Page 151 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

“Not you?”

Dante waved a hand. “We’ll see how this goes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, my wife would like for you to join Catherine, and so would I. On the other hand, I won’t intrude if you would rather I not be there given … we’re not friendly. Or, we haven’t been, I suppose.”

“It’s your house,” Cross pointed out. “I’m not inserting myself into that just to make some kind of a fight, Dante. I am an arrogant man, but not a stupid one.”

“Can we start over?”

Cross stilled in place. “I beg your pardon?”

“You and I, Cross. Could we start this over?”

“Depends on whether you mean this meeting, or—”

“I mean everything,” Dante interjected. “I think I owe you an apology, young man.”

“You think?”

“I do owe you an apology, at the very least.”

“Could we pretend like you did but actually not?” Cross asked.

“Would that make it easier?”

“To do what?”

“Keep hating me from a distance,” Dante murmured. “To be fair, I understand entirely why you hate me. I earned it after the things I did.”

“To be fair,” Cross threw back, “had it been my daughter, I may have done the same kinds of things.”

Dante smiled faintly. “Oh?”

“Likely. Although unlike you, I would have followed through and ended it.”

“Isn’t it a good thing that I didn’t end it?”

“I don’t know, Dante, you tell me.”

“For Catherine, it is. You are … everything that is good to and for her, she says. I did not listen when she told me things like that years ago. Perhaps I should have. My hubris. My mistakes. Like I said, I do understand why you hate me, and why you wouldn’t even want to sit down and share a meal. Considering.”

Cross eyed the man. “You gave me Catherine, in a way. I don’t hate you. I certainly don’t like you a whole lot, but to be honest, you haven’t given me very many reasons to, Dante.”

“That’s true. You do hold grudges like a motherfucker, though.”

“That I do, yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Cross, for all these years. For that night in your penthouse. I was so beyond the line in doing that. As a made man, and as a human. My brother, Lucian, he doesn’t let me forget that I crossed a line that night, as he shouldn’t. So yes, I’m sorry for the things I did know, and the things I didn’t know.”

“I said let’s not do the apology thing at all and pretend like you did instead.”

“And for the things I overlooked,” Dante continued, not missing a beat.

“So you’re doing that then, huh?”

“I didn’t realize how often you protected my daughter, and looked after her, but especially when I was not able to. I thought your reasons for chasing Catherine were wrapped up in … other things. Apparently, you are not the man I assumed you were, in quite a few ways.”