Chapter 25

TWENTY-FIVE

T he house was empty when we filed in. Lea had called Mike on our way over and told him to bring the kids to their house so we could talk to Matthew and Nina adults only. I had only smarted a little. As much as I didn’t like Lea making decisions about where my kid should or should not go, she was right. This wasn’t a conversation for children, that was for sure.

“Thanks for ratting me out, by the way,” Matthew said once we had filed around the dining room table like we were about to start massive negotiations.

Joni and Marie were at the other end, already sniping at each other as if nothing was wrong. Kate and Lea were helping Nonna in the kitchen.

I frowned. Is that what he thought? I barely knew anything about him and Nina. Honestly, I was a little pissed he hadn’t said more.

“It’s not like I would have wanted to talk to them myself about losing my job, Frankie.”

Oh, that’s what he meant. Okay, yeah, I’d told them the news. But what did he expect? He certainly wasn’t going to say anything, and he deserved his family’s support. Particularly when he had supported so many of us.

“I don’t know, would you?” I replied testily. “You’re about as proud as it gets, Mattie. It took you weeks to even tell me when you started taking shifts at Envy last fall.”

I didn’t add that he had genuinely worried me during that time, having fallen into such a deep depression, I wasn’t sure he would ever come out.

Matthew just frowned intensely, ignoring Nina’s confused expression next to him. “Still. How would you like it if I dropped the bomb that you ran into Xavier a few months back and didn’t tell anyone, huh?”

My eyes popped open. No, no, no , he wouldn’t.

“Xavier?” Lea said as she popped into the kitchen, followed by Kate.

The look on Kate’s face told me she was eager—too eager. She was as tired as I was of holding on to the secret of Xavier’s appearance.

Minutely, I shook my head, hoping she would understand.

To my relief, her expression shuttered.

“Thanks a lot,” I muttered to Matthew.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Joni said brightly. “Isn’t Sofia’s dad named Xavier?”

It took a superhuman effort not to bury my face in my palms.

“Brilliant,” Marie was saying. “She really cracked it this time!”

“Shut up, Marie,” Joni snapped back at her.

“It’s really none of your business,” I told all of them.

“No freaking way,” Joni said at the same time Marie said, “You’re joking.”

“Frankie, maybe—” Kate started.

“ No ,” I said, cutting off that thought at the knees.

“Who is Xavier?” I heard Nina ask on Matthew’s other side. “Other than Sofia’s father, I mean. I gathered that.”

She honestly just sounded thankful to have a reprieve from the rabble. Here we were. Her out of one frying pan, and me flipped right into the fire.

“He charmed Frankie’s socks off before leaving her high and dry with a kid on the way and no one to contact,” Lea said as she entered the room with a plate of boiled and quartered artichokes. “He’s the kind of man who leaves people in the lurch. Sound familiar, Nina?”

“Hey,” Matthew barked even as Nina laid a hand on his arm. “For real, should we just go?”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I felt bad for Matthew now, but I wasn’t really into being the object of interrogation. Particularly since I wasn’t sure how well I would hold up.

Unfortunately, I had no such luck.

“Xavier was at Jane and Eric’s Christmas party,” Matthew informed everyone, but mostly Nina, as he turned back to her. “Tall guy. British. Black hair. Deep voice.”

Every small description felt like a punch to the gut. Not just because I could see each trait like I’d drawn them myself, but because it was almost like Matthew was calling his presence here. Poof, there was the hair. Poof, now the eyes.

“No way ,” Joni said. “Holy crap, he sounds hot.”

Oh, girl. You have no idea.

“He sounds like a jerk,” Marie countered.

Matthew nodded. “To be honest, doll, I was more focused on finding you that night.”

He grinned at Nina. But she wasn’t really interested in flirting.

“You don’t mean Xavier Parker, do you?” she asked.

I froze. This was just what I needed—the Ice Queen spreading her poison on the man Sofia was eventually going to call “Daddy.” I didn’t care how much sympathy I had for Nina de Vries. I wanted her to shut up before she ruined everything.

“Why, do you know him?” Matthew’s tone was curious, but with a threatening undercurrent that he always had whenever Sofia’s dad was mentioned.

“Not well, but we’ve met a few times,” Nina said. “He lives in London, but our social circles are fairly small. He went to school with Eric.”

“Who’s Eric?” Joni asked Marie, who just shrugged her shoulders.

“Probably one of her schmancy friends,” Lea put in.

“Shut up ,” I hissed at them both, though none of them so much as spared me a glance.

“What’s his story?” Matthew was asking. “Frankie’s always been a damn mute about the guy.”

As I damn well would continue to be, I decided, slouching farther into my seat like I was a thirteen-year-old kid having her middle-school crush discussed like chicken dinner. The. Worst.

Nina continued, seemingly unaware of my torment. “He caused a bit of a scandal, from what I recall. He’s the illegitimate son of an earl or maybe a marquess.”

I jerked. What ?

