My father let out a laugh that carried more weariness than amusement. “With Genovese? Always. But I bought you a little time and a little leniency. He is quite impressed with the deal you made with Doyle. Called it clever. Risky, but clever. And much as I dislike admitting it, Matteo enjoys exactly that kind of stupid move.”
“Why do you insist on insulting and complimenting me in the same sentence? It’s a skill, truly.”
“You’ll understand when you and your Emily have a child.”
That caught me off guard. For one brief, dangerous second, an image flashed through my mind uninvited: Emily, laughing, a baby in her arms, my mother crying somewhere in the background while pretending she wasn’t.
Not yet, of course. Not even close. But the thought alone warmed something in me I wasn’t prepared to examine.
“And do you know what you’ll get from me when that child drives you insane?” my father continued.
“Love and compassion?” I asked.
“You’ll get a drink in my office and the pleasure of hearing me say I warned you.”
I let out a breath through my nose. “She is made for me, Dad. She truly is.”
He said nothing and I thought the call had dropped.
“Nothing to say?” I asked.
“Oh, now you want my wisdom.”
“Not particularly, but I also don’t want you to give yourself an aneurysm from holding your tongue.”
His answer came back calm enough to be irritating.
“She may be made for you,” he said. “The real question is whether you are made for her.”
I had walked directly into that one.
“Well,” I said, opening the car door, “it was nice talking to you, Dad. I’ll speak to you later.”
I hung up before he could add anything else and stood there for a moment longer with the phone still in my hand, staring at nothing.
Was I made for her? If I wasn't yet, I would become the man who was.
Tonight I was taking her to dinner to celebrate the end of exams and, if everything went well, finally ask her to come home with me for Christmas.
It was less than a week away, and while I had circled the subject often enough in the past few days, dropping hints here and there, I had yet to make the offer properly. That would happen tonight.
I considered calling her as I got ready, then decided against it on the grounds that even I had to admit there was a limit to how pathetic I ought to allow myself to become where Emily was concerned.
She had kicked me out of her apartment the night before, insisting she needed to study and that I was making concentration impossible. I had pointed out that I slept perfectly well beside her, and she had replied, with irritating accuracy, that we had done very little sleeping. The memory still made me grin like an idiot as I stepped into the restaurant, the staff greeting me by name.
That was not unusual.
I had chosen the place carefully. I knew Emily liked beauty when it felt thoughtful rather than excessive. Candlelight. Warm wood. Good wine. Enough privacy to talk without feeling watched.
I was rehearsing arguments in my head while I waited. The one about my mother already buying extra ornaments and Victoria threatening to revolt if Emily did not come. The one about wanting her there for selfish reasons too, because Christmas in that house had never once mattered to me as much as it did now that I could imagine her in it.
She was late.
That, in itself, meant nothing to most men.
To me, it did.
Emily was not habitually late. Moreover, she had opinions about lateness. I had once listened to her explain for ten full minutes that being late to things was not a personality trait but an act of disrespect, and while I found the speech deeply endearing, I had also taken the point.