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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DOMINIC
Before I left for the airport to take the red-eye to JFK, I paid my brother a visit. He was working over at Espo 1, but he agreed to sit down and hear what I had to say.
Gio swirled the ice in his water glass as he listened, and I felt ten years of guilt being lifted off my chest. I wished I’d told him all the details long ago. About me, about Beth, about why I needed to fly to the other side of the country and face the man I’d wronged. A phone call simply wouldn’t do, not if we were going to have any real closure.
When I was done talking, he exhaled thickly, crossed his arms, and sat back in his chair.
“You’ll be back on Friday?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’ll land in New York early in the morning, rent a car, drive out to Long Island, and wait for Steven to show up. My return flight will be the following morning.”
“And you’re sure you know where to find him?”
“He bounces around a lot, but according to Jay’s PI friend, he moved into a rental house in Levittown a few months back.”
Gio raised an eyebrow. “And the girls?”
“I assume they’re with their dad,” I answered, meeting his gaze without a waver.
“Right,” he said softly. He looked sad. “That’s rough, two young girls losing their mother at such a young age.”
“And there’s no Donna to step in and help,” I reminded him. “We were lucky.”
A smile crossed his face. “Yeah, we were lucky.”
I stood up when Gio did. The dining room was getting busier as the dinner hour progressed, but the staff had known enough to leave us alone here in the corner.
“Have you checked in downtown yet?” he asked, referring to Espo 2.
“Briefly,” I said, not really caring to elaborate on the chilly reception I’d gotten from Melanie when I asked her if she could handle everything at the restaurant for a few days because I needed to leave town for reasons I didn’t have time to explain. Her scowl deepened as she realized I wouldn’t be offering details, and she was too proud to ask for them point-blank.
The thing was, I knew I owed Melanie the complete story, not just a hasty couple of sentences. More than that, I owed her the truth about my heart’s intentions, but I needed to do it the right way. I couldn’t just bark some words at her in the back office of Espo 2 before I ran out with my carry-on bag.
Melanie didn’t come willingly when I tried to hug her before I left. I didn’t push her. My eyes tried to plead my case, but she wouldn’t look at me directly.
Just believe in me, honey. I’ll make everything right.
“I’ll be back,” I told her, in my head sounding more like the Terminator than a guy making a promise to the girl he was wild about.
“I’ll be here,” she said, but the challenge in her face made me wonder if she really would be here. Maybe I’d already squandered what we could have had. If only I’d gotten my head out of my ass sooner.
I wanted to grab her up in a kiss that covered my lack of words, but she crossed her arms defiantly like she might bite me if I tried. So instead of a real kiss, I pressed two fingers to my lips and then quickly, before she could react, I reached over and brushed her lips with my fingertips. I left without saying anything else.
Gio didn’t need to hear about those specifics, but I did have one favor to ask of him before I left.
“Do something for me while I’m in New York?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You know I will.”
“Tell Melanie that I left her something in the bottom drawer of her desk. I know she never looks in there, because I found a bag of expired Doritos and a Bath & Body Works coupon from August. Just make sure you tell her I left her something. Tell her tomorrow.”
He was puzzled. “Why all the James Bond nonsense? You could just text her from New York tomorrow and tell her yourself.”
Of course I could. But Melanie and Gio needed to have their own conversation. I knew Melanie respected my brother enormously, and it bothered her that we’d started a relationship without his blessing. This seemed like a good opportunity for them to clear the air.
Gio stroked his chin and leveled me with a serious look. “It’s real, isn’t it? You and Melanie.”
