25. Amelia
Chapter 25
Amelia
I didn’t want to cry at work but I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes. Why did Matteo have to come here? I’d spent the last few days trying to forget him but with one kiss he’d manage to upend all the progress I’d made.
To be fair, I hadn’t made much progress at all. Every attempt to forget Matteo had been futile. Even when I was trying to hate him, I still loved him with every fiber of my being. He was the only man I’d ever loved and that would likely remain true for the rest of my life.
I didn’t even have a choice in the matter. My heart had made up her mind. Matteo was the only one for me. There was a war between my heart who loved him and my mind who knew he was bad for me.
Coming to my office to kiss me didn’t change that. It only made me feel worse about the situation. I felt angry with myself for loving him when I knew he would never really love me. He didn’t even want me in his home. He’d only accepted to have me there because of the deal my father offered him.
They’d both treated me like I was a piece of furniture rather than an actual person. I’d spent my whole life pleasing people, but no one ever considered what I wanted. Neither of them stopped to wonder if I wanted to be bought and sold like an old velvet armchair. My father practically sold me to Matteo except he was the one who paid. He had to pay Matteo to house me.
I wondered what would have happened if Matteo said no. Would my father have increased his offer or looked for someone else who was interested in the deal? They’d discussed my life without me in the room, just like my parents had always done. I was always the last to find out about the decisions of my own life.
Matteo should have known better than to accept a deal like that. He knew what it had been like for me to grow up as a puppet for my parents, an empty shell whose singular purpose was to do their bidding. If my parents took away my chance to choose, I didn’t expect Matteo to do the same.
Then again, a lot of time had passed between us. Maybe he wasn’t the man I used to know. He was someone else. Someone who valued money above love.
I wiped my cheek when the first tear fell. I reached for a tissue and dabbed my eyes gently, looking around to make sure no one saw me. I was pretty sure a good amount of my coworkers saw me with Matteo outside. They saw us talking, they saw him kiss me, and they likely saw me push him away. I did not want them to see me crying.
Ivy would have a field day if she thought Matteo broke my heart. She’d been incredibly cold to me since she found out we were together. I was the bad guy in her story, the one who stole the man she was destined to be with.
It was easy to ignore her when things were good with Matteo. Being with him made me so happy that I was impervious to her mean remarks and negative energy. I wasn’t sure how I would handle things with her now.
I blinked and steeled myself to face whatever Ivy might bring my way. Having Matteo’s strength was a great help when I had to face Ivy but I didn’t need him. I could handle this on my own. If I was ever going to be truly independent, I needed to learn to face the struggles of life without outside help. I needed to be self-sufficient.
My confrontation with Ivy was postponed because she didn’t come to work that day. Deep down I had to admit that I was grateful for it. After my clash with Matteo that morning, I wasn’t looking forward to another emotionally draining experience.
Hours later, I was about to leave the office for the day when my phone rang. It was my dad. I was worried that Matteo had already told him I moved out of the penthouse. It didn’t seem like something he would do but I worried all the same.
“Hi Dad,” I said after answering and lifting the phone to my ear.
“Amelia. How are you?”
“I’m good.” I forced myself to sound sincere. I forced myself to sound happy even though I could feel myself breaking down. “How’s everything at home?”
“Very well. Thank you for asking. Anyway, I called because I’m having a hard time reaching Matteo. If you’re at the penthouse, can you pass him your phone? I need to speak to him.”
I felt strangely angered by my father’s request. He had no issue revealing the fact that he paid Matteo to keep me in his house and now he wanted my help trying to reach him. He didn’t even care about how I felt.
My anger pushed me to admit something that I’d previously had every intention of hiding. From the way my father spoke, he had no idea that I’d left the penthouse. Matteo didn’t tell him but I was about to.
“No, Dad. I’m not at the penthouse.”
“All right. Then when you get back, you can—”
I cut him off mid-sentence. “I won’t be going back. I moved out of the penthouse for good.”
It took my father a long time to answer. I could hear his steady breathing on the other side of the line. I imagined him massaging his temples and trying to keep his temper in check. “That wasn’t the deal we made,” he finally said.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“You agreed to stay with Matteo for the first four months of your stay in New York. If you’re not going to keep to the deal, then you must come home immediately.”
