Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Sofia
For the first time since Natalie had returned to New Jersey, I felt homesick.
I kicked off my shoes, nudged the front door shut with my butt, and padded into my bedroom to change.
Up until now, London had kept me distracted.
First it was finding a job, then Andrew, James, Bob Goode, and finally Verity.
I hadn’t had time to notice how lonely I felt.
As if she’d heard me from three thousand miles away, my cell flashed from where it had been discarded on my bed. Natalie.
“I miss you,” she said before I could say anything.
“I miss you too.”
We hadn’t actually spoken since she’d found out that I was sleeping with Andrew. There’d been texts here and there. I’d told her about my new job. She congratulated me. I’d told her that Andrew and I weren’t sleeping together anymore, and she offered to call. I’d assured her I was fine.
I wasn’t fine.
“I’m sorry I was so down on Andrew,” she said. “You obviously saw something in him that I didn’t.”
Even now it felt like I saw a side of him that he didn’t share with most people.
And that’s why it was so hard to understand why he’d just ended things.
He hadn’t even suggested we try being together and working together.
Maybe I’d been wrong about thinking what was between us was special.
I’d assumed he felt the same. If he had, though, he would never have been able to walk away so easily.
What I’d had with Andrew had been different from anything I’d ever had with someone else.
He’d been the first man I’d really trusted be true to his word—the first man I’d been so completely and utterly myself with.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s over now anyway.”
“Over? You want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about. He doesn’t mix business with . . . anything. So, here we are.” I pulled on my favorite Yankees tee and slipped off my skirt.
“But he promoted you, so that’s nice.”
“He did. And I love the job. It’s impossible and stressful, but I still love it.” Sweatpants on, I shuffled the four steps to the kitchen. A life with no money in New York had me well trained for living in this tiny apartment.
“You don’t sound happy,” she said.
“I’m fine.” I had my dream job. What didn’t I have to be happy about? I was making more money. I was getting along with my father. I even had time to go and see some of London now I wasn’t job searching or sleeping with my boss. I had nothing to complain about.
“How are things with Des?”
“Good. He’s . . . He’s a nice man. Not the monster I expected.” If he’d been a monster, it would have been far easier to ask him for the money, take it and get my mom better. But he was a good man who had just made mistakes. Maybe I would find the right time to ask him. Just not yet.
“Is he going to give you the money?”
“I haven’t asked him yet.” I didn’t tell her about the will. “It’s harder than you think to ask someone for fifty grand. Even if they owe you.”
“I imagine it is. Especially if you want to have an ongoing relationship with them.” She didn’t ask it like a question, but it was one—and I didn’t have the answer.
I knew I wasn’t ready to close the door on my father.
I had too many questions. Too much I wanted to know. I didn’t know how long that would last.
I collapsed with a glass of wine onto the sofa that had been my bed for my first few weeks in London and told Natalie what my father had told me about his parents, my mother disconnecting her phone and him trying to find us years later when he came into his own money.
“Do you believe him?”
“I do. He defended my mother. He doesn’t blame her. He holds himself accountable and he’s . . . sorry.”
“Have you told your mom?”
I needed to tell her I’d made contact with my father. At some point. I just didn’t know when.
Or how.
“She doesn’t need to know. Not yet. It would only hurt her, and what purpose would it serve?
I don’t need her feeling guilty or full of regret for cutting him loose.
She did what she had to.” I didn’t blame my mom.
She’d described the situation and my father as honestly as she could.
There was always more than one version of the truth. My mother had hers; my father had his.
“Right. So what’s next?”
I sighed and put down my glass. “I have no idea. I suppose I keep spending time with my father and wait for the right moment to ask him. I just hope . . . I hope by asking him, I don’t undo what we’ve built.
I came to London to manipulate him into giving me money. That’s not a very nice thing to do.”
“You had your reasons. And like you said, he owes you.”
“I know but it feels . . . I just wish I could pay myself. With the new job, if I save hard, work hard, hit my targets and get my bonus, I think I can get the money in a little over a year.”
"That’s amazing.” Natalie bit at her bottom lip, a nervous tell she’d been unable to break since we were kids. “Listen, I’ve been wondering whether I should tell you this, but . . . you remember Caterina Costa from—”
“I remember.” Who could forget Caterina Costa? She was one of those girls all Italians in New York knew. She’d gone to Harvard on a scholarship, and the rest of us would never live up to her accomplishments.
“I ran into her yesterday. She said her mom ran into Mamma Isabella at church, and Mamma Isabella said she’d been talking with your mom, and your mom had mentioned her knee was so bad she was going to have to leave her job at Christina’s because—”
“She has to take the subway to that job.” My heart pulled in my chest. Stairs had been a problem for a while.
“Right. And it’s been a problem for a couple of years but apparently it’s gotten worse in the last few months.”
“How much worse?” Irritation pinched at me. Why hadn’t my mom told me? Probably because she thought I’d rush home. She thought I’d come to England to follow my dreams. She didn’t know I was here for her.
