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So, I almost missed it when my father quietly said, “I promised your mother.”
That was the last thing that I’d expected him to say. The high that I’d just been riding, crashed. “My mother?”
He nodded and sat back up, rested his forearms on the desk, then leaned forward.
“She had conditions, and she made me promise to abide by them.”
“Conditions?”
“Yes. When she was diagnosed you were four—”
“Four? That’s when you left.” I’d never thought that highly of the man who had contributed half of my DNA, but any respect I’d had for him just went down the drain.
“I didn’t leave, Isabella. I loved your mother.” His jaw ticked and something even more surprising than me besting him in a conversational showdown occurred. A tear appeared in his eye. He sniffed and cleared his throat. “I still love your mother. She kicked me out. She didn’t want me to get even more attached than I was. There was no talking any sense into that woman. When she made her mind up about something, that was it. She wouldn’t hear reason.”
Raw pain. Devastating heartache. Active grief. And undying love. That is what I saw in my father’s eyes. I’d never seen any emotion in them before and now I saw so much, it broke my heart.
“She had conditions for how you were to be raised. And even conditions for after you were an adult. I’ve done my best to fulfill them.”
“Was one of the conditions you not having a relationship with me?” I could hear the pain in my voice. Pain that I hadn’t even known I had.
My father flinched at my question. It took me a moment to recognize the response. If someone would have told me that I’d see Miles Santini flinch, and not only that, but also that I was the one to cause it, I would have told them that they were crazy.
“No. I’m to blame for that. It’s just…” He sniffed and using his forefinger and thumb, he wiped beneath his eyes. “It’s your eyes. You have her eyes. I can’t look at you and not see her.”
I sat, speechless, at my father’s response. That was why he’d been so distant? Because I reminded him so much of my mother. Just like the reason that Jennings had taken a special interest in Cheyenne. Or Miss Shaw’s affection for Jimmy, who was the spitting image of his uncle.
All these relationships had nothing to do with Jimmy, or Cheyenne, or me. They were all predicated on what we made people feel when they looked at us. My father not loving me, not having any interest in me, wasn’t anything I’d caused. So there was no way it was my fault. I knew, in that moment, that I’d always believed it truly was.
As that epiphany sank in, I asked the next question I wanted an answer to. “Was one of her conditions paying off people I’m seeing?”
My father’s chin dropped. It was the slightest of movements but one that I’d been trained to recognize thanks to studying the master of negotiation himself for all these years. That tiny action was a sign of defeat.
“No. That was me, as well. I was trying to protect you. All I’ve ever done; I’ve done to protect you.” The sincerity in his voice and stare was powerful.
For whatever reason, I believed him. “Protect me? From what, having a boyfriend?”
“From having the wrong boyfriend. This world is a cruel, hard place. And I’ve made a lot of enemies. I didn’t want someone using you to get to me. And, besides, any man who would take money to stop seeing you, even if they weren’t part of a larger scheme, is not a person you want in your life.”
Damn. As much as I didn’t appreciate his methods, I couldn’t argue with that conclusion, or his intent. Or the underlying reasons.
“Now, can I ask you something?”
He was actually getting my permission to ask me something? I felt like I had walked into the Twilight Zone or some sort of alternate universe.
“Yes.” I nodded, still reeling from my entire world shifting in the past sixty seconds.
“What is it going to take for you to rescind your resignation? What do you want?”
I knew what I wanted, I just wasn’t sure if I was too late to get it.
