Chapter 12 Emi #2
I stare at the horizon like it holds all the answers, but all it gives me is possibilities. It’s an endless line of courses I can choose to take. Some could lead me to everything I’ve always wanted…but those same paths might also mean risking everything I already have.
“Fairy tales,” I say finally. “Every night, my father would read me stories about princesses saved by princes who all lived happily ever after. Then he’d say, ‘Someday, piccola principessa, you will find your own prince, and you will live happily ever after, too. Just like me and your maman.’”
“He must have loved your mom very much.”
I nod, the memory of her loss lancing a fresh wound on my heart. “He did. Neither of their families wanted them to be together, but he said their love wouldn’t be denied.”
“How did they meet?”
Smiling, I turn my head to look up at him. “She was Princess Aurora in her ballet company’s touring production of The Sleeping Beauty. My father saw her perform in Milan and, according to him, fell in love with her before the closing curtain.”
Something flashes in Austin’s gaze, but he hides it with a quirk of his lips and a wink before I can figure it out. “You come from a long line of princesses, then, just as I suspected.”
I roll my eyes, keeping up the pretense that I don’t find his royalty jokes entertaining. “You’re never letting that go, are you?”
“Not a chance,” he says, chuckling.
“What about your parents?” I ask, careful not to say it loud enough for Glen to hear us talking about him. “Did they ever find someone else to share their lives with?”
“No, they didn’t. My dad told me once that my mom was it for him, that their love was that once-in-a-lifetime kind, but it wasn’t enough. They just didn’t fit.”
My brows knit together as I think about that.
I’d never considered that two people in love might “not fit.” Our parents had both had love as a foundation, but one relationship failed where the other thrived.
What made the difference? Why wasn’t love enough?
On paper, Austin and I don’t fit, either.
It’s too soon to call my feelings for him love, but I think it could be if we continue the path we’re on. Would our love be enough?
“Growing up as you did and hearing that about your parents, I’d think you’d be cynical about love and sappy happy ever afters.”
He shifts around me so that he’s leaning back against the captain’s room and pulls me in to stand between his legs.
“Not at all,” he says, tucking away the strands of hair blowing across my face.
“I’ve never touched the moon, and yet I’ve seen it hanging in the sky and know other people have been there.
Just because I don’t have personal experience with something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“Excellent point.” The corners of my mouth curve up in a smile.
I’ve never met anyone as optimistic as him.
He’s a glass-half-full kind of guy, and he helps me see the silver lining when all I can see is the dark cloud.
“I might keep you around for the abs and amazing orgasms, but your brain is a nice bonus.”
He laughs, and I swoon from the deep sound and the sight of his dimples. His hands flex on my hips and pull me closer as he lowers his head for a kiss when we hear the loud whining of one of the lines being dragged out.
“Ha haaaa, we got the first one!” Martin cheers.
Glen grabs the pole and laughs. “You snooze you lose, son.”
“You need the head start, Pop, because Emi and I are gonna smoke your ass.”
“Oh yeah? Wanna make it two hundred?” Glen asks over his shoulder as he fights to reel in whatever mammoth fish is on the other end of his line.
The egos are getting out of control, so I answer with, “Absolutely n—” but a large hand is clapped over my mouth before I can finish.
“Absolutely,” Austin says, winking at me.
I roll my eyes and chuckle, but it’s short-lived when a fish hooks onto one of our poles.
“We’re up!” He springs into action, grabbing the pole out of its holder and bracing it against his abs.
I watch the way his muscles flex in his arms and shoulders as he leans back.
There isn’t a better view in the world than this one right now. Well, it’d be better if he was naked.
“Emi, get over here. This one’s yours,” he says.
I shake my head. “No, that’s all you. I’m just along for the ride.” And the view.
“Fuck that.”
“Language in front of the lady!”
“Sorry, Pop,” Austin says with a wince like he was caught doing something wrong.
I’ve always found his penchant for swear words refreshing, and he knows that the dirtier he talks during sex, the more turned on I get.
But I think it’s sweet that he abides by his dad’s rules even as an adult.
“Get your cute butt over here, princess, and reel this fish in.”
He pulls me in front of him and wraps his arms in front to help me hold the pole.
The next eternity of minutes is spent in an exhausting game of reeling the fish in and letting it swim down to tire itself out.
Austin coaches me through it, and I do a lot of unladylike grunting and swearing of my own, but Glen and my uncle don’t seem to care.
They cheer me on while reeling their own fish in on the other side of the boat.
