1. He was probably never going to see or speak to his grandfather again, after today, even if he wanted to. It made him sad, but he was ready to accept that. It was that or keep throwing himself into the Tokyo subway train loop that was the Santillan family, and he really couldn’t put himself through that anymore.
2. Santi was exhausted by all of this. He really wished he was eating a cookie right about now. Or chocolate. Maybe both.
3. But he was going to do it anyway. Because he was wonderful. And smart. He was downright brilliant. And damn it, he was going to stay in Lipa.
4. And, that the next thing he said was probably going to give Vito a lot to think about.
(He also knew that his own silence was killing Vito. The man never did enjoy silence.)
Santi wished he was a saint, or a bigger person. Then he would be able to swallow his pain, his pride, and just be the perfect grandson. He was neither of those things. Oddly enough, he was proud of himself for that. He was wonderful, the way he was.
“What do you want from me, Lolo?” Santi asked instead. “You don’t need to control me. I already love you. And your money isn’t why.”
It was hard to describe the look on Vito’s face, but Santi had studied his grandfather’s faces, his expressions long enough to read them as quickly as he could make them. Surprise gave way to hurt, only to be replaced with a sneer.
“You must really be naive to think that love has anything to do with this,” Vito said in response. “You still need me, Anton.”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? Vito had horribly miscalculated. And need couldn’t be the basis of love, especially now that Santi was old enough to know himself better. Oh, it could be a foundation—he and Kira built their relationship around a childhood promise just like that—but love needed choosing, action, listening, devotion. It was a verb that was reciprocated, grew and moved.
Money had its limits. So did control. And Vito had used them both to replace love, and made his family believe that an iron grip was the only way to make sure somebody stayed, and loved you.
Anton had learned the hard way that it wasn’t true.
“You know, I’m actually very happy in Lipa,” he told Vito, looking out at the view and imagining his home there. He pictured Gabriel behind the counter at Sunday Bakery, Kira wreaking havoc in Gemini, Sari watching from her windowsill in Café Cecilia. “After everything you did, it’s something you never quite managed to take away from me. The only thing I need right now is to live as happy a life as I can, and I’m sorry that it seems to kill you inside when I do.”
He looked down at his grandfather. “But one day, and I hope that day doesn’t come soon, you’re going to leave this earth, and you can’t take your legacy with you. Then my parents will follow, and by that time, everything will fall to me and Miro. The hotels, the resorts, the money, whatever is left. And I fully intend on giving away everything I can. The legacy you’re so proud of will no longer exist, and nobody will remember the Carlton. I’m okay with that. But I don’t think you have that much time to figure out a game plan.”
Santi knew he was going to do the math on this eventually—he would probably have to sell his condo in Ortigas, he wouldn’t need it anymore. He would have to figure out a way for Gemini to make whatever Vito had taken away, and he was meeting Chloe Agila after this. Vito would likely come for Villa out of spite, but Santi already had a plan for that.
Those were easy costs. Calculable costs.
But he had to admit, seeing the fury in his grandfather’s face? Was absolutely priceless.
Chapter Sixteen
January 31
Azotea Ballroom
Hotel Villa
The Board Meeting of Luz Holdings, Inc.
Today’s Horoscope: Some things are just meant to be.
There were always places to escape to, if one knew where to look.
When Kira and Santi were kids, that place was the secret corner of the Azotea Ballroom. Of the many, many special events that they celebrated there, it was nice to have a corner of the ballroom that you could make your hideout, a place where the adults couldn’t find you, a place that wasn’t as boring as whatever was going on inside.
The ballroom was designed as a large floorspace with terra-cotta-colored tiles in an elegant ogee pattern. The outside was separated from the inside by large sliding doors made of sturdy wood, with blue glass on top of the windowsill. With the ballroom’s high ceiling and the ability to let in as much air as needed, it wasn’t hard to imagine why it was always booked solid.
This hidden corner in the ballroom wasn’t really secret, because there was a batibot chair, a small round table strategically placed with a vase of flowers that were always different, but you needed to move the ballroom’s sliding door just right to get to it, and of course Santi knew exactly how to get to it.
This was where they’d made their first promises. After Kira thwacked him in the head and gave him his scar, because he told her he was moving to Manila, and he was all bandaged up, he pulled her hand and they escaped to this little corner of the ballroom.
“Sit,” she remembered Santi saying, stubborn even as a kid.
“Yousit,” she’d insisted, because even as a kid she’d been stubborn, full stop. “I have something to say.”
