Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Elisa
“ T hey’re arguing again,” Aria whispers, her pretty brow scrunched in concern.
“It’ll blow over,” I say even though I have no idea why Mom and Dad have been fighting almost nonstop since yesterday. They rarely raise voices to one another, so I understand why my little sister is scared. This is not normal for them.
I’m old enough to remember screaming matches between Mom and my prick of a bio dad. Though mostly it was him shouting at her and her screaming when he hurt her. I haven’t forgotten how terrified it used to make me feel, but I always downplayed it for my brother.
Romeo used to cry, shake, and sometimes pee his pants whenever that monster went off the rails. He was always berating Romeo. Mostly for being too soft. But he was only a little kid, and there was no justification for the awful things our dead father said to him. Thankfully, my brother doesn’t remember much. Even if he sometimes has nightmares when his subconscious attempts to remind him of how that bastard taunted and scared him.
“Don’t worry.” I reach over and hug her, inhaling the scent of peaches that always clings to Aria’s hair. “They still love one another, and they’ll resolve whatever it is.”
“I hate when they shout,” she admits, coloring her picture as she sits at the desk beside me. She is so careful with the lines, wanting it to be perfect. From the time she was three, Aria has drawn pictures for her papa every year for his birthday. I still draw for him too, and I love that my little sister is following the tradition. “Mariah says her mommy and daddy are always shouting at one another. It’s something to do with the maid.”
Yikes. That doesn’t sound good.
“That’s sad for Mariah, and I hope everything is okay. Every couple has disagreements, and at least our parents don’t argue that often.” Or if they do, they usually do it behind closed doors.
“I’m never going to argue with my husband.” Her tongue peeks out as she focuses on coloring neatly within the lines. “I’m just going to kiss him any time he tries to shout at me.”
My lips twitch at the corners. “Sounds like a good plan.”
She lifts her head and stares at me. “Do you have to go back to college tomorrow? I love it when you’re home.”
My heart melts into a puddle at my feet. “Me too, cupcake.” I mess up her hair as an idea comes to me. “How about a slumber party tonight? Just you and me? We can build a blanket fort in the playroom, and we’ll do our nails and put on face masks, and then we can play Monopoly and Candy Land and watch The Princess Bride .” We’ve already watched it a billion times, but I’ll watch it a billion more times if it makes my sister happy and helps to distract her from whatever is going on with our parents.
“Yay!” She hops up and spins around, sporting a wide smile. She flings her little arms around my neck. “I love you, Elisa. You’re the bestest sister in the whole entire world.”
“I could say the same of you.” I kiss her soft cheek. Her excitement has helped to take the edge off my hurt.
“I’m going to get blankets,” she says before racing off.
I’m smiling as my phone vibrates across the desk. It’s probably Sebastien again. I’ve been ignoring his calls since I left the city, which is unfair, but I’ve got a lot on my plate, and I don’t want to explain. I’ll call him in the morning and arrange to meet him tomorrow night.
But it’s not Seb. It’s my bestie. “Hey, Gigi,” I answer. “I’m okay,” I reassure her, assuming my meltdown on the phone with her yesterday is the reason why she’s calling me again. I laid into her for not telling me Anais was at Caleb’s place, but she explained how she didn’t want to upset me and if she’d known I was going to drop by on Thursday she would have forewarned me. “I haven’t jumped off a bridge or overdosed on sleeping pills.”
“Don’t even joke about something like that.”
“You’re right. It’s not something trivial I should joke about. I just don’t want you to worry. I’m hurt and I’m angry, but I’d never kill myself over a man or anything else. Caleb did me a favor. It’s easy to hate him now.”
A pregnant pause ensues, followed by a tired sigh. “I’m calling to give you a heads-up. Caleb is en route to Greenwich, determined to tell you the truth. I only just found out, so it’s possible he’s already there.”
My brow puckers. “I already got the truth, and I have zero desire to hear him repeat that sordid shit.”
“He lied, Elisa.”
“That’s a likely excuse.” I harrumph as I kick my legs up on the footstool under the desk. “More like he couldn’t think of a plausible lie on the spot.”
“He’s an idiot, but I think you should hear him out.”
“I am doing no such thing. I have drawn my line in the sand, and I’m not regressing. Caleb is dead to me. He is in the past, and that’s where I’m leaving him.”
“You know I don’t?—”
I tune her out as Mom pokes her head in the door, wearing a bright smile. “Caleb is here. He says he needs to speak to you urgently.”
“He’s here. I need to go,” I say into the phone. “I’ll call you when I get back to the city tomorrow.” I hang up on my bestie and stand, thrusting my shoulders back and leveling Mom with a serious expression. “Tell him to leave. I don’t care what he wants to say. I don’t want to hear it.”
Her face pales. “Are you sure, sweetie? He seems desperate to talk to you.”
“What is with you and Gia suddenly taking his side?” I plant my hands on my hip and steady my resolve.
“We are always on your side. I’ll do whatever you want, but he seems frantic and eager to make amends.”
