But what he loved about Heather was that she was soft. Bookish and in need of support.
At least that was how he saw her, but then, Giuseppe had a rescue complex, when he felt the person could be rescued. Which had left Romeo’s mother on her own, and Heather and her mother well cared for.
Heather was much more canny than his father wanted to believe.
“I assume you’re leaving her enough in the way of money to ensure that she’s just fine.”
“She needs protection. She is not from this world, and she never has been. She never fit in.”
He had alienated her from any potential friendships at school. The only friend she’d had had been another girl who socialized on the periphery. He had been the most popular student, and he had wielded that social power against her.
The idea that his father would think that he would stand by and take care of her in his absence was ridiculous.
He might not be a high school bully anymore, and on some nights he could muster up a little bit of shame for his behavior then, but he was never going to take care of her.
“Father…”
Giuseppe’s hand shot out, and he grabbed hold of Romeo’s forearm. “You must take care of her. She’s special. I love her as a daughter, and with her mother gone she will be alone in the world if she doesn’t have you.”
“No harm will come to her,” Romeo said.
In the early days, he had fantasized about revenge. In fact, he had made her life difficult because what he had wanted was the ruin of her and her mother. He had wanted them to be unhappy in this world, miserable; he wanted it to be the cost of destroying his family.
He no longer wanted that. But he wanted nothing to do with her either.
“Promise me,” his father said. “If she needs you, you will be there. Promise me that you will not abandon her. That you will maintain a connection.”
He gritted his teeth, his lip curling. “I promise.”
His father would be dead within the next couple of days, and he would never know what Romeo did or didn’t do. He felt it was a kindness to lie to the old man now. Why give him cause for concern? But Romeo would not do the bidding of a ghost.
“Send her to me.”
“Of course.”
He stood, walking out of the room, anger burning in his chest.
He walked down the hall, and her bedroom door opened, and there she appeared, wearing a yellow dress that complemented her golden skin tone, the low neckline showing her curves off in a way that proved too compelling for him to ignore.
“He wants you,” he said.
“Okay.”
He should’ve just let her go on without him, but he felt compelled to follow her. He pushed the door open, and stood there as she went to his bedside and took his hand. “What is it, Papa?”
The smile on his father’s face was a cold dagger pushed through his heart. And this was always and ever the problem. He could see how much more his father loved them. But in a few days this would be over, and he would go back to his life. He would go back to New York; he would take a lover for a night and blot out all of this. He worked, he played—the end. He was, in fact, an island. And the only real connection he had, the only real relationship he had to maintain, was the one with his mother. Because she needed him. She had no one else, not really.
“I love you, Heather. You are my daughter. This…this estate, I want to leave half of it to you. Because you are both my children. You…”
His anger rose up inside of him, but he said nothing.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “This estate is part of your family line.”
“I will,” he said. “I’m leaving it to both of you. Because I love you in equal measure.”
That was like a sword straight through his chest. Perhaps it shouldn’t be. This girl who had come into his life a mere fourteen years earlier mattered just as much to him as his own son. He had been right to hate her.
Always.
