AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We all quieted. Maybe none of us could be (or wanted to be) classified as “ladies,” but Nonna certainly did. And where she stood clutching the edge of the hutch, she looked awfully pale.
Matthew turned back to Xavier.
“Part of me would like nothing more than to give you the beating you deserve for what you did to my sister and my niece,” he informed him. “But my grandmother likes a clean floor, and I doubt she’d appreciate it painted with your blood. So here’s the deal. One wrong move—just one—and I’ll haul your ass outside and continue this lesson for the whole neighborhood to see. We clear?”
Xavier just stared down at Matthew with a murderous blue glare, but wisely remained where he was behind me, rubbing the side of his mouth. I had a feeling that if he wanted, he’d be able to give Matthew just as good as he got, and the tic in his jaw told me he was dying to try.
But this wasn’t about the two of them. There were bigger fish to fry.
“Come here,” I told him. “I promise my brother will behave. Won’t you?” I said sharply.
Matthew just flexed his hand. “Him first.”
“I have apologies to make,” Xavier said. “To all of you. I know that. But in my defense, I did only just learn I had a daughter about five months ago. Maybe almost six now.”
Around the table, there was a collective gasp. Matthew took a step back like he was the one who’d been punched.
“Six months ago,” he muttered before his eyes opened wide and turned to me. “The Christmas party. When you saw him again…that’s when you told him, didn’t you?”
The others’ heads swiveled toward me.
I swallowed, nodded, and absorbed their incriminating stares. I had nothing to justify here. I had done what I thought was best for Sofia, yes. But I was wrong. I knew it, and I wouldn’t deny it.
“And since then…” Matthew shook his head. “It’s been a hell of a lot more than a couple of emails and some flowers, hasn’t it?”
I flapped my hands nervously. “I—yeah. He’s been coming around a bit for the last few months. He and Sofia have been getting to know each other without all the pressure of…” I drifted off with a toss of my hand.
Matthew shook his head, then flopped backward into one of the empty chairs at the table.
“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t know either,” Joni told him as she rubbed his shoulder.
Behind her, Marie snorted.
“You’re damn right, we didn’t,” said Lea as she got up and went to guide Nonna to a chair. Nonna just batted her away, content to remain where she was at the hutch, like a cat keeping its exit at the ready.
Matthew kept running a hand through his hair, staring at the wall like he was seeing a ghost.
“I had no idea,” he said, more to himself than to anyone. “All that time—right under my nose. You—Jesus, Frankie, you never said a word. Not about him. Or that you didn’t tell him. Or that he’s been around…Christ.”
The guilt that had been cramped in my gut for months bloomed into a full-on knot. I knew he wasn’t saying anything more because of the secrets he had kept about his own personal life. But that didn’t mean it was okay. We were supposed to be family. Family didn’t lie like this.
“How about Sofia?” Kate wondered. “Does she know now?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. We planned to tell her today. But Xavier arrived before they got back from the park, and you know how the neighbors would gossip if he just sat there…”
Immediately, all my sisters nodded their heads. We’d all been victims of the neighborhood gossip chain from time to time.
“I’m confused,” Lea said sharply. “Why haven’t you told Sofia before us? Don’t you think that she, of all people, deserves to know she has a dad?”
“Of course she does,” I said. “And we were going to, until, well, she went to the park, and Xavi’s here, and what else were we supposed to do? Go for a walk?”
Everyone seemed to think that would have been exactly the right thing to do.
I pouted. “Well, we didn’t. And now you know. So when she gets back from the park, Xavi and I are going to take her out for gelato and tell her honestly, all right? And none of you are going to get in the way of that. Do you understand?”
“Oh,” Lea said. “You’re Xavi. You know, when I heard her telling the boys about her new friend Xavi the other week, I thought she meant someone from school. Not a full-grown man who looks like David Gandy.”
“Oh my God, he does,” Joni tittered, though she only received a dirty look from Marie for her efforts.
