mess, that had to change. He had to change. He just hoped there was still time for him to find the joy he was looking for.
Ailish had just been leaving the table with that tosser, Eric, when he’d got there. Dario had always tolerated him, but she should be with someone who was worthy of her and treated her with the respect she deserved. Dario could see in her eyes that she knew that. He just hoped that she listened to her heart.
In the meantime, he’d had other issues to deal with.
‘Brodie, can I have a quick word in the office?’ They’d made their way back through the thronging, jubilant crowd to the cold deathly silence of the office.
‘Well?’ Brodie had asked him.
‘My dad is still not on board, so I don’t know if I can do it. I mean, maybe there’s another way. Maybe I can find something, anything , to turn this round. There has to be another solution.’ How many times over the last few months had he said the same thing? How many times had he wrangled with the same dilemma? They had talked through everything they’d tried, everything they hadn’t tried, and they’d come up with nothing.
‘We both know there’s no other way to solve this,’ Brodie had told him, as gently as he could. ‘But if you want to try, I’ll loan you everything I’ve got, pal. Whatever you need, it’s yours.’
Argh, the fucking kindness again. For maybe the first time outside of weddings, funerals, and midnight at decades of Hogmanay parties, Dario had hugged his friend and didn’t want to let go.
‘Damn, I always suspected!’ Nicky had joked, as she’d burst in the door to be greeted by the sight of their embrace, before stopping, sensing the atmosphere. ‘I never could read a room,’ she’d muttered, as the two men separated. ‘Okay, everyone next door has got their drinks for the bells and my lovely boyfriend, Scott, who, quite frankly deserves a medal for putting up with this messed-up family dynamic, is proving his love for me by minding the bar because Carlo’s going to start the countdown in a few minutes. Your dad asked him to do it tonight.’
Dario hadn’t had a chance to comment on that, to say that it was the first time in the history of the restaurant, because right behind his ex-wife, his son had followed and, strangely, he seemed to have lost the thunderous expression he had been wearing all day. Dario had sat down on the couch, Nicky next to him.
‘We have five minutes left before the clock on this deal runs out and I need to know where everyone is,’ he’d told them.
Brodie had pulled out his phone. ‘Ready to go.’
Nicky had taken his hand. ‘I don’t think we have a choice, Dario. And I want to go marry Scott, eat carbs and let myself go… Sorry, not reading the room again,’ she’d said, with an apologetic shrug, before tightening her fingers around his. ‘I say sell.’
Matty had been the next to speak. ‘I’ve just been speaking to Uncle Carlo and he’s offered me a job. A partnership actually. Maybe my own place. He told me about your conversation earlier, about expanding his business with you, and offered to cut me in too.’ He’d pushed his hand through the long dark hair that had been taken out of its band now that he’d finished in the kitchen. ‘I think it could be a good move, Dad. And I’m sorry about earlier. Just… you know, a hot head.’
Once again, Dario was reminded that his son had inherited Gino’s stubbornness, his passion, his talent and his quickness to forgive.
‘Apology accepted, son. So, just to be clear, you’re saying…?’
‘I say sell.’
So everyone was in agreement.
Everyone except the man that mattered most.
That’s where they were right now and the clock was still ticking.
‘Make the call, Brodie.’
It answered on the second ring. ‘This is Brodie Moore, acting on behalf of Dario Moretti and Gino’s Trattoria.’
Dario felt his hands begin to tremble. He could still stop it. Still change his mind and signal to Brodie to hang up.
Brodie must have been having the same thoughts because he was staring at him now, eyebrows raised in question.
Dario nodded, then stretched over and signed the contract that was sitting on his desk.
Brodie relayed the message. ‘We accept your offer. We’ll send the paperwork over in the next couple of minutes.’ He hung up, reached out and shook Dario’s hand. ‘I’ll send the contract now. You did the right thing, pal.’
‘Thank you for everything, Brodie.’
‘That’s more of a thanks than I got when we divorced,’ Nicky quipped, refusing to read the room again.
Dario kissed her cheek anyway, then got up and hugged his son.
Out in the restaurant, Dario could hear Carlo hushing the crowd. It was almost time.
He would speak to his dad and tell him what he’d done later. That wasn’t for now.
Right at this moment, there was only one conversation that he wanted to have.
When he’d briefly sat with his friends earlier, he’d had a realisation that was still stuck in the front of his mind.
This year, Ailish had got divorced and yet she’d found the strength to start a new life. He just prayed Eric hadn’t changed her mind. At the same table, Gwen had faced death, and yet she was still optimistic about her future. And Rhonda… well, she just woke up and made the most of every day.
That’s what he wanted. That determination to live his best life. And if he could do it with someone special by his side? Well, he wasn’t going to waste any more time.
He’d taken a couple of steps towards the door, when Nicky interrupted his thoughts.
‘Hey, where are you off to? Not waiting to hug me at midnight?’ she asked, hamming up some fake outrage. ‘After Scott, of course. You’re way down my midnight snog list now.’
Dario shook his head, a nervous smile reflecting the genuine hope he was feeling for the first time today. ‘You said earlier that she had feelings for me. I’m going to find it out if you’re right.’