Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sofia
I was learning that even the ambient sounds of expensive restaurants were different from the places I usually went to.
First of all, everything was quieter. There was certainly no hum of football commentary coming from screens set over the bar.
Instead, light piano music barely played in the background of the Mayfair restaurant where I waited for my father.
Waiters glided around the space like they were wearing silent electric ice skates; when silverware accidently met glassware, the distinct sound of crystal rang out in harmony with subtle piano.
I sighed, trying to busy myself with the menu and not think about Andrew or James or whoever it was who made me come over and over last night and then abruptly left just before midnight, as if he were in danger of turning into a pumpkin.
It wasn’t like I expected us to cuddle afterward, but I couldn’t help wondering what happened next.
Was that it? When I saw him in the office again, would he pretend he remembered nothing about our unforgettable night together?
Would work remain business as usual, but would James slide onto the stool next to me again at Noble Rot and continue our game?
London was a hell of a lot more confusing than I’d expected it to be.
I wasn’t looking forward to another meeting with my father.
The lunch at his house had been intimidating despite Evan and the girls making their best effort to welcome me.
Still, I’d felt more out of place than a nun at a rodeo.
However, I did leave with a genuine fondness for my father’s other family.
Things between Des and me had been strained, like picking through a minefield of what I couldn’t and shouldn’t say. Hopefully today would be better.
At least in a restaurant we were in more neutral territory—although places like this weren’t exactly a staple in my life.
Maybe it would mean that the gap between us wouldn’t feel so much like a canyon today.
I needed to find some common ground with him.
I didn’t have years to get the money my mother needed.
The doctor had said that if they didn’t operate soon, it might be too late to stop her from having permanent damage a knee replacement wouldn’t fix.
“Sofia!” my father’s voice rang out from behind me.
I turned and he greeted me with a kiss on both cheeks. It seemed so weird to me that a man who should know me better than anyone greeted me like he’d known me forever when we were pretty much strangers.
He sat and ordered something I didn’t catch from the hostess, then turned to me.
“Thank you so much for coming.” He smiled as if he were genuinely delighted to see me.
I couldn’t help but wonder why, if he was so happy to have me in his life, he’d never reached out to me.
He’d had almost thirty years to find me.
“So how was your week?” he asked. “Managed to see anything of London?”
The only thing I’d seen a lot of was my boss’s naked body. But I wasn’t about to confess that.
“Not much. My job is pretty demanding. My boss is very busy. So I have weekends but mostly, I’m exhausted.
Tomorrow, I’m going to take myself off to see some sights.
” I wasn’t sure if that was true. Quite honestly, I wanted to spend the day in my PJs, talking to Natalie on the phone and breaking down the latest episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey.
“Andrew Blake still treating you okay?”
“Yup. Just a few weeks into it. But so far so good.” Yes, Andrew was an epic dick, but he also had an epic dick.
It wasn’t like the sex made up for how he was in the office, but the James thing and the way he’d been at the bar, the way he was when we were in bed .
. . It made him a little more intriguing.
He wasn’t just an asshole. He was a compelling asshole.
“He has a reputation for being ruthless. Does he treat you well?”
Images of Andrew naked, between my legs, pushing into me, over me, flashed in my brain.
“Yup,” I managed to squeak out. “Well, truth be told, he’s abrasive and rude, but nothing I can’t handle.”
A small grin pushed at the edges of his mouth. “I’m glad to hear it.”
I shrugged. “I think he appreciates me. He just buries it deep. Lucky for me, I inherited a killer work ethic from my mom. She worked three jobs when I was young.” I clammed up when I realized what I’d said.
I’d forgotten who I was talking to. Shit, I needed to get the lid back on this can of worms immediately.
Everything I said was true, but that wasn’t the point.
The last thing I wanted to do was to make Des feel uncomfortable.
That wasn’t going to encourage him to get out his checkbook.