“Mom, I told you what he did. I can’t look at him anymore. It doesn’t matter what he has to say. There is nothing he can do to take it back.” Hurt stabs me in the chest, and I avert my eyes, blinking back tears. I promised myself this morning I was done crying over Caleb, and I meant it. “Tell him to go, please. I don’t want to see him or speak to him.”
Silently, she envelops me in her arms, hugging me close. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
She kisses the top of my head. “Okay, I’ll make him leave.”
After she’s gone, I lean my head back against the wall and bolster the steel walls I’ve erected around my heart. I don’t believe he lied to me. Caleb is trying to cover his tracks, so I don’t cut him completely from my life, but it’s too late.
He has hurt me for the last time.
I’m done with him.
“Lili!” His deep voice hollers dangerously close to this room, and I quietly and quickly shut the door.
What the hell, Mom? I thought you were throwing him out? My entire body tenses at his voice, and I want him to leave me alone.
“Lili, please, just give me five minutes!” he shouts. “I’ll get on my knees. I’ll beg. Please just let me explain.”
I hear Dad’s voice, talking in muffled tones, and I can’t pick up what’s being said. Sounds of a commotion in the hallway outside the room have me widening my eyes. What on earth is going on?
“I’m not giving up, Elisa!” Caleb shouts, his voice beginning to fade. “I’m going to make it up to you, Lili. I swear.”
It’s quiet then, for a few minutes, until the sound of tires kicking up gravel outside. Slowly, the tension eases from my rigid limbs. Until Mom and Dad start arguing again. They’re too far away to hear what’s being said, but they appear to be really going for it.
The door flies open, and Aria bursts into the room, weighted down with blankets and the saddest eyes. “They’re doing it again.”
I take the blankets from her and pull her into an embrace. “It’s going to be okay.” Smoothing a hand down her hair, I hope I haven’t just lied to her.
“What is going on with you and Dad?” I ask Mom the following morning when I enter the kitchen to find her alone.
“Ask your father,” she says, her lips pulling into a grim line.
I gulp over the ball of nerves clogging my throat. Romeo said Mom spent all last night with Sierra and Natalia and she slept in one of the guest bedrooms. Despite my reassurances to Aria, I’m growing concerned. “Are you getting divorced?” I ask, hating to even contemplate that scenario. It’s not something I have ever had to worry about with Mom and Alesso, but they have been fighting like cats and dogs for two days, and I’m sufficiently worried.
Her eyes startle. “What? No.” She vigorously shakes her head. “Of course not. This isn’t about our relationship. It’s just a disagreement.”
“But you hardly ever fight, and this seems bad.”
“You don’t have to worry about divorce, Elisa.” She walks forward and wraps her arms around me. “I promise it’s not that. I still love your father, and he loves me. I’m just angry with him over something he meddled in.”
“What did he do?” I ask, easing back to examine her face.
“He needs to be the one to tell you.” She shucks out of our embrace. “He’s in his study. Go talk to him.”
“Okay.” This is so weird. “I’m getting coffee first. I have a feeling I might need it.”
“Let me get it.” Mom hurries to the coffee machine. “Thanks for looking after Aria last night.”
“We had fun, but you might want to talk to her. Your arguing has scared her.”
Mom’s face drops. “That is the last thing I ever want to do.” Guilt splays across her features, and I can guess where her head is gone.
“It’s not the same,” I rush to reassure her. “It’s only concerning because you two are usually all lovey-dovey and grabby hands and smushy kisses.”
She thrusts the mug in my hands. “Talk to your father, and I’ll talk to Aria and Will. I don’t want to worry them.”
My hands are warming against my mug of coffee as I walk toward Dad’s home office. Mom didn’t drop any clues, so I really don’t know what this is about. I knock on his door, waiting for him to call me in before opening it.
“Hey, honey.” He greets me with a slightly off smile as I step into his study and close the thick door behind me.
My lips curl up, like always when I step foot in here. The wall behind his desk and half the wall on the right are covered in framed drawings. Most are mine with a few of Aria’s. He started a separate section to proudly display my sister’s birthday drawings. It never fails to raise a smile. If I ever doubted my stepfather’s love for me, I only need to enter this room to be reminded of it.
“I’m guessing your mom sent you,” he says, getting up and walking around the desk to me.
I nod. “I don’t know what it’s about though.”
He rubs the back of his neck, the strain evident on his face. “I fucked up, honey.”
My brows knit together at his words. He circles his arm around my shoulders and steers me toward the long, cushioned window seat. I sit at one end, pulling my knees up to my chest. Dad sits at the other end with his legs firmly planted on the ground.
“With Mom?” I inquire before sipping my coffee.
He claws a hand through his thick dark hair. “With your mom and with you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I just wanted to protect you.”
“What did you do?” Prickles of anxiety lift the fine hairs on the back of my neck as I suddenly have an inkling of what this might be about.
“I told Caleb if he cared for you to set you free.”
