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The clue to his grandfather’s past rattled around his brain until they arrived at the Di Sione villa. The doctor was just leaving.
“Keep it brief,” he said. “He needs the rest.”
A tightness seized Nate’s chest. “Is there a revised timeline?”
The doctor shook his head. “He has good weeks and bad. This one was tough. The drugs are helping with the pain but they’re also sedating him.”
Nate led Mina up the ornate, finely carved staircase to Giovanni’s suite of rooms. He held up a hand for her to wait at the door, then ventured inside. His grandfather was lying in the massive mahogany bed, looking heart-droppingly small. Propped up by a mound of pillows, his eyes were half-closed. “Nathaniel,” he said, his voice low and raspy. “Did you bring your new wife?”
The tabloids. Nate nodded and beckoned to Mina. “I’d like you to meet my grandfather Giovanni. Giovanni, it was Mina’s family who owned the ring.”
Giovanni sat up straighter. Gestured for Mina to come closer, then pressed a kiss against her cheek. “I thought I must be hallucinating when I read the newspaper story. Although I knew Nate would fall hard when he met the right one.”
Mina smiled. “It all happened rather quickly.”
“Did you really leave your fiancé at the altar?”
“Sì. Nate and I...it was love at first sight.”
“As it should be,” said Giovanni, a distant look in his eyes. “It’s the way of great love.”
Mina’s smile faltered. His grandfather didn’t notice, his eyes trained on the box she held. “May I see the ring?”
She handed it to him. Giovanni removed the spectacular sapphire from the box. “Exactly as I remembered,” he murmured, setting it on his palm and staring at it. “Funny how something precious can be lost to you through the passage of time, but a stone like this? It will be with us always.”
Nate wanted desperately to ask his grandfather what the ring meant to him. But Giovanni had already made it clear he wasn’t willing to share that information.
“Can I keep it for a few days?” his grandfather asked.
Mina nodded. “I cannot sell it to you until a year is up, as I’m sure Nate has told you. It was a condition my father made when he bequeathed it to me.”
His grandfather nodded, shut the box and blinked rapidly. Nate stared hard at him as a tear rolled down Giovanni’s weathered face. A fist reached in and clenched his heart. He had never seen Giovanni cry. Not once.
“I am very tired,” said his grandfather. “I hope you will forgive me if I keep our visit short today?”
Nate nodded, his throat tight. “Of course.”
His grandfather clasped his hand around his wrist and drew him close. “She’s lovely. Be happy, Nate.”
He opened his mouth to tell him he would visit again during the week, but the emotion clogging his throat made it impossible.
He rested his forehead against his grandfather’s. “I love you,” he whispered.
Giovanni’s fingers tightened around his. Something ripped loose in Nate’s chest, casting him adrift in a stormy sea that threatened to swallow him whole. He turned and walked out of the room before it did.
* * *
Nate delivered Mina to his penthouse on the fifty-fifth floor of the Grand New York, a marquee space with sweeping vistas of the city. “Let Rosa know if you need anything,” he said, showing her the suite he’d allocated for her.
They were the first words he’d issued since he’d walked out of his grandfather’s house, his emotions too big for his heart to hold.
Leaving her to unpack, he went into his study and stood staring out the window at a gray Manhattan. The rage that rose inside of him was so swift and all-encompassing it blurred his vision. Blinded him to anything but the need to strike back. To escape the pain tearing his insides apart.
A sweep of his hand across his desk sent papers flying: contracts, letters of intent, reports on how much money he was worth. When that wasn’t satisfying enough he picked up his CEO of the Year award and hurled it at the wall. A hand-carved glass paperweight followed it.
Chest heaving, he rested his palms on his desk, hung his head and cursed himself for taking everything for granted. For assuming this charmed life of his, which was in fact a hollow, poor excuse for an existence, could make up for wanting things that had never been his. For keeping his grandfather at a distance when Giovanni had offered him everything his pride would not allow him to take.
The love his father had refused to give him. The chance to belong to something bigger than the lonely existence he had led.