“A strong work ethic is important,” he said. “It’s something I worry about with Bella and Bryony. They have so much, they need something more than necessity to drive them. My father always drilled it into me that nothing came for free. Everything was to be worked for.”
Nothing came for free? I was pretty sure that great big house full of flower prints and chandeliers was inherited. But I didn’t say anything. What would be the point?
“Yup, well it’s definitely easier to be motivated when you need to put food on the table and pay the electric bill.”
Des nodded slowly and took a sip of the wine I hadn’t noticed had been placed in front of us. I’d been too busy wondering if my father understood the definition of irony.
“I have a lot of regrets.” He set down his glass and looked me directly in the eye. “Some due to decisions I made, some due to decisions I didn’t.” He sucked in a deep breath like he was trying to alleviate pain. I was filled with rage at the very idea. He wasn’t the victim here. I was. My mom was.
“Like what?” I asked, the Italian blood in my veins jumping all of a sudden.
“Like what regrets do I have?” he clarified. But what I heard was, “Really? You want to go there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it would be good to hear them.”
Our appetizers arrived and went untouched as my father and I sat in silence for too long to be comfortable.
“I regret not standing up to my father when I told him your mother was pregnant.”
This much I knew. My mother had told me that Des’s family never wanted anything to do with her, and that he had scurried back to England on his father’s orders.
“How old were you?” I asked. I was trying to sound interested but I knew myself better than that. I was bound to seem defensive even in the best-case scenario.
“Twenty. Technically an adult. But . . . my father had a lot of power.”
“Because of his money?”
“Partly. And because he was the hub of the family and the family business. I’d always been groomed to take over from him and . . .” He stopped, picked up his knife and fork and took a mouthful of crab.
“I went home to tell my father about the pregnancy and he was very clear. He said I could go back to America and deal with the pregnancy and be with your mother. But he said that doing so would have consequences. I would be cut off from any money he might give me as well as from any contact with my sisters and my mother. Not to mention my future running the family business.”
His father—my grandfather—sounded like a real asshole. But Des had been an adult. He was smart, connected, and had his entire future in front of him. He didn’t need his father. “So you chose the money,” I replied.
Des sighed. “I chose . . . what was familiar. I chose safe.”
“For you,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied. “I put my own needs first. It was selfish and morally unjustifiable, which was why I pushed it away. Pretended it hadn’t happened. Bought into my mother’s dismissal of your mother as a gold digger.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention, armed and ready for attack. “A gold digger?” I said as calmly as I could manage.
“Of course she wasn’t.” He slid his hand over mine and I snatched it away.
My mother was a beautiful woman who had plenty of men who had promised her a comfortable life in exchange for .
. . I cringed at the thought. She’d never sold out.
She always put me first and led life on her own terms. The last thing she was, was a gold digger.
“I never thought that about her. But my family . . . She never knew how wealthy they were, but my father thought the worst of most people.”
“But not Evan,” I said.
“I love Evan, of course I do, but she was also acceptable to my family because of who her family is.”
He was talking like we were living in the Dark Ages.
“So your marriage was . . . arranged?”
“More encouraged, because she was suitable.”
I gave a half-snort of a laugh. “I’m sure an Italian American woman who grew up in a tenement building in Lower Manhattan wasn’t suitable.”
He glanced into his lap. “No.”
“And they assumed she was after your money. Well, newsflash, she wasn’t. Did she ever ask you for anything?”
“I never thought it was about money. We . . . loved each other.”
“Did she ever ask you for anything?” I repeated my question. I needed to know he knew who my mother was.
“Never. She even refused the money I offered for—” He cleared his throat. “I’m trying to be entirely honest with you, Sofia.”
God, it pissed me off when people expected props for honesty. I dug into my plate of crab, avoiding his gaze.
“I made my choice but I wanted to do something—make it right somehow. I had a small amount of savings of my own left in my American account that I wanted to give to her. I thought maybe she could have . . . a . . .”