A Deal for the Di Sione Ring (The Billionaire's Legacy 7)

They pulled up in front of the Grand Paris a short time later. A trademark glass elevator sent them swishing to Nate’s rooftop penthouse. Nate guided her out onto the terrace where a table was set for two, a sparkling view of Paris as a backdrop.

Mina sank down on one of the sofas in the lounge area, her gaze on her husband’s tense face. “What did you mean by us ‘replaying this from the beginning’?”

He sat down beside her. “You forgot ‘the raw, unadulterated truth.’”

“Nate...”

He expelled a breath. “When I was five I asked my mother why I didn’t have a father like all the other kids I knew. She told me mine had another family—that he loved me very much, but he couldn’t take care of us both. I accepted that with the innocence of a five-year-old, but I kept asking when he was going to come visit. Eventually I stopped when he never came.

“The night my mother took me to my father’s house was the first time I’d met him. I was wary, excited, curious—every emotion in the book. I had this picture of him in my head. Then he opened the door, took one look at my mother and me and told us to get off his property.”

She laced her fingers through his and squeezed.

“My mother begged him to listen, to help us. He told her to stop lying. That she was a slut who wanted to take his money with a child that wasn’t his.”

Her jaw dropped open. “How could he do that?”

“He wasn’t in his right mind. Anna came to the door, all hell broke loose. My mother was scared. We left and went home. I remember thinking, was he lying, had my mother lied to me? She put me to bed. I could hear her crying. It hurt so much I willed myself to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night, my bed covered in vomit.”

She tightened her fingers around his, her heart breaking for him.

“I’m not telling you this for your pity. I’m telling you this because I watched my mother, the strongest person I know, die that night. She worked two jobs to put food on the table. She kept our family in one piece, but she was never the same person after that. She still loved him.”

“And you decided you would never make yourself that vulnerable to a woman.”

“To anyone. I quit school, I worked the streets with a gang. I was headed for a bad place when Alex came and found me. I had a choice to choose the right or wrong path then and luckily I had Giovanni to guide me. I channeled my obsession with proving my father wrong about me into my career. I would become so successful no one could ignore me. But my first year at Di Sione Shipping wasn’t easy. I felt out of my depth. Adrift in a foreign world.

“Alex and I—we seemed cut from the same cloth. Not the worlds we lived in, of course, but we were both struggling with our pasts—wounded beasts trying to make ourselves into warriors. I approached him one night and asked him out for a beer. He looked at me as if I were nothing.”

Her heart throbbed. He had been rejected not once, but twice, by the Di Siones.

He shook his head. “It wasn’t Alex’s fault. Giovanni had put us in an awkward position, vaulting me forward in the company and leaving Alex to climb the ranks. Alex felt guilty for keeping my existence a secret. There were a lot of layers to our relationship.”

“But I should not have pushed you when I didn’t know the whole story.”

“You were right to push me. I called Alex. We had a drink. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a start.”

A wet heat stung the backs of her eyes. Nate brushed his thumb across her cheek, his eyes softening. “I have been running away from this thing between us because you made me want what I had told myself was impossible—you, a relationship with my siblings, everything I’d accepted I could never have. You were willing to be a gladiator—to fight for what you wanted—but I was not.”

A tear slipped down her face. “You’re the one who gave me that.”

“No,” he said, wiping the tear away with his thumb. “The strength you have comes from inside you. You are a survivor. You have chosen to rise above your past. All I did was show you how to use it. Whereas I,” he said, his mouth twisting, “used my past as an excuse to withdraw. I refused to believe in the concept of love because to me loving, making yourself vulnerable, has only meant pain in my life.

“I convinced myself what I felt for you was all about the protective instincts I had,” he continued, “because admitting I cared for you, admitting I loved you, meant letting you in. Allowing you to see the broken, empty part of me I have never shown to anyone. The part,” he said, his eyes on hers, “I was afraid you would reject.”

Her vision blurred, tears running down her cheeks in a steady stream now. “We’re all broken, Nate. Every single one of us. It’s what we do once we acknowledge it that matters.”

He nodded. “I went to talk to Alex because I’m scared to death of being a father. I had no example set for me. Had no idea even what kind of a father my own was. Which didn’t help matters, because he was, apparently, no kind of a father. But what I do know,” he said, a determined glitter in his eyes, “is that I want to be a father to our baby. To do the best job I can.”

She swallowed hard, thinking how badly she’d misinterpreted his fear. “You don’t think I’m frightened? That I don’t wonder the same thing with a mother like mine?”

He reached for her and gathered her onto his lap. “You will be a great mother because of your past, not in spite of it. You’ve used the challenges in your life to make you stronger, not weaker. And you will give that strength of spirit to our child.”

She traced the hard line of his jaw with her fingers. “What about your need for freedom? What if you end up resenting me and the baby and want your life back?”

His gaze darkened. “It won’t happen. I haven’t slept this week. Haven’t eaten. Because you weren’t there. I need you in my life, Mina.”

She ran her finger down the front of his shirt. “I noticed you missed a button. You’re looking a little disheveled.”