“I understand…but I don’t want Prince Charming.”
“I know,” she said. “Trust me, I do. Good men are boring, if you ask me. Women want a man who’s real, who has dimensions and layers. They want a man who pushes the boundaries and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. You would never be happy with some…accountant, doctor, or lawyer.”
I couldn’t picture Bosco with a regular job like that.
“The fact that Bosco had the talent to accomplish what he has at such a young age is admirable,” my mother said. “Maybe he was motivated by greed, but for someone to pull that together and retain his power and esteem for so long is incredible. Only a very powerful man would have been able to pull off something like that. His success is so incredible that even your father and uncle are intimidated by it…and that’s saying something.”
Sometimes I forgot that my mother was so much cooler than my father. She was more pragmatic and logical when she viewed the world. There was never pride or emotion in her decisions, just objectivity. She could immediately see past Bosco’s faults and highlight his charms. “Thanks for having such an open mind.”
“Well, your father is extremely biased in how he views things. Sometimes he forgets he wasn’t always the man he is now. Once upon a time, he wasn’t so different from Bosco. He was young, greedy, and hotheaded. He thought he could do whatever he wanted without retribution. But then he met a special woman, and that changed his path permanently. It made him reevaluate what kind of man he wanted to be. He abandoned the darkness and embraced the light, finally finding a reason to become a good man.”
I smiled. “Was that special woman you, Mama?”
“Yes.” She patted my hand. “I’ve done my best to remind your father of that, but it doesn’t change the way he feels. He thinks you deserve better than I did. He loves you so much he can’t see straight. You have every right to be frustrated with him, but don’t forget, he’s only behaving this way because he loves you so damn much.”
“I know…”
“I’ll make him cut you and Bosco some slack. But I ask you to do the same for him.”
I nodded. “I’ll always cut Father some slack. He’s earned it.”
After talking with my mother, I wasn’t as stressed about the situation as I was before. Now that I had one parent on my side, it would only be a matter of time before the other caved. My mother was naturally persuasive, having the ability to change anyone’s mind about anything. Hopefully, changing my father’s mind would be simple.
When I took the elevator to the penthouse and saw Bosco standing right in the living room, my previous anger came back to me. The man I slept with every single night had betrayed me. He’d carried on the lie for weeks, choosing to withhold vital information that would have changed everything.
“Still mad, huh?” he asked, standing in his gray sweatpants.
“Yep.” I set my purse down and shed my coat.
“Alright.” He took a deep breath as he waited for me to start yelling.
I faced him and crossed my arms over my chest. That handsome face couldn’t bring my rage to a smolder, not this time. It didn’t matter how pretty his blue eyes were, how masculine that jawline was. “You lied to me. You made me look like a fool. You kept a secret from me for over a month. How could you possibly justify that?”
“It’s simple.” He spoke to me the same way he spoke to his men when he was at the casino, holding in all his emotion and talking to me like he didn’t feel a thing. All he felt was authority and power. “Your father made a mistake marching onto my turf like that. If he weren’t your father, he would have been thrown in the ring. I would have made him fight his own brother and watched every hit until the end. He threatened me on my own property, and then he insulted me by trying to buy me off with a hundred million dollars—which is pennies to me. I told him I would do him a favor by not telling you what happened—because it made your father look like an ass. I told him we weren’t just fucking, that we loved each other. I looked him in the eye and told him I would die for you—in a heartbeat. Based on all the mercy I showed, I think he believed me. I didn’t think he would confess to his crimes, not when it made him look so selfish. But I guess your father isn’t as much of a coward as I thought he was.”
It was a legitimate explanation, but I was still angry. “This whole time you knew…”