by Penelope Sky
“I hope everything is alright.” I’d never seen him act that way in my whole life. I always felt like the priority. Not work.
“Yeah…it’s better now. So, you want to come by and have that conversation?”
Now that the moment had arrived, I dreaded it all over again. His complete attention would be on me, and I would have to deal with his wrath. There was no doubt in my mind he wouldn’t like Bosco. “Yeah, sure.”
“Okay. Because I have a few things I’d like to say to you too.”
Bosco called me during the drive. The sound came through my speakers due to the Bluetooth. “Where are you going?”
His men tailed me twenty-four hours a day. There was nowhere I went without them knowing about it. “My father called…and invited me to the winery so we could finally have that talk.” I sighed as I drove with both hands on the wheel, my sunglasses on the bridge of my nose. “So, this is really happening…wish me luck.”
“Good luck, Beautiful. I’ll be waiting for you when you come home.”
Good. It would be nice to have a shoulder to cry on.
“Love you,” he said, something he rarely said on the phone.
“Love you too.”
He hung up first.
I drove the rest of the way, enjoying the beautiful scenery without really taking it in. I was too focused on my destination, too focused on the mission I had to complete. There was no doubt in my mind it wouldn’t go well. But how badly it would go…that was still up in the air.
I arrived at the winery twenty minutes later and walked to the building where my father’s office was. Griffin and Crow weren’t walking around, so they were probably taking care of business elsewhere.
I made it to his office, and this time, the door was open.
My father was sitting behind his desk and looking out the window. There was nothing in front of him, no pens or papers. It was completely clear with the exception of the picture frame holding a photo of the four of us. One elbow was on the desk while his fingers were propped against his cheek. He was as still as the air outside the window, staring at nothing and looking so tranquil. He was clearly waiting for me, clearing his schedule because he finally recognized I needed to talk to him.
“Hey.” I stepped inside with one hand on the strap of my purse, needing something to hold on to. My palms were sweaty in distress as I dreaded the conversation we were about to have.
My father seemed to know this wouldn’t be a pleasant talk since he didn’t rise from his desk to greet me with a hug. He turned in his chair so he could face me, lowering his hand from his cheek and clearing his throat. “Hey, sweetheart. Please shut the door.”
I did as he asked, hearing the door click into place before I sat in one of the armchairs facing his desk.
He slumped in his chair as he looked at me, his face heavy with decades of stress that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. Now he seemed exhausted, like he’d been working so much he’d tired himself out. He sighed as he looked at me, his green eyes showing a million emotions at once. “I think I should talk first.”
Why was that? “Is everything alright?” It seemed like we were thinking two different things, having two separate conversations at the same time. There was no way he knew why I was there. The second he knew I was sleeping with Bosco, he would have confronted me about it.
My father sidestepped the question. “I’ve been avoiding you because I didn’t want to have this conversation. I’m not an idiot. I knew I couldn’t postpone it long enough to make it disappear entirely. I just…was a coward.”
I was even more confused now. “What conversation do you think I want to have?”
He rubbed his fingers across his jaw, feeling the coarse hair from his shadow of a beard. “There’s something I need to tell you, Carmen. I’m not proud of what I did. And I hope you keep in mind that I’m just a father who wants the best for his daughter. Maybe that’s not clear all the time…but those are my intentions.”
“Okay…now you’re scaring me.” What did my father do?
He dropped his fingers and held my gaze. “I know about Bosco Roth.”
My heart immediately fell into my stomach, sinking like a heavy weight. This entire time, I’d thought my secret was safe, but my father had figured it out. How long had he known? Was he avoiding me for that reason? I didn’t try to make up excuses for not telling him as long as I did. My father had been keeping a secret from me just as I was keeping one from him. “How long?”
“A little over a month.”
My eyes widened automatically, and a thunderstorm of stupidity struck me. An entire month had passed, and my father had known about the man I was seeing. He knew before I even decided to stay with Bosco. “How did you find out?”
“I wasn’t spying on you,” my father said. “One of my new clients is the owner of Giovanni’s. He told me you and Bosco went there for dinner…and you were sporting that black eye.”
I remembered when Bosco ordered a bottle of Barsetti wine for the table. I hadn’t even made the connection at the time. I was more engrossed in the man across from me than the situation. Now it all made perfect sense.
“I assumed he was the reason for your black eye…so naturally…I declared war against him.”
Obviously, nothing had happened because both men were still living. My father must have calmed down at some point. “He wasn’t. Bosco would never lay a hand on me.” He was my protector and my provider, not my abuser. “In case that wasn’t clear.”
“It wasn’t clear until Griffin explained the situation to me.”
That was a bomb I wasn’t prepared for. “Griffin told you?” So this entire time, my father knew, and Griffin didn’t care to mention that to me?
“Before you get angry at Griffin, understand he did it for a reason.” My father spoke so calmly that it was actually frightening, like he was considering his words very carefully so he would remain in control. “I grabbed my weapons and met up with Crow. I was prepared to march down there and shoot Bosco in the head. Griffin told me everything so I wouldn’t go through with it. He explained to me that Bosco didn’t give you the black eye, that you two actually had a relationship.”