I almost laughed at how much authority he thought he still had over me. I was twenty-seven years old, but he still gave me orders like I was nine. “I won’t be going back to Matteo’s house and I’m not coming back to California.”
When my father spoke again, his voice was louder. He was failing to keep his temper in check. “Amelia, you will go back to that penthouse.”
“I refuse to stay in the house of a man who doesn’t want me there. One who only tolerated my presence because of a business deal. He never wanted me in his home,” I said.
“Who cares whether he wanted you there or not?”
“I do!” Now, I was failing to keep my temper in check. I took a deep breath before I spoke again. “I care whether he wants me there because I love him.”
“You… love… him?” my father asked, his words drawn out like he was trying to make sense of them.
“Yes, I do. I always have. Even when you and Mom forced me to break up with him five years ago. I loved him then and I love him now.”
“What are you talking about?”
It was time to finally tell him the truth. My parents still had no idea that the man they were pushing me toward was the same man they’d pulled me away from a few years ago. My mother had all but thrown me at Matteo’s feet in her desperate attempt to make him into her son-in-law. Little did she know that she’d had that chance a few years ago and had been completely repulsed by the idea of Matteo being a part of our family.
“Do you remember the construction worker that you forced me to end things with five years ago? You and Mom said it was unheard of for a woman in my social class to be with a man like him. You said he wasn’t good enough and mom said she’d rather die than let me marry him.”
My father remained silent as I took him on this trip down memory lane. I could tell from the labored breathing that he was starting to put a few things together and he didn’t like where this was going.
“That man, the construction worker who wasn’t good enough. That man was Matteo Hayes.”
Silence descended in the wake of my revelation. I waited for my father to say something but he didn’t. At some point, I had to look at my phone to make sure he was still on the line. I’d expected him to be shocked, but I didn’t expect him to be speechless. My father was rarely short of words.
His voice when he spoke was barely audible. “Your mother and I are coming to New York.”
With that, the call ended. My anxiety over my parents coming here clouded the satisfaction I should have felt after telling them the truth. I wasn’t ready to face my parents, but I didn’t have a choice.
Their flight arrived at midday the following day. I went to my father’s private airstrip to receive them after the jet landed. It felt like my heart was in my mouth when I saw them get off the plane.
I didn’t want to take them to Lisa’s house so we drove to a hotel and booked a room. Inside the hotel room, I told my parents everything. Their shock morphed into embarrassment as I told them all about the man they’d rejected five years ago. The same man who they had sought out and begged to house me for four months. The man my mother had eyed as a potential son-in-law.
“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” my mother asked. The mortification she felt was palpable.
“I didn’t want to bring up the past. Matteo and I had both moved on… or so we thought,” I said.
“You should have told us anyway.” She was determined to blame me for her own failing. It wasn’t my fault but she’d rather make it that way than accept she did something wrong.
My father sighed loudly, interrupting the argument I was about to have with my mother. “This isn’t her fault,” he said.
I was surprised that he was defending me. I expected him to join my mother in the blame game. They never trusted me to make my own decisions but the consequences of the decisions they made for me were always my fault.
His words seemed to calm my mother down. She fell onto the chair in the corner, her gaze focused on the expansive view of the city. “We have to do something,” she said without turning to look at us.
“You’re right,” my father said with a nod. “We need to go see him and discuss the—”
I shook my head vehemently as I cut him off. “Absolutely not. No. You cannot go and see him. Please don’t.”
My mother finally turned her head at that. “But sweetie. We have to speak to him. It’s the only way to clear up this whole mess.”
“This whole mess is my life. I should be the only one who gets to make decisions about this.”
“That’s not how this works,” she said.
“Of course not.”
I scoffed at my naivete. I couldn’t believe I actually expected my parents to respect my decision. I didn’t want them to visit Matteo but they didn’t care about what I wanted. My opinion never mattered to them.
I stormed out of the hotel room and took the elevator to the lobby. Throughout my journey, I had to fight the tears that threatened to flow. Everything hurt so much. Thinking about Matteo only added to the pain I felt.
If only I could go back in time and have the fortitude to tell my parents no when they asked me to break up with Matteo. If only I’d done that then things would have been so different today. If only…
I could only hold my tears for so long. Once I got back to the apartment, I crumbled to the ground and cried until there was nothing left.
Thankfully, Lisa wasn’t around to witness my breakdown.