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Tony shook his head. “You’re being a fool, Mr. Canali. You know that, don’t you?”
Adriano glared at him. “You’re calling me a fool?”
Tony stood his ground. “Someone needs to. Ordinarily, Amy would be the one to put you in your place. But maybe that’s the reason you’re not talking to her. Maybe you know what she would say to you right now and you don’t want to face it.”
There was an uncomfortable amount of truth to that. Even so, Tony was out of line. “Don’t you work for me?” he asked.
“Yeah, I work for you. And Luca works for you. And right now, part of our job is to get you to that picnic.”
“I just don’t see why she wants this,” Adriano said. “She can’t be very happy with me at the moment.”
“I don’t think she is, no. But why would that mean that she wouldn’t talk to you? She’s still having your babies, Mr. Canali. She’s still going to want to discuss that with you. She’s a little smarter than you are, you know.”
Oh, Adriano knew. “She’s a lot smarter than I am,” he said. “That isn’t in doubt at all.”
“So go and talk to her. Let her say what she wants to say. You owe her that much. After everything.”
“I’m sure she’s just going to tell me that she’s leaving. Taking the babies and going back to America.”
“And what if she is? You don’t think that would be a conversation worth having?”
“I’m not open to that possibility,” he said fiercely. “If she takes my children away from me, that’s kidnapping. I’m not going to let that happen.”
“So tell her,” Tony said. “At least that would be better than this silent treatment you’ve been giving her. At least it would be a real conversation about the future. You know those babies are due to be born any day now, don’t you? You have to talk to her. What are you going to do, let her give birth on her own in a hospital an ocean away from her home country, where she doesn’t know anyone?” Tony shook his head. He actually looked a little disgusted.
“You should know that if you’re determined not to be there for her, you can’t expect me to stick to that standard,” he went on. “I’ll be at that hospital if you’re not. She deserves to have someone there for her.”
Adriano sighed. “When did you turn into this person, Tony?”
“I’ve always been there to put you in your place. If it wasn’t for me, you’d never have gotten out of bed after your Barks-Howard’s diagnosis.”
It was probably true. Adriano hesitated. Maybe Tony was someone he could actually confide in, and that was something he needed very badly right now.
“I don’t know if I can face her, Tony,” he said.
“Because you’ve been so awful to her, you mean?”
“All right, fine, if you want to put it that way. Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“It should be put that way. We should call this what it is. You’ve been cold to her.” Tony shook his head. “You owe her the world’s biggest apology for making her go through her pregnancy without you by her side. You’re lucky the staff has been looking after her. You’re lucky we all knew you’d come to your senses—which is what you had better be doing right now. Most people would have told her to run far away from you a long time ago, but she hasn’t.”
“I suppose you’re right about that.”
“You need someone to make you face up to these things,” Tony said. “You can’t keep running from her. You can’t keep avoiding her just because you started out avoiding her. You need to go to her now, while there’s still time, and sort things out between the two of you.”
Adriano closed his eyes. “She’s better off without me,” he said. It was the thing he was most afraid of.
“No,” Tony said firmly. “She isn’t.”
“I could die, Tony. You know that. I have a fatal disease. I was insane for getting myself into this—for gettingherinto this. And those babies. I’ll be gone before they’re grown up. I’ll miss their whole lives. They’ll hardly even remember having a father. It kills me knowing that I’m going to be responsible for that.”
“You’re borrowing trouble. Assuming you’re going to die…”
“You don’t know what it’s been like being sick these past few months,” Adriano said. “You don’t know what it’s like to feel in your bones that there’s something wrong with you. To have to confront your own mortality. You have no idea how that feels.”
“You’re right,” Tony agreed. “I don’t know how that feels.” His voice had become more gentle. “I can’t imagine what it’s like for you. It must be awful. But it’s no excuse to abandon your family. That’s what they are, you know. Amy and those babies—they’re your family. They’re relying on you. Maybe you’re scared of what could happen, but that’s not a good enough reason to back out on them. You have to be there for them for as long as you can, Mr. Canali, whether that’s two years or fifty.”
“You’re right,” Adriano said. “I really need to get into the habit of listening to you.”
