“Yeah.” I circled her lower back with my arm and pulled her into me for a kiss. “Everything’s okay.”
She pulled away after she kissed me, her intelligent eyes reading mine in the light from the lamp on the table beside the couch. “Then why are you looking at me like that?”
My hands remained on her back underneath her shirt, feeling her soft flesh and the little muscles that hugged her spine. Sometimes time stopped when I looked at her, especially when she looked particularly beautiful in the light, and just for an instant, I forgot where I stood, my train of thought, the year we lived in. “I carved my initials into the oak tree…like your father and his father and his father before him.”
She pulled away slightly as the understanding moved into her gaze.
My arm slipped away as she increased the distance between us.
Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine.
“We have to tell him,” I said. “Tomorrow.” I’d already waited too long. It was probably too late, and it would destroy the relationship I’d just solidified with her father. But I couldn’t keep the truth from him another day, and I was disappointed I’d let it go on as long as I had.
“You could ask his permission to date me instead,” she said. “He doesn’t need to know how long this has been going on.”
“And what if he says no?”
She hesitated as her eyes dropped. “You’ll change his mind.”
“I don’t lie, and I’m not going to start now, Francesca.” I wouldn’t change my principles to align with what I wanted at the time. “I’ve got to be straight with him. In light of what just happened, I don’t think it’ll be well-received at all, but there’s no other way.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, the sleeves of her shirt covering her elbows.
“Tomorrow.”
Her eyes wandered away from mine as she considered what I said. She rubbed her arms reflexively like she was cold, but the summer nights had already started to warm up even though we were still in June. But her eyes found mine again, scared and confident at the same time, and she gave a nod. “Tomorrow.”
8
FRANCESCA
Wolfe and I agreed to meet with my father today at two. My office was still being restored by the carpenters and the construction crew, so I worked in an open room that no one ever used. My laptop had somehow survived the shootout, and all the papers in the drawer of the desk were still intact, so I didn’t lose anything important.
I kept watching the clock all day, shocked by how quickly it passed when there was something I dreaded on the schedule. My father usually had a late lunch, and in the early afternoon, things at the winery slowed down for a while, so I thought it was the best time to approach him with this.
I sat at my desk and felt so heavy I thought I would never get up. My legs were like lead, and there was an invisible weight stacked on the vertebrae of my spine. I assumed my father would be unhappy about a relationship with Wolfe because he didn’t trust him, but now I knew he would be furious about it since hedidtrust him.
Maybe we were doomed from the beginning.
I finally left my desk and headed down the hall and up the stairs to his office. The top floor was mainly his personal space, his primary bedroom with a nice terrace and his own living room and separate office. I knew nothing about his personal life, if he had one. Never saw a woman visit him, never heard him talk about anyone. Leo said the same thing—that it was a mystery. He seemed to keep it far away from work and home.
I stepped through the open door and saw him standing behind his desk, looking out the window to the vineyard in the distance, the rest of the hills of Sicily in the distance. His arms were crossed, and his shirt was stretched tight across his muscular back.
It was two, and I expected Wolfe to already be there because he wasn’t the kind of man who was late to stuff. I entered the room and helped myself to one of the tan leather armchairs on the rug.
When my father heard me, he turned slightly and looked at me over his shoulder. “Need something, sweetheart?”
“Yeah, thought we could go over the books, just a couple things we need to address.”
He stepped into the living room, his hair dark like Wolfe’s and his eyes hard but slightly soft whenever he looked at me. He moved to the corner of the couch and sat there, arms resting on his knees.
I opened the folder I’d brought and shared with him some of the main updates for the winery, as well as the tomato business. I had to change a lot of things over there because we were altering the product—or the product that went into the cans once they were packed.
My father nodded along as he listened. “Thank you for the update, Frankie.”
“Everything alright?” I asked as I picked up on his solemn mood. “You seem a little down.”
“Tired,” he said. “Was up late last night and up early today.”