“Apparently she’s going to give notice at the end of the month.”
It was like a brick had dropped through my stomach.
Mamma had been dreading the moment she wasn’t fit enough to work but not ill enough to qualify for the surgery under her insurance.
I wanted to book the first flight home and cook meatballs for her, take care of her—but that wouldn’t help in the long-run.
I was going to have to suck it up and ask Des.
There was no other way. Yes, I could probably supplement my mom’s income to cover the second job, but her knee was clearly getting worse more quickly than I expected.
And what would happen if I got fired? “I’ll figure it out. That’s what the Rossi girls do.”
“You couldn’t ask Andrew?” she asked.
I laughed. “No. He’s my boss, not my friend.”
“I heard your mom met him when you came to New York. Did she like him?”
“Maybe. She worries about me.”
“She just wants you to have a better life than she did.”
“I’m not nineteen. And Andrew would never—” I didn’t need to defend him. We weren’t together. I wasn’t going to end up pregnant and penniless.
“You seem sad.”
I sighed. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I miss him.
I wish I didn’t need this job so much.” Not that it would have mattered if I’d turned the job down.
The fact that Andrew had chosen having a CEO rather than me told me everything I needed to know.
Sure, Goode had wanted me as CEO too, but he hadn’t made it a condition of the sale.
Andrew could have pushed back, but he didn’t. He wasn’t the man for me.
“I just know you’re going to meet someone.”
I didn’t want to meet just anyone. I wanted Andrew to want me more than he wanted a vacancy filled. I wanted him to want me like I wanted him.
My mother had warned me about men who seemed too good to be true. The ones that made you feel like princesses. They were the ones who had the power to break your heart when they walked away.
“Come visit me,” I said.
“I will. I promise. Tell me you’re coming back for Thanksgiving.” How could she be thinking about Thanksgiving? We were barely in May.
I laughed. “Honestly, I haven’t given it a lot of thought. I can’t imagine not being—”
“Wait a second,” Natalie interrupted.
“Honestly, I’ll try and make it. I just haven’t—”
“I’m not talking about Thanksgiving. I’m talking about an idea. I mean, it might be crazy but it might—you said that what you’re earning now means that if you save hard enough, you might have enough money to pay for your mom’s surgery in just over a year, right?”
“Right,” I replied.
“And you haven’t asked you father for the money yet because there hasn’t been the right moment, or you feel awkward and because . . . Well, you’re not great at asking for help at the best of times.”
“I’m not asking someone for directions or to loan me an umbrella. I’m asking someone to cough up fifty grand. This is not about me being bad at asking for help.”
“Okay, but—”
“And,” I said, not finished rebutting her character analysis, “I asked to stay on your couch.”
“Well, I have two things to say about that. First, I don’t count because I’m your best friend. Secondly, I’d give you fifty grand in a heartbeat if I could. But I do have about seven and a half.”
“I’m not taking your money.” It was so kind of her, but like it or not seven and a half wasn’t going to get it done. “It’s lovely of you to offer though.”
“It’s not enough by itself, but what if you asked for an advance?”
“From my father?”
“No, silly. From Andrew. Say you’ll commit to staying there for however long if he gives you an advance that you have to pay back if you leave.”
“A salary advance? Is that even a thing?”
“I don’t know, but what does it hurt to ask? You say he wanted you as CEO because this other guy liked you. So use your leverage.”
“For fifty grand? He’d never agree.”
“Not fifty. Forty-two and a half—just over thirty thousand pounds, or whatever it comes to. If he gives you less than you ask for, offer to give up bonuses. Maybe you could make up any shortfall by saving every month.”
My brain fought to catch up to what she was saying.
Obviously, it was impossible. There wasn’t a solution to my mom getting her operation immediately without me getting the money from my father.
Was there? “You think I just go in and ask him for my bonus in advance? He’ll laugh me out of the building. ”
“Maybe he won’t. He needs you. Even if he refuses, you’ve lost nothing.”
“Just my pride.”
Natalie laughed. The sounds warmed me from the inside-out, even across an ocean.
“Maybe he says no the first time. But maybe after a month or so, when you’re proving what an asset you are, you ask again. He’ll be more willing the second time. This way you’re not asking for a favor. You’re asking for what you deserve.”
“I’m asking for what I might deserve a year from now.”
“It’s just a change in timetable.”
Maybe she was right. Asking my boss for money in advance seemed easier than risking a relationship with my father.
And I wasn’t asking for anything that wouldn’t be mine eventually anyway.
I’d be committed to London for the next couple of years, but that was true regardless.
There was little chance of me securing a job in the US earning the kind of money I was now—at least not until I could boast a proven track record.
A couple of years at Verity would give me the experience I desperately needed.
I tried to imagine Andrew’s face when I asked him.
He probably wouldn’t even look at me. I’d just get a terse no and be dismissed.
But Natalie was right—it was worth a shot.
I just needed to be as determined as I had been that first dark, cold morning waiting outside his office.
He’d relented then. Maybe he would again.