“Enjoy your dinner,” he tells me, gray eyes churning like thunderclouds. He steps to the side, giving me barely enough room to pass.
I don’t look back as I walk fully into Declan’s domain. Like the man, his living quarters are not what I expected. It’s like opening the door into an old English manor. Beautiful dark wood wainscoting on the walls and stone flooring under my feet. Low lights hang from above, giving the space a quiet ambiance. Oil paintings and portraits take up most of the upper walls. Of course, I notice the inset bookshelves adjacent to the wall of windows, and I think I start drooling. Books are my escape; a quiet, calm peace that I seldom get to experience between the pages of a good story. I’ll most definitely be checking out Declan’s collection later.
Turning around, I notice the entire space is open like mine, but there is a clear distinction between the living area and the den. And unlike my modern fireplace, Declan’s is a fire-side French ch?teau stone hearth. I can picture him sitting next to the wood fire on cold, winter nights, reading glasses perched on his nose and a book in his hand. Kind of like how he was at the cottage.
Curious to learn more about him, I walk over to inspect the framed photographs on his mantle. Several of them are black and white, tinged slightly yellow with age. A man in plain garb is standing next to a woman who is holding a baby. He has his arm wrapped around her and she is smiling up at him. I stroke the glass. It’s a picture of love and family. Simple, yet pure.
“That’s my ma and da. Your grandparents,” Declan says, coming up beside me.
“Are they—”
He answers before I can finish. “They passed many years ago.”
“This is you?” I touch the image of the baby in the picture, and he nods. “No brothers or sisters?” I put the frame back in its place on the mantel.
“One older brother, but he died when I was five.”
I don’t ask him how he died. If he wants to tell me, he will.
“Any other family?” I ask.
“My da and ma each came from very large families. Lots of brothers and sisters. A slew of cousins. All Irish or Irish American.”
Something Liam said about Irish families being related one way or another comes back to me. “But isn’t Levine a Jewish surname?”
“The Levins are from County Louth in the northeast of Ireland. When my great-grandfather immigrated to America, the change was caused by a spelling error by some clerk.”
Which means that I’m Irish, not Italian-Irish. No wonder I looked so different from everyone in the Rossi family. They were all dark-haired, dark-eyed, tanned skin, and I was the standout with blonde hair, violet eyes, and pale skin.
Maximillian Rossi must have known that I wasn’t his daughter. Is that why he raped, abused, and degraded me? To punish me for being another man’s child? The child of his enemy? I remember the dinner benefit he took me to when I was younger and how he freaked out when Declan unexpectantly arrived. The bastard must have already known back then. And knowing what he was doing, my mother still turned a blind eye and let it happen. If she gave a damn about me, or loved me, she would have taken me to Declan. She would have told him about me to get me away from her sadistic, rapist husband.
“Andie.” A warm hand cups my cheek, and I immediately disconnect from the downward spiral of my thoughts. My breaths are coming out ragged and harsh, and it takes me a second to calm down. I stare up at Declan, into those light indigo eyes so much like mine, my real father, and take solace in the fact that he killed my bitch of a mother.
“Come. Dinner is ready,” he says, taking my arm through his in a gentlemanly manner. “I hope you like corned beef.”
Feeling off kilter, I answer, “I’ve actually never had it. That must be what smells so good.”
He sits me on a barstool at the counter island and walks over to a slow cooker. Lifting the lid, a billow of steam rises and the kitchen fills with the delicious aroma of cooked beef.
I pop my elbows up on the countertop, completely entranced at Declan doing anything domestic. He really is a conundrum.
“Doesn’t it take all day to cook something in one of those things?”
Giving me a genuine smile, he replies, “Pearson got things going this morning when I told him we’d be returning.”
He had mentioned Pearson before, but I haven’t met him yet. “Your assistant, right?”
“Something like that. Would you like anything to drink?”
“Sparkling water if you have any,” I reply.
He hands me a green glass bottle and then carries two plates loaded with corned beef, cooked carrots, steamed cabbage, and parsley potatoes, placing one in front of me. I stand up, ready to follow him into the formal dining room but stop when he sits on the barstool next to mine.
I must look like a deer in headlights because he seems confused by my reaction. “Did you want to take our food out onto the balcony?”
Flustered and unsure of myself, I ramble, “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to act or what to say. So much has been ingrained in me fromhim. Dinner was always at the formal dining table at seven sharp. I was to dress a certain way, sit a certain way, and wear my hair a certain way.”
Declan takes my plate and drink and puts them down, as he casually pushes the barstool out for me with his foot.
