“Yes.”
I look at her for a long moment. “You should have told me.”
A humorless smile touches her mouth. “Would that have made you kinder?”
No. Probably not. We both know it. I exhale once and get to the point because neither of us has the strength for pretense tonight.
“I’m offering you a divorce.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “What?”
“You heard me.”
She searches my face like she expects to find a trap there. Smart woman.
“There are conditions,” I say. “You and the child will have protection but not from your father. Not any of his men. Mine. You’ll have a place to live. Money. Doctors. Security. Whatever you need.”
Her face empties of all expression.
I continue, “In return, you sign the papers, you tell the truth if I need it told, and you never let Federico Marino near that child again.”
For the first time since I walked in, Fran looks genuinely unsteady.
“A divorce,” she repeats. “You would give me that?”
Give her that. As if it’s a gift.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why? Your father has always used you as a pawn and nowtries to control you by using your unborn child. The man who got you pregnant just died bleeding in a warehouse because he betrayed me.” I pause. “But mostly because I have no interest in punishing you for a marriage neither of us chose honestly.”
Her lips tremble. “You’re going to marry her, aren’t you?”
“If she’ll have me. God knows she has every right to run far away from me.”
Fran does something I don’t expect. She starts crying and I understand. Right now she’s a woman trying not to break under the weight of too many men making too many decisions about her life.
I let her cry.
When she finally looks up again, her voice is raw. “If I agree my father will come for me.”
“He can try.”
I see the moment she understands what I mean. And with that comes a relief that makes her look like the woman I met years ago.
I pull the folded papers from inside my coat and set them on the table between us.
“Think carefully,” I say. “Because once you sign, there is no going back.”
Fran looks down at the papers, her hand on her stomach.
“There was never anything to go back to,” she whispers.
She picks up the pen and signs.
31