I was still pissed at Griffin for leaving me in the dark, but now I didn’t feel completely betrayed. I wouldn’t have wanted my father to get himself killed or shoot the man I loved. It was probably the only option Griffin had at the time.
“I’m not gonna lie, sweetheart. I wasn’t happy when Griffin told me you were seeing Bosco.” He held my gaze, the pain burning in his eyes. “I understand you’re an adult who can make your own decisions, but…you couldn’t have picked a worse man to get involved with.”
His disappointment hurt me, much more than I expected.
“There’s something else I need to tell you, and you aren’t going to like it. But I don’t want to lie about it, regardless of how bad it makes me look.”
What did he do?
“Crow and I went to the casino so I could confront Bosco myself.”
Now I wasn’t breathing, taking in all this information without being able to truly understand it. My father and uncle were in the casino with Bosco…and Bosco never told me. I didn’t know whom I felt more betrayed by…Bosco or my own family.
“We spoke for about thirty minutes.” My father kept talking calmly, like it was all he could do to combat his true anger. “I told him I didn’t like him. I told him I wanted him to leave you alone. And I offered him a hundred million if he cooperated.”
I was punched in the stomach—again.
“He didn’t take it.”
“Of course he didn’t,” I said, my voice rising. “There’s nothing you could offer him to make him leave me. He loves me, Father.”
Pain moved into his eyes. “And I love you too, Carmen. I did it to protect you.”
“To protect me?” I asked incredulously. “So if he took the money and dumped me, you would have just never said anything?”
“If he took
the money, then he never loved you anyway.”
I threw my hands down on my thighs. “That’s not the point! I can’t believe you interfered like that. You didn’t even know him. I’m twenty-five years old. How could you treat me and my personal life like you own me?” I’d never been more disappointed in my father, not ever.
He dropped his gaze, unable to look at me anymore. “I knew you would be angry…and I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” I asked incredulously. “You’re sorry that you completely overstepped your boundaries and stuck your damn nose where it didn’t belong?”
“Don’t curse at me—”
“Don’t threaten my man.” I slammed my hand on his desk. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Your. Father.” He leaned forward, losing his calmness. Now his nostrils flared in rage, like a wild bull about to charge. “I admit I shouldn’t haven’t handled it that way, but I didn’t understand the extent of your relationship at the time.”
“Then why didn’t you ask me? Your daughter?”
“Because Griffin told me to keep it a secret. I thought I could fix this without you even knowing about it.”
“Fix it?” I asked incredulously. “There’s nothing to fix. I would have been devastated if I’d lost him.”
My father grimaced, like he didn’t like that reaction. “Carmen, look. I’m sorry. I’m apologizing to you for what I did. I was upset and emotional at the time, unable to think straight. You’re everything to me, and I just…snapped.”
I should pity him, but I didn’t. Now I was also pissed at Bosco because he knew about all this but didn’t tell me. “What happened when you were there? You know, after you tried to buy him off?”
My father ignored my sarcasm. “We talked.”
“About…?”
“He told me that you meant a lot to him, that he protects you and respects you.”
“Which he does,” I said proudly.
“But he also told me how you guys met, how you tried to leave him, but he wouldn’t let you, that he forced you to give him a chance.”
I admired Bosco for being so honest about it.
“Do you understand how much that pissed me off? Hearing some pompous little bitch say he forced my daughter to do something?”
“It wasn’t like that… I wanted to stay.” I couldn’t tell my father the extent of my feelings, not without making it extremely awkward. “I knew it wouldn’t work out with us in the long run…so that was why I wanted to leave. I didn’t want to get invested in a guy when there was no future. But I wanted to be with him a little while longer…and that contract was how I got what I wanted.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “That’s not how relationships are supposed to be. That’s not how a woman should talk about her future husband. You want a good man, not a bad man like that.”
“He’s not a bad man, Father. He’s kind, generous, and loving. He’s strong, powerful, and extremely authoritative. Maybe you don’t want to hear it, but he reminds me of you and Crow. He’s a man’s man… I don’t want an average good guy. I’ve dated lots of other men, and not a single one made me actually feel something. I understand you had in mind what kind of man you wanted me to be with…but that’s not what I want.”
“Carmen.” He rubbed his temples with his fingers. “This guy is the most famous criminal in Italy. Maybe even in Europe. He’s the leader of the crime lords. He has more power and more money than anyone else…combined. Do you really think it’s a good idea to get involved with someone like that?”
“I know that’s how he is on paper…but he’s not like that in reality.”
“Yes, he is,” he said coldly. “It’s one thing to be with a man like Griffin. His occupation is separate from his personal life. But Bosco is the job. He’s the symbol of power and authority. That’s dangerous.”
“He said he would give it up for me.”
My father didn’t seem surprised by that revelation, only annoyed. He rubbed his temple again before he looked back at me. “I heard.”