“At any rate, his father didn’t have other children, and then surprised everyone by naming Xavier as his heir instead of letting the estate pass to his cousin or nephew or whatever.”

At that, I sat up fully. Xavier had mentioned his father’s attempted bequest, but nothing about other family members. Or a freaking peerage. The way he made it sound, he and his father only had a brief (and failed) relationship, and all his recent success was founded more on his own merits.

This, however, was a story with several other dimensions.

“Grandmother’s butler, Garrett, was English,” Nina continued, “and had a lot to say about the whole ordeal.”

“Ooh, a butler,” Joni whispered loudly.

“La-dee-da,” Marie agreed, only to be smacked by Lea while Nina went on.

“It was this big to-do when a boy from East London was named presumptive heir to this title, apparently.”

“South London,” I murmured softly to myself, though no one else was paying attention, rapt as they were with Nina’s story.

In my mind’s eye, though, I could see Xavier’s smirk at the correction. He would have liked that I was becoming as particular as he was about these kinds of inaccuracies.

Of course, maybe at this point, he would have started laughing now that the colossal joke he’d been making for the last few months was finally finding its punchline.

I could already imagine the headline the British tabloids were so famous for: Son of Earl Fools American Trollop.

Earl. Oh God .

“Then what happened?” Matthew wondered curiously.

“I honestly don’t know much,” Nina replied. “Just that Garrett thought he was an ungrateful, rebellious brat. Attending Dartmouth, for instance, instead of Oxford or Cambridge like everyone else in his class. That’s where he met Eric, who brought him home a few times when he was at school. Nice boy. Tall, like you said. After that, I heard he went to culinary school, of all things, and started several restaurants until his father died maybe three or four years ago…”

By the time she was finished, you could have heard a pin drop in the normally cacophonous dining room. Even Nonna was silent in the doorway, holding a plate of antipasti, though she was watching me, not Nina.

And I, for one, could not move.

Died. His father had…died? Three or four years ago, if Nina was correct? Months I’d been seeing him, and he hadn’t mentioned a word about it. Oh, he was full of sob stories about his mother and Lucy, full of vitriol toward his father, the man whom he said hated his guts.

Nothing about his death on top of everything else.

Which also meant Xavier was…an earl himself?

Or was it a marquess?

Did it even matter?

Who even was this man?

Suddenly, I couldn’t feel the ends of my fingers or my toes. The edges of my vision seemed to blur, and my siblings’ faces all moved in and out of focus.

“It isn’t the same Xavier, is it?” Nina asked me in her kind, quiet way.

She was clearly shocked, though. Just like anyone else would be when they realized someone like me had, at least for one night, captured the fancy of blue-blooded, perfect-looking, utterly aristocratic Xavier Parker.

Or been his prey.

“Sometimes he used the name Sato,” Nina said as if that explained the disparity. “His mother is half-Japanese, I believe, and that’s her maiden name. Is that—it’s not the same person, is it?”

Everyone turned to me, and it was clear I didn’t need to say that yes, in fact, it was. I could barely breathe anyway, much less speak. Or correct her on the parts of the story I knew to be wrong. South London, not East London. His mother was gone and had been from Japan, not just half herself. That Sato wasn’t her maiden name, just her name—because Xavier’s parents had never been married.

But how could I correct any of those things when I knew so little about the rest? When it would mean admitting to them all that I had been secretly seeing Xavier for months now?

“Wait a second,” Joni said. “Are you saying that Sofia… our baby Sofia…could be royalty ?”

She sounded absolutely ecstatic. I wanted to throw an olive at her. Actually, I wanted to hurl the entire plate of prosciutto.

“She didn’t say her dad’s Prince William, you idiot,” Marie snarked.

“Did you know, Fran?” Matthew asked, reaching across Nina to set a hand on top of mine on the table. “About this title, or whatever it is?”

“I…” I just shook my head. I didn’t know what to say as all of Xavier’s secrets tumbled through my mind. “I knew about his restaurants. And his mother. The rest, though…” I pulled my hands out of my brother’s grasp and shoved my face into my palms, if only to escape the pity launching itself at me from all sides of the table.

I was an idiot. It all made sense now. His one and only “Season.” Going to a garden party hosted by the queen of freaking England. Of course , Xavier was more than he let on. Of course, he was legitimate nobility. And, of course, I had never clued in. I’d been too busy falling over myself in lust and awe while he fell in love with our daughter. Too busy seeing everything through rose-colored glasses than to put on real lenses to find out who he really was.

Stupid. I was so, so stupid.

“I never knew,” I mumbled, more to myself than to them. “I have to…can you all just give me a minute, please?”

To my utter shock, my family obeyed. The rest of the conversation passed in a daze—even the part where Matthew informed everyone he was not only engaged to Nina, but that he’d asked her when he was away in Florence. Interpreting for her. Three months ago .

It was just one shock, one betrayal after another today, wasn’t it?

