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He came to a stop and swiveled around on his booted feet while he pinned her with his stare. “What’s wrong?” he asked, and frowned when she stopped directly in front of him.
The minute she’d left Dante, Emelia knew that it was time to find her mom and ask what she knew, even though it filled Emelia with a strange mixture of hope and fear. She had to, and she had to do it now because Dante was tortured with his feelings for her. It wouldn’t change the fact that he was a priest, but it would take the sister element away. Her only hope was that Dante would listen afterwards.
“Emelia,” Eric gripped her shoulders, “snap out of it and answer me. What’s going on?”
“I’m going to find my mom and talk to her, now. I have to. Can you distract Dad?”
“Wow, slow down.”
She caught her breath and admitted, “I’ve just spoken to Dante about that night, and I need to tell him everything, but I can’t until I’ve talked to my mom, so please distract Dad. Chances are they’ll be together somewhere.”
Eric sighed. “I’ve been thinking about this, and I think it’s best if he’s present as well because it concerns them both.”
Of course it did.
She’d been so concentrated on just talking to her mom that she hadn’t really entertained the thought of talking to them both. Her mom was the easier one to talk to and always had been, but she loved them both and really did need answers. Emelia nodded her head. “You’re right.”
Eric chuckled. “I always am.”
Emelia rolled her eyes and elbowed him in the stomach. “I will never say those words again to you.”
“C’mon, let’s find them.” He shook his head, and turned her back around.
Her feet felt lighter as she moved closer to their father’s office because, although talking to Dante had embarrassed her something wicked, he’d given her the confidence to talk, and ask for the truth.
Eric knocked on the office door and waited to be given permission to enter. There weren’t many rules in the house, but just walking into their father’s office was one of them.
“We need to talk to you both,” Eric said on entering. “Is now a good time?”
She felt on display as her mom and dad stared at them before her dad asked, “Is everything okay?”
“I just need to ask you something, and I want Eric with me,” Emelia added, and took a seat on the sofa beside Eric.
“This is why you’re both here at the same time, and it’s nothing to do with your wedding?” Lucia stated while looking at Eric.
“That’s right,” Eric confirmed.
As though her mother
sensed that it was her who needed to speak, she turned in Emelia’s direction. “Emelia, honey.” She smiled, offering encouragement like she’d done all Emelia’s life.
Emelia cleared her throat and debated where or even how to start the conversation, but settled on her eighteenth birthday.
“Just after I turned eighteen,” she paused, and fidgeted with the purple polish on her nails when she realized the room was so quiet you’d hear a pin drop, “I’d gone looking for Mom.”
Eric took her hand and squeezed, she smiled and continued, “I found her, but you were both arguing, and then you started talking about someone dying. So I didn’t let you know I was there. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Her mom paled, and grasped the necklace at her throat while holding her husband’s gaze before she looked back to Emelia. “Go on.”
“I need to know if what I heard is true? Did Francesca, Eric’s mom, beg you both to marry while she was...sick? Is it true that dad isn’t my biological father? What really happened back then?” Emelia gushed everything out so quickly that she wasn’t sure if she’d been coherent.
That was until she looked at her parents, and realized that they’d heard everything she’d said. They both sat in shock, and the tears on her mother’s face made her heart hurt. She knew that there would be tears, but it hurt knowing that she was the cause.
She had to keep telling herself that she hadn’t caused the mess, because it had already been decided before she’d even been born.
Her father walked around his desk and pulled his wife up and into his arms. “It’s alright, honey,” he consoled her before he pulled her down with him on the opposite sofa. “My name is on your birth certificate,” he whispered, his voice husky with tears.
“You’ll always be my father. A piece of paper will never change that, but I do need to know the truth.” She wiped at a tear, and hoped that she wouldn’t continue to be a faucet.
