He flinched. Those were his words—something he’d said in an interview years ago, projecting the image his father wanted. A man who didn’t care about anything.
“I said that when I was twenty.” His voice was quiet. “They just printed it again. I don’t mean it, not anymore.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” She was crying openly now, tears dripping onto Violet’s blanket. “All I knew was what I read. The scandals, the women. I imagined your family finding out. Lawyers at my door. Custody battles with Violet caught in the middle. I saw her being labeled a scandal, a mistake, something to be managed.”
“So you never contacted me.” He said it slowly, the reality settling into his bones. “You found out who I was, and you never tried.”
“What would I have said?” Her laugh was hollow. “Hi, we met at a club. You probably don’t remember me, but I’m having your baby? You’d have thought I was after your money.”
He watched her face—the defiance underneath the fear, the fierce protectiveness in every line of her body. She’d chosen to raise their daughter alone rather than risk exposing her to his world.
“I never wanted anything from you.” The words came out fiercely. “Not money, not your name—anything. I just wanted to protect her. Raise her somewhere quiet, somewhere safe, where she could be a normal kid instead of a tabloid headline.”
Marco was quiet, thinking. The sun had dropped below the mountains, the sky shifting from orange to purple, stars beginning to emerge. The lake had gone still and dark, mirroring the color overhead.
“Her name,” he said finally. “What’s her full name?”
“Violet. Violet Frida Singleton.”
He repeated it softly, tasting the words. Letting it settle into the spaces that had felt empty for so long. “May I hold her?”
Christina hesitated, and he could see the war playing out across her features—every instinct screaming to protect, to shield. But something in his face must have reached her, because slowly, she shifted Violet in her arms, then held her out to him.
Gently, he held her in his arms. She was perfect. Dark hair, still wispy and new. Tiny rosebud lips. Cheeks flushed pink from sleep. And when her eyes fluttered open—disturbed by the movement—he saw his own eyes looking back at him. Green, edged with gold. The Castellano eyes his grandmother had always been so proud of.
“Oh.” The sound escaped him. “Oh, God.”
Emotion flooded through him.
“I didn’t know.” His voice was hoarse. “I would have—if I’d known?—”
“What would you have done?” Christina’s question was gentle but pointed. “Honestly?”
He thought about who he’d been eleven months ago—the empty parties, the meaningless relationships, the desperate search for something real.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was a different person. I’m not sure I would have known how to be what she needed.”
“And now?”
Marco looked down at Violet—at his daughter—sleeping in his arms. At the woman who’d chosen to raise her alone rather than risk exposing her to his world. And at the sunset fading over mountains he hadn’t known existed until a week ago.
“I want to try.” The words came out rough but certain. “I don’t know how to be a father. I don’t know anything about babies or small towns or any of this. But I know I don’t want to walk away. I’ve spent the last year feeling empty, dreaming of you, and for the first time since that night in Miami, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
Christina searched his face for a long moment.
“I can’t promise anything,” she said finally. “I can’t promise I’ll trust you or that this will be easy or that my family won’t be nosy and annoying.”
“I’m not asking for promises.” He gave Violet back. Then sat back, giving her space. “I’m asking for a chance. To know her. To know you—the real you, not just the woman from that one night in Miami.”
Violet murmured, and Christina automatically began to sway, shushing her softly. The gesture was so natural, so instinctively maternal, that something cracked open in his chest.
“There’s a lot to figure out,” Christina said. “My family knows now. They’re protective.”
“They should be.”
“And I’m not going to Italy or New York. This is her home. This is where I want to raise her.”
“I understand.”
