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CHAPTER 22
Isabella
Ishut off the hot water spray and felt a twinge of discomfort as I reached for the towel, just out of reach on the counter. My body ached in places I didn’t know it could ache. But since my discomfort was the consequence of two of the best nights of my life, I wasn’t complaining.
The terrycloth brushed against my fingertips as I heard my phone vibrate from the bedroom. My foot almost slid out from beneath me as I scrambled to answer the call. Excitement filled me as I rushed into the next room. For some inexplicable reason I was sure that it was Jimmy.
When I saw the name that appeared on my screen, a cold bucket of ice water was dumped over my enthusiasm.
For a moment I thought it must be a mistake. My father was calling me. Not one of his three assistants. It was the man himself. His private number. The one that I was told to only use in life or death emergencies. The one that I’d never seen appear on my screen.
My stomach rumbled and it had nothing to do with the three cinnamon rolls I’d scarfed down this morning. I always got nervous when I had interactions with my father. I knew that might not be how other people responded when they spoke to their parents, but to be fair, other people didn’t have Miles Santini as a father.
Steeling myself, I took a deep breath and pressed the green answer icon. “Hello.”
“What are you doing in Georgia?”
I blinked at his harsh tone. He was displeased with me; his inflection left no room for interpretation on that point. I’d never gone anywhere without telling him before, so I assumed his irritation must be due to that.
“I’m visiting Mrs. B. She was my nanny before mom died.”
There was silence over the phone. My knee-jerk reaction was to fill the silence by explaining myself. But I was done worrying about making sure other people were comfortable. I’d done that all my life and it was exhausting. My father called me. If he had something to say, then he needed to say it. If not, he could hang up.
After at least a full minute, which felt longer than I would’ve thought, he spoke. “When will you be home?”
“I don’t know. I have twelve weeks of vacation time.”
The only reason I had three months of vacation time and not nine months was because I’d lost the rest due to our rollover policy. I’d been working for my father since I was eighteen. I’d worked for him while I attended college since ninety percent of my classes were online. It wasn’t by choice. My preference would’ve been to go to school fulltime, but he’d refused to pay for my education unless I did things his way.
Not that I didn’t appreciate not having student loans, but I was just tired of doing things his way.
And my new independence wasn’t about the money I’d inherited. It had never been about the money. I’d honestly wanted to have a good relationship with my father. He was the only family I had, and I’d really hoped that one day we would get to know each other and maybe even be close. I’d twisted myself into a pretzel trying to fit the mold of what I assumed he wanted in a daughter. But it was never enough. I never quite fit. Or even came close to fitting.
And now, I was done wasting time trying to be something that I wasn’t, or attempting to make someone love me, even if it was my father. I couldn’t live for other people anymore. I just didn’t have the time to waste.
Which was why I’d decided to take my vacation time, finally. In the eight years I’d worked for Santini Industries, I’d never even called in sick. I hadn’t ever wanted it to seem like I was getting preferential treatment as the boss’s daughter. Not that anyone thought that.
Miles Santini spoke to me less than he did any of his other executives. He barely acknowledged my existence at all. For a while, I’d convinced myself that his reason for ignoring my existence was to avoid the appearance of nepotism, but since he spoke to me even less when I lived at home, I knew that wasn’t the case.
“I’m in London next week,” he stated.
“Okay.”
“I’d like to see you before I go.”
My jaw dropped. He’d never said that he wanted to see me before. My first impulse was to get on the next plane home. But that was the old Isabella. The new Isabella was in control of my life, whatever life I had left. I wasn’t going to jump at the chance to get a scrap of attention from a man that had never seemed to want to have anything to do with me.
“Well, if I’m not back by then, it’s only a two-hour flight to Firefly.”
I heard an audible exhale, and then the line went dead. No goodbye. No I love you. Just no longer on the phone.
As much as I tried not to let it affect me, I couldn’t deny the sting of rejection that I felt. It had always been that way with my father. I would tell myself he wasn’t worth being upset over, but inevitably it would take me a few days to repair the damage to my self-worth that he could inflict in a matter of seconds.
But this time, I did find it a little easier than I had in the past. That could be because my diagnosis had given me a new outlook on life, on time, and I just wasn’t going to allow a second of my happiness to be stolen from me. Or it could be because I was a different person now than I had been a week ago. Either way, I had my diagnosis to thank for my ability to bounce back so much easier and faster than I ever had before.
I pulled out my list and counted how many of the 172 things I’d already crossed off. I’d lived more in the past ten days than I had in the past quarter of a century.
My phone rang again and again my heart skipped like a girl playing double Dutch in hopes that it would be one Mr. Jimmy Comfort.
