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“But I…” Liliana starts, then takes a shuddering breath. “You’re right. Time. Right.”
I have the feeling I know what she wanted to say, as she lays her head against my chest again. I feel the fabric of my shirt getting damp with her silent tears. She doesn’t want to wait or give him time. It will hurt her every moment that they’re apart and arguing. She doesn’t want to leave things this way.
Which means it’s time for me to step up. I know what flight he’s supposed to be getting on. I don’t think he will respond favorably to me turning up, but maybe I can send someone. One of my employees, maybe my assistant, can go there and intercept him, stop him from getting on the plane. Talk him into getting an exchange for a flight in a few days. Maybe if I offer to put him up in a hotel, or even allow him to stay in one of my spare rooms, he will rethink.
All I know is, I have to think of something fast.
I head downstairs to make breakfast for us – pancakes, because I have a feeling it will cheer Liliana up somehow, like it does in the movies – and lose myself in cooking. I don’t cook often, because it always seemed pointless to do it for myself. But I can make pancakes for my love. Why not?
I’m just flipping the last one when I hear a chime at the gate, signaling that someone wants to come in.
When I see who it is on the cameras, I almost drop the dishtowel I’m holding.
“Liliana,” I shout, pressing the buzzer to open the gate. “Liliana, come down here.”
When she does emerge from the stairway, she looks up and sees the food on the table – and assumes that’s why I wanted her here. “Oh, thanks, Nico, but I’m not really…”
“Lili,” I interrupt, nodding towards the door. “Look.”
Then she turns and sees him, her father, standing sheepishly just inside the door, looking so out of place in my home.
“Dad?” she says, and the rush of joy on her face – even though he hasn’t yet said a word – tells me that I need to make this right. I can’t let Frank leave her without at least partially mending some bridges. She would never recover.
“I’m here to take you to the airport,” he says, his voice rough and flat.
That’s when I see her face fall – and with it, it feels like my own heart is breaking.
How can he do this to her?
“But, I told you,” she says. “I’m staying here.”
“No, you aren’t,” Frank says. “It’s not real, Liliana. This is all just some vacation fling. He’s not going to let you stay with him, not really. The second things get more serious, he’ll throw you out on the street. I’ve seen men like him before.”
“If I may,” I say, stepping forward calmly and speaking up. “I’m afraid you’re wrong about that. I’m the one that invited Lili to stay here with me in the first place.”
“You expect me to think that you actually want her to move in with you? That you’re going to take her on, even though she has no job here, no prospects?”
I almost want to laugh. “You think she needs a job to stay here with me? Look around.” I spread my hands wide to demonstrate our surroundings. “She already has everything she needs. She has her clothes upstairs in my closet. Anything she wants, I can give her. I want to give her everything.”
“What are you talking about? Her clothes are in the car,” he says, jerking a thumb back towards the door. “You left them in the room yesterday.”
“My new clothes, Dad,” Liliana says quietly. “Nico bought me new things because I didn’t have the right clothes for some things. He’s given me everything I’ve needed.”
“This is just puppy love,” Frank scoffs. “You won’t want him when the shine wears off. And he won’t want you.”
“I will, Dad,” Liliana says, and I look over to see her eyes shining in her face. “I love him. I really do.”
“And it’s the same for me,” I say. “I will always want her. And I’m prepared to prove that to you right now.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Liliana
I look around at Nico, wondering what he can possibly mean. Prove it? How can he prove it?
“Then do it,” Dad says challengingly. I know what he’s thinking – I know him well enough to figure it out. He can’t imagine a single way in which Nico could prove it, so that’s why he’s making this challenge. He thinks that after a few minutes more, we can both walk out of here and go home, and there won’t be any way for me to argue.
But he doesn’t know my Nico.
“Alright,” Nico says, and turns to me. His gaze meets mine and I see something there that makes my eyes widen. Something like pure love in his face, an emotion so strong I can hardly name it. “I wanted to do this in a more romantic way, but… for now, I guess this will have to do.”