Finally, we get the fish to the top of the water near the boat, and Austin grabs a large net. “Okay, hold it right there, don’t let it get away.”
“Hurry, my arms feel like jelly,” I say through my laughter. He leans over the edge and scoops up my prize with the net, and my jaw drops. “That’s it. It felt like I was pulling in a damn shark! That thing is so small.”
Uncle Martin chuckles. “Not so small. That’s about a three- or four-pound Coho. Good for your first fish!”
Austin brings it closer for me to see, and it tries to flip around in the net, spraying me with lake water.
Before I catch myself, I squeal like a little girl, which naturally makes him laugh at my expense.
I give him the evil eye, and he hands the netted culprit over to my uncle before wrapping me up in his arms and kissing me.
“Congratulations, princess, you’re a true fisherwoman now.”
“Great,” I say with mock sarcasm. “Just what I’ve always wanted.”
My phone rings in my pocket. Since Graham is covering my classes at the studio today, I told him to call me if anything came up I should know about. But it’s not Graham calling me. It’s my father.
Crap. I haven’t been lying to him about how much time I’ve been spending with Austin, but I haven’t exactly been flaunting it, either.
Stepping out of Austin’s embrace, I tell him I need to take the call, then I close myself into the captain’s room and pray he’s in a good mood. “Hi, Daddy, what’s up?”
“Emi, Graham says you are not at the studio today. Where are you?”
Wincing, I sit on the small loveseat wedged between the walls. His accent is thicker than usual, which isn’t a good sign. “I’m spending the day with Uncle Martin.” Not a lie. “Why’d you call the studio, Papà, is something wrong? Are you okay?”
“No, I am not okay. The Robertsons and Wilsons are all sick. All of them. The stupidos drank the water in Brazil, and now we have an empty table for the gala and no one to fill it.”
Shit, that’s not good at all. Relevé is a huge annual charity dinner and art auction hosted by my father’s company.
It was my mother’s labor of love, which I’ve taken over in her absence.
Every year, the event raises more than $100,000, and it garners a lot of press.
Losing eight seats isn’t a huge monetary loss in the grand scheme of things, but my father will be worried about how it looks and that it will become a trend for the future.
“It’s okay, I’ll find replacement guests. There won’t be any empty chairs at the gala, I promise.”
“How?” he demands, and I can almost see him in his home office, pacing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that face the lake he never takes the time to appreciate. “Everybody important is already coming!”
He’s right, and I’m not sure who I’m going to get to fill the seats, but I need to calm him down before his blood pressure gets too high. “Don’t worry about this, Daddy, I will fix this before the weekend is even over. Now, take some deep breaths.”
He sighs so loudly I’m surprised I can’t feel it through my phone. “Emi…” Whenever I force him to do something for his health, my name becomes a drawn-out complaint.
“I mean it, Papà. Deep breaths or I’m telling Mariana to make you kale with a side of more kale for dinner.
” He grumbles something in Italian, but then I hear him start the breathing exercises.
I haven’t been able to convince him to try meditation, but at least this helps to bring his heart rate down.
“Better?” I ask after a couple of minutes.
“Yes, this ridiculous watch says I am better,” he gripes, filling his minimum daily quota of reminding me how much he hates his health monitor. But it’s part of our deal: he does things to make sure he lives as long as possible, and I put his mind at ease by marrying Marco.
I wasn’t the only one who’d been devastated by my father’s close call.
Facing his mortality caused him to panic about someday leaving me behind.
With no siblings and all my extended family members other than Martin living in other countries, I’d be all alone.
That’s when my dad decided that I needed a good husband to take care of me, someone I could build a family with, and no amount of me insisting that I would be fine on my own could dissuade him from that line of thinking.
I was able to put him off for a couple months, but the more time went on, the more he became agitated about my uncertain future, which started affecting his blood pressure and putting him at risk for another heart attack.
In the end, agreeing to marry my friend seemed like a small sacrifice compared to losing my father.
But that was before I knew what it was like to have almost-maybe-it-could-be-love feelings for a man.
Glancing up, I study Austin through the window as he talks to my uncle.
Every time I look at him, my heart flutters in my chest. I don’t know if that’s what love is, but I know it doesn’t happen when I look at Marco.
What seemed like a small sacrifice before is now weighing on me to the point of suffocation, and I don’t think I can bear it.
But I have to be delicate, or I could be trading a metaphorical death for a real one.
“Papà, when I get home tonight, I’d like to talk to you about something.”