Another silence followed.
“Did you make peace with the life you’ll be leading?”
That stopped me much more effectively than the mention of the ring had.
I knew what he meant. Not marriage in the abstract. Not love. The actual life. The one beneath the tailored suits and family dinners and beautiful houses. The blood. The secrets. The compromises I would one day make and the damage they would leave behind no matter how carefully I tried to contain them.
I kept walking, one hand tightening around my phone. “I made peace with wanting her in it,” I said at last. “I’m still working on the rest.”
My father let that sit between us for a few beats before answering. “That is at least honest.”
“It is the best I have.”
“And does she know?”
“No.”
“Will she come home with you for Christmas?”
That question hit exactly where I was least steady.
“I’m trying.”
He exhaled slowly. “Try harder. Your mother has already instructed half the staff to prepare as if she is.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “Of course she has.”
“She bought extra ornaments.”
“Dad.”
“I am simply informing you of the scale of the operation.”
That dragged an unwilling laugh out of me, but it faded quickly enough.
Because beneath all of it, his question stayed.
Had I made peace with the life I would be leading?
If someone asked me in July, I would have said of course. I was born to be the heir. But now there was a beautiful woman in the equation, and I was no longer quite so certain. Perhaps nodecent man ever truly made peace with it, not fully. What I had made peace with was this: if there was any future worth carrying the uglier parts of my world for, it would have her in it.
“The ring is not a way to trap her,” I said after a while. “It’s a choice I’m preparing to offer if she ever reaches that point with me.”
“I know,” he said, and there was no teasing in his voice now. “If I thought otherwise, this would be a very different conversation.”
“I’m not even sure I’ll ask at Christmas,” I admitted. “I know I’m ready. I know the decision is made on my side. I’m just not sure she’s there yet.”
“Good,” he said. “Because if you do this, you will do it properly. Not because you are afraid to lose her if you wait, and not because you cannot bear wanting something without taking it at once.”
“That isn’t what this is.”
“No,” he said, adding after the briefest pause, “Matteo knows.”
I had reached the car by then, but I stayed outside it, one hand resting on the roof while the cold air bit my lungs.
Matteo. I had always known it would reach him eventually, and after Chicago and Seattle I had more confidence that Emily could face him without running, but there was always risk where Matteo Genovese was concerned. Risk was half his charm and most of his damage.
“Do I need to worry?”