But it didn’t seem to matter. I listened vaguely as they told a whole other story I hadn’t known. Something about Nina’s family, and a secret, and a copy and a whole bunch of crap I honestly could barely listen to until I finally looked up and realized that while I’d been having a mental breakdown, Nina had somehow managed to win over my grandmother. My sisters were all looking at her like a hero.

And I couldn’t take being here one minute longer.

“Welcome to the family,” Nonna was saying, even as I edged my way out the door. I couldn’t stay for the pleasantries. Not now.

I walked a full five blocks from the house, ignoring the fine sunshine of the late April weather as I whipped out my phone to call Xavier.

He answered on the first ring.

“Can you read my mind?” he asked. “I was literally pulling up your number. Are you around this weekend? I’d like to see Sof, but I also want to talk something over with you.”

“Is it true?” I demanded, ignoring all his questions.

“That I’m the best chef in England? Of course it’s true.” He was trying to joke, but uneasiness slid through his tone. “What do you mean? What is it, Ces?”

“You lied to me,” I said, voice quavering under the stress. “You lied to Sofia. Matthew’s—my brother’s—whatever. She told me everything!”

“Told you what?” His voice was oddly calm. Almost stony.

“Who you really are!” I exploded. “That you’re not really just estranged from your father. That he died four years ago. That you’re not just a restauranteur in London, but you’re a fucking earl , a member of the peerage, something like, I don’t know, probably eighteenth in line for the throne of England!”

“Forty-seventh,” Xavier muttered as if he couldn’t help it. “And it’s a duchy, not an earldom.”

“Oh my God !” I paced angrily up and down the street, kicking rocks, causing a few pigeons to fly up to escape my wrath. “You haven’t been flying back and forth between here and England to take care of your restaurants, have you? You’ve been taking care of your fucking estates. Still attending the Season or going to court or whatever else it is you stupid gentry do in your spare time!”

“What? No ? Jesus, Ces, is that what you think of me?”

“I don’t know what to think of you anymore. I thought we were being straight with each other, Xavi. You said there were no more secrets. You said you told me everything!”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

Then, “Who told you this?” His voice was subzero in temperature. “What exactly happened?”

“Nina de Vries happened.” The name tasted sour on my tongue. I knew it wasn’t her fault per se, but right now I could have quite cheerfully shot the messenger of this particular news.

“Nina de Vries. You mean Eric’s cousin?”

“I mean yet another filthy rich person who apparently gets to know your secrets when your daughter and I don’t.” I swiped at my eyes, tears pricking their edges. No. No . He was not going to make me cry about this, of all things. Not again. Not ever. “You really think I’m an idiot, don’t you? Stupid, simple girl from the Bronx, too out of touch, too common to ever discover that you’re not just the estranged kid of some rich guy, but that you’re actually a duke!”

I shrieked, only barely stopping myself from throwing the phone into oncoming traffic. I whirled around to face two men about my age striding down the street, chatting cheerfully in a mix of Spanish and English. One of them looked me up and down, and the other grinned.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” I snarled, my inner bitch coming right up to the surface.

They scurried on their way, but only after one of them gave a low, foreboding whistle.

“Francesca!” Xavier was calling through the speaker. “Francesca, come back to the fucking phone!”

“What?” I snapped.

“Can I just ask, what’s really the problem here? Is it that I’m a duke, or that I wasn’t one before?”

I turned toward the street, which was mostly still except for the occasional car. “Neither. It’s that you lied. I could have looked you up on the internet. I’m not an idiot, Xavier. But I didn’t.”

“And why the fuck not?” he exploded. “Anyone else would have. If you’re so bloody smart, why didn’t you just find all of this out yourself instead of waiting for me to tell you, eh?”

“Because you should have told me!” I shrieked back. “Just like you should have told your daughter. Because I wanted to know if you really changed. But you haven’t, have you? You’re still the same lying, secretive, immoral bastard you always were. So what am I supposed to do now, Xavi? You’ve made us—you’ve made her, Sofia, fall in love with you.” I hiccupped over another sob that I was determined to keep buried. “What—what am I supposed to do now?”

There was another long pause. “You’re supposed to tell her I’m her dad, like was always planned. I’ll tell her the rest, Ces. I won’t lie to her. She’s my daughter.”

“She is,” I admitted through a hushed sob. “But what does that make me?”

He sighed, but then there was a muffled noise while he spoke to someone else on the other end of the line. When he came back on, he was clearly moving, almost out of breath.

“I’ll be there tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything, Ces. Just let me explain.”

I stood there on the street, listening to the sounds of my neighborhood swirling around me. For years, I’d wanted nothing more than to escape these humble streets. I’d wanted something outside of the mishmash of brick apartment buildings and ramshackle houses, where no one had nice cars or nice clothes or nice anything, but everyone knew exactly who they were and what they wanted. A good amaretto or a ride downtown. Sin on Saturday, confession on Sunday. Work, play, pray, repeat. Simple.

I’d looked down on all of it for so long. But no more.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “You had your chance with us, Xavi, and you blew it. I think we’re done.”