I blink repeatedly as my mouth hangs open. I open and close it several times before I can form a sentence. “You told him to lie to me?”
Pain flashes across his face as he winces. “Not directly, but I implied he should do whatever was necessary to let you go.”
“Why would you do that, Dad?” I can barely get the words out over the lump in my throat.
“I overstepped, and it was a bad call, but I had your best interests at heart. I have watched you loving him most of your life and dealing with the fallout every time he hurts you. I know he hasn’t done it intentionally, but I couldn’t stand back and say nothing. I have bitten my tongue for years.” He reaches out and touches my leg. “I shouldn’t have interfered, and I’m very sorry for it, but I will never apologize for trying to protect you. That is what I was trying to do.”
This is about protecting me?
Anger mushrooms inside me as I swing my legs onto the floor and stand. “You say that, yet you didn’t see what was right under your nose because you always make excuses for Anais.”
He frowns. “What are you talking about?” I guess Mom kept her promise and didn’t tell him what we discussed on Thursday, but she wasn’t happy I asked her to keep it a secret.
“Anais has been spiteful and nasty to me for years,” I admit, slapping my mug down on the side table. Lukewarm coffee splashes over the rim of the mug, trickling down the sides and onto the marble tabletop. “She has been spiteful and nasty to you for years, yet you put up with it. I’m having a hard time not finding this hypocritical.”
He has the decency to look ashamed. Dad stands and reaches for me, but I shake my head, take a step back, and fold my arms across my chest. “You’re right that Caleb has never purposely set out to hurt me, not that it changes the outcome. But Anais has deliberately spewed venom at me for years, doing it slyly when you weren’t looking, and you didn’t protect me from her!” It’s unfair to throw that at him when I stopped telling him about the things she was saying, but I’m hopping mad he interfered even if it was coming from a place of love.
Gia was telling the truth. Caleb lied to me because he was attempting to push me away. Not sure why or how he changed his mind, but he clearly did.
“Even if you didn’t know she was being mean, you have continued to inflict her on all of us knowing none of us like her and we can barely tolerate her!” I’m really on a roll now as I release years of pent-up stress. “Mom, Auntie Sierra, and Auntie Natalia all feel the same way. We have put up with her annoying ass for years for you .” The words leave my mouth in fast succession. “If you’re trying to protect me, protect me from her instead of interfering in something you had no right to interfere in!”
“I’m your father, and I have every right to step in and try to stop you from hurting. I won’t say sorry for that either.” Agony splays across his face. “But I was wrong to force his hand, and I apologize.” His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “I have failed you,” he softly adds. “I have failed to put my family first by allowing Anais to continue treating me, treating all of us, like shit.”
“Why did you?” I ask, losing some of the ire from my tone.
“She is the last link to the Salerno bloodline, and I promised her father I would always look out for her.”
“I think you’re oversimplifying it. I think your childhood trauma has made you hold on much more than a person with a normal upbringing would have. I understand that better than most.”
“I hate that you do.”
I shrug because we can’t change the past. “Maybe it’s why I held on to Caleb for far too long. Maybe the damage from my trauma is the reason I saw hope for us even when there was none.”
“I’m not a therapist, so I don’t know if you are right.” He reaches his hand for me, and I meet him halfway, placing my palm in his. “But I’m done keeping promises to dead men.” Gently reeling me into his arms, he kisses my brow. “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought she’d stopped after the last time I talked to her about it.”
“That never helped,” I truthfully admit even though it will probably hurt him to hear this. “She was always worse after you spoke to her. It’s why I stopped telling you. I knew you’d keep trying to get her to behave and she’d antagonize me in worse ways.” I shuck out of his embrace. “It seemed less stressful to just let it go.”
“My cousin has hurt this family for the last time. I’m going to visit and tell her I’m done. She’s cut off now. You won’t have to face her anymore. I promise.”
I’m sitting in the back of our family SUV as Dad’s driver drives me back to the city, contemplating everything that went down this morning. Mom and Dad are good again now he’s fessed up, and my little sister is no longer worried.
My initial anger has faded. Dad was only trying to safeguard my heart, and I couldn’t ever stay mad at him for that. I wish he hadn’t interfered, but it’s not like it’s going to change the outcome. It doesn’t matter what Caleb has to tell me. He can’t undo the damage. He still had sex with those girls, and I don’t think I can forgive him for it. It’s one thing to know he’s sleeping his way through every girl in Manhattan and quite another to have an actual visual image of him doing it imprinted in my brain.
My cell pings in the pocket of my skirt, and I take it out, biting the inside of my cheek when I see it’s Seb calling again. I have kept him at arm’s length for long enough. If I’m serious about making a go of things with him, I need to act like it. “Hi, Seb,” I say, smiling as I answer his call.
But the smile doesn’t last long when he tells me what happened at my apartment Thursday night and how some “lunatic” pulled a gun on him.
I am going to fucking murder Caleb.
After ending the call, I lean forward and stick my face in between the two front seats. “Change of plan. Please take me to Don Accardi’s penthouse.”