“Then you’re getting what you want.”
“I still don’t think he’s good enough for you, Carmen. Just because he’s walking away doesn’t mean people don’t still want to kill him.”
“I’m sure he’ll keep his security detail. He’s a very paranoid man.”
“And he should be,” he snapped. “That man has a lot of enemies.”
“He’s a man of his word, so I doubt it.”
“Any man with money has enemies, Carmen.”
“What about you and Uncle Crow?” I demanded. “We’ve had nothing but trouble for the past year.”
“I know,” he said with a growl. “And I don’t want it to continue.”
I didn’t know what else to say to him. It seemed we’d reached a stalemate. My father wasn’t happy about this, and he’d had plenty of time to think about it.
He crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at me. “This is really hard for me, sweetheart. If I didn’t give a damn, I would just accept it and look the other way. But you’re my only daughter…and I love you more than I can express in words.” His eyes softened, full of eternal love and affection. “I know we can’t always choose who we fall in love with. Sometimes it’s a chemical reaction we can’t control. But I want you…to have the best man on this goddamn planet. I want a son-in-law who will protect you when I can’t do it anymore. I know you’re angry with me, but please remember, my heart is in the right place. It’s always been in the right place.”
I was emotional and angry at the same time, and his speech softened me just a little bit. “I tried not to fall in love with him. I really did. I knew you would never like him…that Uncle Crow would never like him. I knew this would be a repeat of Griffin and Vanessa. But it happened anyway. I don’t want you to hate him. I told him if my family can’t look past this…then we don’t have a choice.”
My father regarded with me with a tender expression. “You would choose me over him?”
My eyes watered the second he asked the question. “In a heartbeat. But it would hurt me so much to do it…because I love him. It’s real love. It’s not lust or infatuation. I know him, know his soul. Don’t make me lose him. Don’t put me through what Vanessa went through.” I wiped my tears away and sniffed back the drips threatening to escape from my nose.
He rose out of his chair then sat in the chair beside me, moving close. Now the conversation felt more natural, not like he was the executioner and I was going to get my head chopped off. He grabbed my hand and held it on my knee. “I don’t want to go through what my brother went through with Vanessa. I don’t want you to go through what Vanessa went through either. But…I’m still struggling with this. When I met Bosco, he wasn’t as bad as I thought he was going to be, but I don’t still don’t like the guy.”
“Get to know him.”
He sighed like he didn’t want to.
“Please,” I said. “At least try. If you try and don’t change your mind…I’ll understand. But you need to give him a chance. Griffin was hated by everyone, but then he turned out to be the greatest addition to this family. Bosco could be the same.”
“Griffin is an honorable man. I don’t think it’s right to compare Bosco to him…just yet.”
“Then let’s take baby steps. Can you do that for me…?”
Father stared at my hand as he considered it, noticeably quiet and tense.
I waited patiently.
After what felt like an eternity, he finally agreed. “Okay…I’ll try.”
When I came home, my eyes were puffy and red. I tried to fix my makeup in the rearview mirror in the car so Bosco’s men wouldn’t see my tear-stained face, but there wasn’t much I could without my concealer.
I took the elevator up to the top, and the second the doors opened, he was standing there. With his head several inches higher than mine and with a concerned look on his face, it was obvious he’d been thinking abou
t me the entire time I was gone. His eyes narrowed slightly when he took in my pained expression. “Beautiful.”
“I’m pissed at you right now.” I lacked any conviction whatsoever as I walked around him and stepped into the apartment. I tossed my bag on the table, and just like the other day, I left my boots and coat on the floor because I didn’t care. “But I’m so worked up right now that I don’t want to fight. I need you more than I want to push you away.” When I got all the heavy layers off my body, I moved into his chest and closed my eyes. His body was hard as concrete, not soft like the pillows on his bed. My arms wrapped around him, and I took comfort in the man that I loved, even though he’d lied to me.
Bosco wrapped his arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head. “Didn’t go well, I take it?”
He was so warm, searing hot against my cheek. “It went as well as I expected it to go.”
His hand moved under the fall of my hair and to the back of my neck. He gently massaged the area as his other arm circled my waist and held me close. He didn’t address why I was pissed off at him, probably because he’d figured it out on his own.
I pulled away and looked into his pretty eyes. He was the most powerful man I knew, but even he didn’t have the power to fix this.
“Are you going to let me explain myself?” He slid his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants as he tilted his head slightly to look at me.
I felt betrayed that he’d kept this secret from me for over a month. The entire time I was stressing about my father’s reaction, Bosco knew exactly what that reaction would be. He kept quiet, hiding it as a dirty secret. Nearly every person involved had all the facts, but I didn’t know anything. “No.”
He maintained the same stoic expression.
“I just want to go to bed and forget about this until morning.” I was emotionally drained from the intense conversation with my father. None of it had unfolded the way I wanted. I couldn’t even anticipate the conversation because he dropped a bomb on me the second I walked inside. Bosco could have at least told me the truth before I faced my father for the discussion.
