“Let me have it,” he said. “What am I missing?”
She sat up, suddenly feeling edgy and unsettled. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. “This is pure speculation, and I’m sure has no basis in reality.”
He pushed himself up on his elbows, the sheet draped across his thighs, the shadow of a beard darkening his cheeks. It could very well have been the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.
“Okay,” he said, “go ahead.”
“I think...” She paused, giving herself one last chance to reconsider.
“Yes?”
“I think maybe Demitrio is your father.”
Mumbling a curse, he collapsed onto his back. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“So I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already suspect?”
“Knowing my mom dated Demitrio, how could I not? I guess I just never let myself think about it.”
“It would explain a lot of things, like why your grandparents were so rough on your mom. And why you look so much like Demitrio.”
“I want to know, and at the same time I don’t.”
“Knowing who my real father was never benefited me. Of course, mine was an adulterer who knocked up a seventeen-year-old.”
“Maybe it’s time I have a talk with my mom.”
His phone started to ring, and Lucy half expected it to be Sarah. Tony checked the display. “It’s Richard Stark.”
Lucy’s heart skipped a beat. Though it had taken an awful lot of convincing, she had let Tony send her journal to his agent friend. She figured the odds of him actually wanting to represent it were slim to none. He was probably calling to tell them, in so many words, that it sucked.
And what if he isn’t? What if he actually loved it?
“You want to talk to him?” Tony asked.
She wouldn’t have the first clue what to say. “Can you see what he wants?”
He answered the phone. And after a few minutes of random chitchat, Tony’s expression turned serious. For the next minute or two he did a lot of nodding, and said things like “I see” and “If you think that’s best.” And it was obvious, by his grim expression, that the news wasn’t good.
Oh, well, it had been a long shot at best. It was a relief to know that the entire world wouldn’t be privy to her private thoughts, yet a small part of her was just a tiny bit disappointed.
They talked for a minute more, then Tony hung up.
“So,” he said, setting his phone back on the table. “Richard read your journal.”
“And he thought it stank,” she said, holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable rejection.
“He loved it.”
Wait, what? “He does not.”
“Yes, he does.”
No way. She’d barely graduated high school. Writers were college educated and far more worldly than she could ever be. Weren’t they? “You’re screwing with me.”
“He said it was poignant and heartbreaking.”
“No way.”
“He’d like to represent you. He stressed that it was going to be a hard sell, and said not to get your hopes up. He said to think it over and give him a call.”
“Oh my gosh,” she said, feeling as if she were the victim of some elaborate joke. Or sound asleep and dreaming. “This is unbelievable.”
“And I’m not the least bit surprised,” he said. “I’m convinced someone will buy it.”
After so many years of being told by her mom that she would never amount to anything, Lucy had begun to believe her. But here she was, one step closer to possibly being a real published author. She was dizzy with excitement.
“So, will you accept his representation?”
If it meant possibly helping people, how could she not at least try? Proving her mom wrong, that was just the icing on the cake.
“I honestly never imagined something like this could happen to me,” she told Tony.
“Whether or not you believe it, you’re an extraordinary woman, Lucy.”
“Thank you so much,” she said, throwing her arms around him.
“I did nothing. This was all you.”
He couldn’t be more wrong.
She held his face in her hands. “No. Without you, I never would have had the courage to give it to an agent in the first place. You have faith in me, and that gives me faith in myself.”
“From the second I met you, I knew that you were destined for great things,” he said.
It was a little weird, but she was actually starting to believe him.
Twelve
For days Tony debated with himself about what to do. Should he talk to his mom? His dad? Uncle Demitrio? If they had lied to him for this long, what made him think they would tell him the truth now?
His subconscious must have decided for him. After a lunch meeting he left the restaurant and headed back to work. The next thing he knew, he was pulling into his parents’ driveway.
He made a quick call, then walked to the porch. His mom opened the front door before he even had a chance to knock.
“What a nice surprise!” she said, flashing him a megawatt smile. One that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Come in, I just brewed a pot of coffee.”
He followed her into the kitchen. “I’m not thirsty.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “I’ll pour you a cup.”
She scurried from cupboard to cupboard, pulling out cups, then the sugar and milk, even though they both drank their coffee black.
Lucy was like that, never staying in one place for long. Always up and moving, getting things done. Living life with an almost childlike fascination for the world around her. Always finding a silver lining no matter how dark and ominous the overhead clouds were.
Come to think of it, his mom and Lucy were an awful lot alike.
She set a cup of coffee that he wouldn’t drink on the counter beside him, along with the milk and sugar he wouldn’t use. It was amusing in a way, to see her so nervous, since it was such a rare occurrence. But it didn’t bode well for him.
“I suppose Dad told you about the incident at Nonno’s. How Rose said she knows our secrets.”
