The Kiss Thief(39)
Mom bit her lower lip when she realized it sounded a lot like an accusation, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. She did that a lot. I chucked it to her low self-esteem after years of being married to my father.
“Of course, Angelo will move on.” She swatted the air.
“Think before you speak, Sofia. It would serve you well,” he advised.
When the grandfather clock chimed for the second time that evening—announcing it was eight o’clock—we moved to the dining room and began to eat our starters. I did not make any excuses for Wolfe since all my text messages to him went unanswered. My heart was soggy with shame and drenched with disappointment at the humiliation of being stood up by the man who ripped me from my family.
The three of us ate with our heads bowed down. The clinking of the salt and pepper shakers and utensils unbearably loud against the silence in the room. My mind drifted back to the notes in the wooden box. I had decided that this was all a mistake. Senator Keaton couldn’t be the love of my life.
The hate of my life? Absolutely.
Anything more than that was a stretch.
When Clara served us the reheated entrees shortly before the doorbell rang, instead of feeling relieved, more dread poured into me, heavy like lead. The three of us put our forks down and exchanged glances. What now?
“Well, then! That’s a pleasant surprise.” Mama clapped her hands once.
“No more than cancer.” My father patted the sides of his mouth with a napkin.
Wolfe came in a short minute later in a tailored suit, black raven hair tousled to a fault, and a purposeful expression that flirted with menace.
“Senator Keaton,” Papa sneered, not looking up from his dish of homemade lasagna. “I see you finally decided to grace us with your presence.”
Wolfe dropped a casual kiss on the crown of my head, and I hated the way silken satin wrapped around my heart and squeezed it with delight. I despised him for being so late and careless and myself for foolishly melting just because of the way his lips felt on my hair. My father watched the scene from the corner of his eye, one side of his mouth upturned in amused satisfaction.
You’re miserable, Francesca, aren’t you? His eyes taunted.
Yes, Papa. Yes, I am. Good job.
“What took you so long?” I whisper-shouted, bumping Wolfe’s hard thigh with my own underneath the table as he took a seat.
“Business,” he clipped, flapping his napkin over his lap in a whip-sharp movement and taking a generous sip of his wine.
“So, not only do you work all day,” my father launched into the conversation in full swing, sitting back and knotting his fingers together on the table, “but you’re sending off my daughter to college now. Are you planning on providing us with grandchildren anytime this decade?” he inquired flatly, not giving a damn this way or the other. I saw through my father’s behavior and knew without a shadow of a doubt this was not only about my college education.
In the time that passed between my leaving the house and now, he’d had the chance to process everything.
Wolfe Keaton’s future children, no matter how much of the Rossi blood ran in their veins, would never inherit Papa’s business. Senator Keaton would not let it happen. And so, my marriage to Wolfe not only killed his dream of a perfect little daughter raising beautiful, well-behaved, ruthless children, but it also killed his legacy. My father was slowly beginning to disconnect from me emotionally to protect his own heart from hurting, yet he was breaking mine to pieces in the process.
My gaze darted to Wolfe, who glanced at his Cartier, visibly waiting for dinner to be over.
“Ask your daughter. She’s in charge of her school schedule. And her womb.”
“Quite true, to my utter disappointment. Women need real men to tell them what they want. Left to their own devices, they are bound to make reckless mistakes.”
“Real men don’t shit bricks when their wives gain higher education and the basic power to survive without them, pardon my language.” Wolfe chewed a mouthful of lasagna, signaling me with his hand to pass him the pepper. He was in hostile territory, looking as cool as a cucumber.
“Alrighty, now,” Mama chortled, tapping my father’s hand from across the table. “Has anyone heard the latest gossip about the governor’s wife’s latest facelift? Word around town is she looks permanently surprised and not by his tax scandal.”
“What will you be studying, Francesca?” Papa turned his attention to me, cutting into Mama’s speech. “Surely, you don’t actually believe you can become a lawyer.”
I accidentally dropped my fork onto my lasagna. Small splashes of tomato flew on my yellow dress. I dabbed at the stains with a napkin, swallowing a pool of saliva that gathered in my mouth.
“You can’t even eat a damn meal without making a mess,” my father pointed out, stabbing his lasagna with unabashed violence.
“That’s because my father is belittling me in front of my fiancé and mother.” I squared my shoulders. “Not because I’m incapable.”
“You are of average IQ, Francesca. You can become a lawyer but probably not a good one. And you haven’t worked a day in your life. You would make a lazy intern and get fired. Wasting everyone’s time and resources, including your own. Not to mention, the opportunity you’d receive being Senator Keaton’s wife could go to someone who actually deserves the job. Nepotism is America’s number-one disease.”