Page 86 of Always: A Legacy Novel

Her first instinct was to lie, if only because she didn’t want to answer the questions that would likely follow if she told the truth. She ended up telling the truth.

“We’re going to stop at Grandmamma and Grandpapa’s to visit, and then she’s going to drop me off at a friend’s while she goes to pick up Cella from her friend’s.”

At least, that’s what Liliana said she was going to do.

“What friend are you visiting?” Dante asked. “And is she going to bring you back, or do I need to send a car?”

“She’s going to bring me back.”

Her father cocked an eyebrow. “You forgot something.”

Yeah, shit.

She should have known better than to try to slip that one past Dante Marcello.

“Which friend, Catherine?”

“Cross Donati,” she said.

Instantly, her father stepped out of the entryway to stand at his full height in the hallway. “As in, the same Cross you were seeing a while back?”

“That was quite a while back, but yes, same guy.”

“How long have you been seeing him again?” he asked.

Catherine rolled her eyes. “We’re not really seeing each other or whatever you want to call it. We’re just … hanging out sometimes. Like friends do.”

That was true, all of it. She didn’t really know what she and Cross were, but at the moment, it didn’t matter.

“How long?”

“Like a week?”

“I’m not sure—”

“Dante!”

Her father looked to the side, his gaze narrowing. “What, Catrina?”

“Dial it back, bello.”

“I’m not even—”

“If that was Michel standing there, Dante, you would have said nothing. Dial it back right now,” Catrina snapped from inside the room. “If you deny what I just said, you are not going to like what I do.”

Catherine’s eyes widened, and she wouldn’t look at her father for fear of grinning.

“Cat, it’s not even the same thing,” Dante said, walking into the room out of Catherine’s sight. “She’s only fifteen, and I’m not asking something unreasonable here.”

“Michel is in the library, Dante. I will go get that boy, and we will ask him what you did at that same age when he had girlfriends or … God, he didn’t even date. He just messed around, and you barely said a word.”

“But—”

“Not one word, Dante!”

“Catrina,” her father growled.

A car horn honked outside.