“I knew from the start that there was something wrong with that woman.” She busied herself filling her cup. “I told your father she’s unstable.”
“Funny you should mention my father,” he said.
They both knew something was up, so why not get to the point? He was a man of few words and this small talk thing they were doing was getting annoying fast.
“Mom, I think you know why I’m here. Why don’t you just say whatever it is you have to say? After all these years, think of what a relief it would be to finally tell me.”
She lifted a trembling hand to cover her mouth, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Is Demitrio my father?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she couldn’t bear to see the look on his face when she nodded and she said, “Yes, he is.”
And here Tony thought he was prepared for this. Was he ever wrong. Thinking it might be true and actually knowing it were two completely different animals. Had it not been for reading Lucy’s journal, he would probably have stormed out by now. The hell she went through really put things in perspective.
Even if the man who had raised him wasn’t his biological father, Tony had never wanted for a thing growing up. He’d been raised by two parents who loved and took care of him. Wasn’t that what mattered?
He heard the front door open and his heart skipped a beat. When his dad and Uncle Demitrio stepped into the room, what little color remained in his mom’s face leached away. Her voice trembling, she asked, “What are you two doing here?”
“I asked them to come,” Tony said. And it was clear, by the stoic look both men wore, that
the jig was up. “We’re going to talk about this. We should have talked about it a long time ago.”
Demitrio and his mom glanced at each other, then quickly looked away. His dad stared at the floor, shaking his head.
Their unwillingness to cooperate set his nerves on edge. “You owe me the truth. Act like the adults you’re supposed to be and talk to each other. Talk to me.”
Demitrio frowned. “Watch your tone.”
He had a lot of nerve issuing orders. Tony strapped down his anger, looked him in the eyes and said, “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I am your father,” he said.
No, Tony realized. He wasn’t. The man who raised him was his real father. Antonio Caroselli Senior. Even if he was absent for the conception. And that would never change.
“I love you, and I think you’re a great guy, but you are not my father. That’s an earned title.”
Demitrio winced. “I didn’t expect that to sting so much.”
He should have considered that thirty-five years ago.
“I had always hoped that one day we could have a father-son relationship,” Demitrio said.
“Maybe, if you hadn’t waited until now to admit the truth, we could have.”
That stung too. Tony could tell.
“We did what we thought was best for you,” his dad said. “It was a complicated situation.”
“Did you know my mom was pregnant when you left?” Tony asked Demitrio.
“Not when I left. But when I heard she was pregnant later, I suspected that you could be mine. But your mom was already married to my brother, so what could I do? I didn’t find out the truth until you were nearly a teenager.”
“If you suspected, you could have asked.”
“But I didn’t. And I will regret that for the rest of my life.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
His dad stepped up to his brother’s side. “If you need to blame someone for this,” his dad said, “blame me. I’m the one who convinced your mom not to tell him. And when the truth did finally come out, I was the one who made Demitrio swear not to tell you. He wanted you to know. And lately he’s been pressuring us to tell you. We weren’t ready.”
“Were you ever going to be ready?”
“You have to understand the position we were in,” his mom said. “We only wanted what was best for you.”
“Lying to me?” Tony asked, anger and resentment dripping from every word. He was trying to keep an open mind, see things from their side, but all he was hearing were hollow excuses. “I’ve yet to hear a single excuse that would indicate you had even a modicum of regard for my feelings. In fact, it sounds a lot like you were just covering your own asses.”
“Were we selfish?” Demitrio said. “Absolutely. Anyone with eyes could see the way you struggled as a teenager. Always there, but slightly in the background. Listening, but not really participating. It was like watching myself. I knew that you needed the stability of a cohesive family. It’s what I believed was best for you. When you were born I was thoughtless, aimless and immature, and until I got my act together I wouldn’t have been any kind of father to you. It would have only complicated your life.”
“And later, when I was an adult?”
“Sweetheart,” his mom said, “you’re a grown man about to become a father. Try putting yourself in our position. Suppose for whatever reason you and Lucy hadn’t reconnected, and fourteen years later you found out you had a child. What would your answer be when she demands to know why you’ve never been there?”
That was a good question. And who was he to judge them? He’d been so totally oblivious that he nearly lost out on the opportunity to know his own child.
When Lucy left, he knew deep down that something was wrong, and he knew he should go after her. If only to be sure that she was all right. He’d been too much of a coward. There was that voice in his head saying she was with someone else. Someone better. So of course the logical solution was to find someone else too. A kind of so there.
What a horrible mistake that had turned out to be. His parents weren’t perfect. But he did know they loved him, and he had to trust them. He had to give himself time to be angry and resentful, then accept the past and get over it.
“Is this why the two of you have been at each other’s throats?” Tony asked.
