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“Why?” When that eyebrow quirked again, she sighed with exasperation. “It doesn’t make sense. I have a few dates with Roman while I’m engaged to Enzo, and no one questions his right to break it off because of that. And it’s not like I—I mean…” She stammered to a halt, cheeks as hot as if she really were stirring a bubbling pot, but then she pushed on. “But what if he had been the one to have a few dinners with someone else—to kiss someone else? Would I have had the right to end it, or would everyone have told me I was being silly?”
The muscle in Papa’s jaw flexed as he set his cup down again. “Bina, I know women are all about being equal with men these days, ever since you got the vote, but there are some things that will never change. Men and women are just made differently.”
Tears threatened. Her hands fell limp at her sides. “So you wouldn’t care if I married a man and then you caught him at one of your bordellos.”
Papa’s sigh said he was tired of this line of talk. “If it was Enzo? Yes, I’d be angry, because it would contradict everything he says he stands for. If it were Roman or someone like him, it wouldn’t be a surprise. But there is a certain amount of discretion I expect. If he made a fool of you publicly, then yes, I would care. I would care very much. No one hurts my bambina.”
No one? Then why was he doing it even now? A drop of brine spilled out of each eye, and she turned away again.
Papa’s hands closed over her shoulders. He stepped in front of her and gathered her into his arms. “Ti amu, Sabina.”
“I know, Papa.” And she did. That had never, in all her life, been a question. Everything he did was for the family. When he said he’d do anything to protect her, he meant anything. She was just beginning to understand that. He would lie, cheat, bribe, steal. Kill.
It was love. But it was a love that suddenly weighed the world. Her shoulders sagged with it. “I love you, too.” Her words emerged as a whisper, and she wondered if her love weighed just as much to him, to Lorenzo. A burden instead of wings.
A few more tears escaped her eyes on her way up to her room.
