Like a moth to a flame, my feet dragged me out of my room and to the hallway the minute I heard my husband’s gruff tenor. His voice was a poem, and I drank every word as if my life depended on it.
I caught his back, his broad shoulders and tailored suit as he glided through the corridor, ushered by my father into his study. I counted one, two, three, five, eight…ten seconds before I tiptoed my way to the study. Weeks of watching how Ms. Sterling eavesdropped had taught me some invaluable tricks. My barefooted figure was pressed against the wall, and I took shallow, measured breaths.
My father lit a cigar. The aroma of burnt leaves and tobacco hit my nostrils, and nausea washed over my gut. God, I felt sick every time someone breathed in my direction. I peeked into the room, fighting the bile bubbling in my throat. My father leaned against his desk, my husband on the red velvet settee in front of him, looking relaxed and nonchalant as ever.
My husband, metal and steel.
Formidable and untouchable.
With a stone-carved heart I’d do anything to soften.
“I suppose you think that you can walk into her room and claim her back. Hang White and Bishop over my head again as leverage,” my father said, puffing on his cigar, his legs crossed at the ankles. He had yet to acknowledge my existence since I’d moved back into the house, but he didn’t let that deter him from blackmailing my husband. With every fiber of my body, I wanted to burst through the door and set the record straight. But I was too humiliated and hurt to risk another rejection. Wolfe might’ve come here to let me go, and I was done begging.
“How is she doing?” Wolfe ignored his question.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” my father replied curtly, sending another waft of smoke into the air and ignoring the question at hand.
“Have you taken her to the doctor?”
“She hasn’t left the house.”
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Wolfe spat.
“As far as I can remember, Francesca was old enough to get pregnant. She is therefore old enough to book an appointment with an OB-GYN. Not to mention, if anyone should help her, it should be the man responsible for her dire situation.”
Dire situation? My nostrils flared, hot air coming down from them like fire.
It was the moment in which it dawned on me that my father was completely irredeemable. He didn’t care for me or the baby. The only thing he cared about—ever—was The Outfit. He loved and adored me when I was his puppet. And at the first sign of defiance, he discarded me and shook off any responsibility toward me. He sold me. Then lost his interest in me when he could no longer marry me off to another strong Italian family. Wolfe, however, stuck around through thick and thin. Even when we antagonized each other. Even when he thought I’d slept with Angelo and saw me kissing him, and when I defied him again and again and again. The word divorce never left his mouth. Failure wasn’t an option.
He showed me more loyalty than my father did.
“Good point.” Wolfe stood up. “I’ll take her to the doctor right away.”
“You will do no such thing. In fact, you will not be seeing her tonight, at all,” my father retorted.
Wolfe strolled toward him unflappably, stopping a few feet from my father and towering over his head. “Is that her request or yours?”
“Her demand. Why do you think you haven’t heard from her yet?” My father put his cigar in an ashtray, sending a plume of smoke in Wolfe’s face as he spoke. “She requested I make sure that you grovel properly.”
“Let me guess—you have plenty of ideas.”
“I do.” My father unknotted his ankles, pushing off the desk so he was nose to nose with Wolfe. I wished I could see my husband’s face at that moment. My father was lying to him, and he was too smart not to see that. Then again, love was like a drug. You didn’t think clearly under the influence.
“I’ll let you see Francesca if you comply.”
“And if I don’t?”
“White can personally come and arrest me today, and you can burst through Francesca’s bedroom door armed with police force. I’m sure she’d appreciate it. Especially in her current state.”
Wolfe was silent for a moment.
“Do you realize she misses you?” he asked my father.
My heart clenched painfully. God, Wolfe.
“Do you realize that I’m a businessman?” my father retorted. “She’s a damaged asset. We all have a price tag, Fabio Nucci.” He laughed in my husband’s face. “I was born on the streets and left at the steps of a church door to almost die. My mother was a prostitute, and my father? Who knows who he was. Everything I have, every square foot in this house, every piece of furniture, every fucking pen, I’ve worked for. Francesca had one job—to be obedient. And she failed.”