Demitrio nodded. “I’ve been pushing your parents to tell you.”
“But I knew something was going on with you,” his mom said. “Call it a mother’s intuition. I wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something.
That must have been right around the time that Lucy left, the most retched couple of months of his life. What would have happened had they, on top of that, tossed in an uncle who was really a biological father. He shuddered to think.
“It was wrong the way I acted,” Demitrio told them, head hung in contrition. “I overstepped my bounds. I was presumptuous and arrogant in my belief that I knew what was better for him. Clearly I did not.”
“None of this would be happening if it wasn’t for me,” his mom said, her eyes tearing up. “I should have told you the truth from the start. I’m so sorry, Demitrio.”
This was shifting in a direction Tony would rather not travel. “It sounds as if you three need some time to talk,” he told them.
“Will you ever forgive us?” his mom asked, looking so distraught he had to smile.
“Of course,” he said, putting his arms around her and squeezing hard. His dad put his arms around the both of them. Standing a few feet away, Demitrio looked outcast and alone, and a tightness in Tony’s chest eased.
“Bring it in,” he told Demitrio, gesturing him over. Demitrio hesitated, then moved in closer, wrapping his arms around all three of them.
He was going to follow Lucy’s lead this time and focus on what was most important. The other stuff could wait. Right now, he just wanted to go home and hug the woman of his dreams. The mother of his baby.
The love of his life.
Thirteen
Lucy and Tony’s wedding day turned out to be the most magical day of her life.
She’d never been to a formal wedding, nor had she ever expected to get married, so she was totally clueless when it came to the task of planning one. But Sarah and Tony’s sisters Chris and Elana, and Nick’s sister Jessica, were more than happy to do it all for her. And they spared no expense.
With the help of a wedding planner, they transformed the backyard of his parent’s mansion, which sat on the shore of Lake Michigan, into a vision of satin swags, delicate pink roses, and twinkling, miniature white lights. As Tony’s parents walked with her down the aisle, one on either side, she felt a little like Cinderella on her way to the ball. And with her due date only a week away, a hugely pregnant one.
When Lucy saw Tony waiting for her at the steps of the gazebo dressed in a tuxedo, looking more handsome than she’d ever seen him, her heart felt like it would burst with happiness.
They spoke their vows at sunset, the waves of Lake Michigan crashing against the shore behind them. As they exchanged rings, and kissed for the first time as man and wife, Lucy knew without a doubt that she had found her happily ever after.
After the ceremony, Tony’s parents threw them a reception in their backyard. First came a delicious, four-course meal, then the cutting of the cake, then she and Tony were called onto the dance floor for their first official dance. After that, in true Caroselli form, the reception turned into a bash. The alcohol flowed, and a DJ blasted dance music over enormous speakers. When the neighbors enquired about the noise, they were invited to join in. By the time Lucy helped Nonno to the spare bedroom to rest later that evening, she was pretty sure half the neighborhood was there.
It was the perfect wedding. The perfect day.
Right up until the second that it wasn’t anymore.
Lucy was on her way back outside when she ran into Carrie, Rob’s wife, just outside the bedroom. She was blonde and pretty and nearly as petite as Lucy, with a cute little baby bump under a formfitting top.
Other than the occasional, obligatory greeting at family functions, she and Lucy avoided each other. They never spoke of it, but it was obvious that Carrie held Lucy responsible for what happened to Alice.
“Nice wedding,” Carrie told her, and though she sounded sincere, there was something in her eyes, the way she was looking at Lucy, that set Lucy’s nerves on edge.
“Much nicer than his last wedding,” Carrie added.
This was ridiculous. Like it or not they were family now. Couldn’t they find a way to bury the hatchet?
“Carrie, I know you don’t like me, and I don’t blame you for feeling that way.”
“That’s charitable of you,” Carrie said, not even trying to hide her disapproval.
“For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry about what happened to Alice.”
“Getting dumped at the altar, you mean? Call me crazy, but you sure didn’t look sorry. Alice on the other hand was devastated.”
Twist the knife a little deeper. Oh, yeah, this was not shaping up to be a pleasant conversation. Maybe tonight was the wrong time to bring this up. Maybe the sad truth was that she and Carrie would never get past this.
“I should get back outside,” Lucy said, hoping that would be the end of it. But when she tried to leave, Carrie stepped in her way.
“Do you know what you’re having?” she asked, but there was something dark and calculating in her expression. What was she up to?
“I wanted it to be a surprise, but I’m pretty sure it’s a boy. I feel like it is.”
“I’ll bet Tony is pretty happy about that.”
“Sure.” What man wouldn’t be excited about having a son? Though she was sure he would be just as happy with a daughter.
“So how does it feel to be walking around with thirty million dollars in your belly?”
Lucy frowned, getting a very bad feeling. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
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