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“We spent every minute together for two weeks until she said she was heading north. I was besotted with her, but knew I’d never see her again if she left, so I proposed. She was stunned, refused on the spot, left the next day. So I followed her, all over Europe. My mother and uncles were enraged. I’d just taken my father’s place in the family law firm, which I’d trained all my life to do, and I left them in the lurch. Then Luanne finally succumbed and we got married in France, but when we went home, no one was happy. Not only had my desertion caused the firm irredeemable losses, but I was supposed to marry to benefit the family. But I wanted none of that. I told them I wouldn’t take my father’s place permanently, that I wanted to leave and be with Luanne and the baby we knew by then we’d made. You, my darling girl.”
Her throat tightening with every word, she leaned closer into Antonio, who intensified his hold on her as if protecting her from her father’s revelations.
Her father went on, his gaze looking backward in time. “My mother told me Luanne wasn’t wife material, would make a terrible mother, that I’d destroy my life and yours if I remained with her. Luanne hated my mother, too, hated all the Accardis and their elitism, hated being in Venice, and in what she called a moldy dwelling fit only for monsters and ghosts.
“When our stay in Venice lengthened and Luanne gave birth to you while I took care of the problems my absence caused, she started believing I’d never stand up for myself or for you, that I’d remain under my family’s boot forever. To prove that only she and you mattered, I set a date for when I’d leave it all behind and go back with her to the States.
“At first, she was ecstatic. But as your first birthday neared and I was getting ready to leave, she began asking me what I would do there while she worked. Stay home and raise you? I knew nothing but the law, but I wouldn’t be able to continue that in the States. My family threatened to disown me if I left them again, which would have left me penniless, but I didn’t care. Then on your first birthday, Luanne told me she no longer wanted me, that I was suffocating her, that she wanted me and my family out of her life. Out of yours, too.
“I was convinced she was suffering from prolonged and severe postpartum depression. I told her so and she broke down. She wept and wept and begged me to let her go. My heart broke, but I couldn’t reach her. I could only say that whatever happened between us, I would remain your father. I had rights to you, and you had a right to me. Her misery deepened as she asked how I would be your father across continents. What would it do to you, always waiting for a father who’d come only when my family let me go? How many times a year would that be and for how long? I insisted I’d manage something regular, but she thought it would only keep her and you in purgatory forever.
“After I failed to soothe her and her health declined, I was forced to grant her a divorce, but I gave her all the money I had. I wanted her to buy a beautiful house in an upscale neighborhood, to have enough money to bring you up in luxury, so she never had to work too hard and could be with you more. Problem was, only a portion of the money was mine. The rest was family funds. I thought I’d manage paying it back before anyone found out, but they did.
“They went after her for the money and things escalated. I was helpless to stop it from spiraling into an ugly legal fight. During the proceedings, my family even tried to get custody of you, claiming she was unbalanced. That was when she told me she never wanted to see me again, that she’d already told you I didn’t want to see you, and that my family were horrible people who wanted to throw you out on the streets. I still came regularly through the years, trying to see you, but she wouldn’t let me. She said you were stable and hardworking and the last thing you needed was the upheaval of my erratic presence and the influence of my evil family.
“By the time you became an adult and I could approach you without her consent, you’d had too many years without knowing me. I knew she’d turn it into a fight over you, causing you the upheaval she said she protected you from. I felt I already failed you, so... I gave up.
“When she became ill, I installed a lump sum in a new account in her name, asked her attorney and bank to let you think it was a backup plan she always had, and gave you full control of it, so her care didn’t burden you, at least financially. Dio mio, figlia mia, my daughter, I wanted to be there for you, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to blame her for anything in her condition. But the moment I heard of her death, I had to try again. She wasn’t there to be hurt if your opinion of her changed, or for you to be torn between us. And...here we are.”
It all added up. Knowing her mother, Lili accepted this as a plausible explanation. It shed a new, understandable light on the Accardis and a favorable one on her father.
Before she could get any words past the vise gripping her throat, her father bent over her, taking her hands in his. “I don’t ask that you forgive me for not fighting harder to be your father. I only hope you’ll give me the chance to be in your life now, in any way. Like your future groom, I believe you deserve only the best, and I hope you’ll give me the privilege of doing my best to provide you with it.”
And she found herself in his arms, hugging him and being hugged by him, the father she’d never had, but would now have for as long as life allowed them.
After her father deluged her in apologies, and obtained her promise to let him into
her life, she turned to Antonio. He was on his feet, muscles bunched, gaze pinned on them.
Unable to read his expression, she reached out to him.
He at once claimed her to his side, wincing down at her. “Mi amore, your tears kill me, even ones of happiness.”
Blubbering a laugh, she wrapped her arms around him. “You’ll have to withstand those. It’s not every day that I get my father back.” She met his turbulent gaze and smiled, asking him silently for his blessing.
As he took her trembling lips, he murmured against them for her ears only. “He can call me Antonio.”
Whooping with delight, she invited her father closer, hugging him with her other arm. “You can call him Antonio.”
Realizing the significance of that, her father poured jubilation all over them. After getting confirmations that they’d make use of him in their wedding preparations, and anything else, for life, he led them back to where the Accardis awaited them en masse.
Entering the ballroom tucked into Antonio’s protection, Lili boggled at the number of polished elites who queued to introduce themselves.
Not that she thought their regard had anything to do with her. They were here at her father’s demand, to make a grand gesture in his atonement campaign. But all the awe everyone exhibited was on Antonio’s behalf.
The night blurred from then on. The only thing she registered clearly was Antonio’s simmering intensity. He might have sanctioned her father’s story and had acquitted him of being a cold-blooded deserter, but it was clear the Accardis hadn’t passed his test.
Then suddenly, the unease she felt in Antonio spiked to something else. Something darker.
Trying to understand why, she paid extra attention to the people who’d just come forward, but she found nothing different about them.
Before she could probe the situation further, her father pulled her away while Antonio remained held back by the newcomers.
As she greeted two more of her father’s cousins twice removed, her focus remained on Antonio as he frowned at those who thronged around him. Then one of the two men said something to her that made her give him her full attention.
“You’ll go down in the annals of our family history as the one who saved us all, Lili.” At her incomprehension, he elaborated, “As you may know, our family businesses are intertwined, and over a year ago, some bad stock market decisions led to a domino effect in all our holdings. Dr. Balducci, through his Black Castle division, offered to bail us out, saving us from the impasse—that has since regretfully worsened—in return for acquiring our major ancestral assets.”
The other man nodded. “We two were the ones charged with conveying the family’s decision to turn down his offer. The damned family rules dictate those assets stay within the family at any cost. I can’t tell you how relieved everyone is now that we can finally accept his offer, since he will be family shortly.”
