Chapter 24

TWENTY-FOUR

F or a moment, the last four weeks disappeared. We’d never gone to Kendal, never gotten involved with his horrible family, never gotten to this point at all.

I could have almost pretended that I was fresh from New York, unpacking, and blissfully ready to start the summer. I could have pretended that Sofia was exploring her bedroom for the first time. Or that maybe a few weeks had passed, and we had finally slipped into a lovely rhythm—breakfast on the terrace before Xavier left for work and Sofia and I went sightseeing, then returning at the end of the day to find Xavier cooking us a delicious dinner while drinking wine and listening to an Arsenal match. We’d play a game or maybe read some books before putting Sofia to bed, and then there was the two of us, often in this room, savoring each other for a few more hours before we went to sleep and started all over again.

My heart yearned for those days. For a few scant weeks, we had really felt like a family, hadn’t we? Or at least on the verge of being one. I would have appreciated them for what they were had I known they would be over so soon.

Xavier slowly took in the scene: the suitcases on the bed, the clothes half in, half out. And then he trailed back to me once more.

“Ces. What’s going on?”

My heart ached.

“Xavi—” I started.

“You’re leaving?” His deep voice cracked with pain, hoarse like he’d been yelling for hours.

“I…” I shook my head. I couldn’t lie. “I was thinking about it.”

“Thinking about it with suitcases.” He shook his head, causing that errant lock to flop forward.

I fought the urge to march over there and tuck it back.

“Christ, were you even going to tell me?” he asked. “Or were you just planning to disappear again with our daughter?”

“Would it even matter?” I mumbled to myself as I folded a white blouse.

“Pardon?”

I looked up, suddenly full of anger all over again. “I said , would it even matter?”

His eyes narrowed. “And that means…”

“It means you’ve spent all of five minutes with me or Sofia over the last several weeks. I honestly doubt that if we left, it would make much of a difference to you.”

He worried his jaw for several minutes, hands flexing in and out of fists. But to my surprise, he didn’t shout. Not yet.

“Where have you been?” he asked instead. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours. I went back to Parkvale, but Elsie said you’d asked her and Miriam to take care of Sofia while you ran some errands. Were you just going to leave her there forever?”

“Obviously not,” I returned. “I would have come there eventually. I just?—”

“Just decided to leave?” His gaze floated again over the clothes strewn about the bed. “Because, what, we’ve been having a bit of difficulty?”

“It’s been more than a bit of difficulty, Xavi.”

“True. It’s been a fucking lot for me, actually, between my uncle going missing and having multiple strokes, then taking over my family’s business and estate at a moment’s notice. What a joke that I might expect a bit of support from my girlfriend, eh? Rather than watching her fuck around with other men and then see it reported in the bloody paper?”

He threw the newspaper he was carrying down onto the bed with a smack against my shoes, where it rolled open, showing a picture of me at the Ortham Ball, clearly visible in my red dress, talking to Adam with a smile on my face.

I barely glanced. His words had already set me off.

“Oh, now you’re interested in the headlines,” I said. “Not when they were printing lies about Sofia and me. Not when my own mother gave an interview about how horrible I am. No, when it’s your pride that’s hurt that you finally give a shit, right?”

“I care about all of it!” he insisted.

“What a load of garbage,” I retorted. “You’ve been treating us like accessories in your life when we should be front and center. Especially your daughter! I didn’t bring her here so she could get to know a freaking nanny better than her dad, Xavier!”

My head hurt from having this argument for what felt like the millionth time. What didn’t he understand here?

“Fucking hell!” he finally exploded. “What more do you want from me?”

His roar shook the delicate crystals dangling from the chandelier above us.

I fought not to cower.

“I brought you to London. Bought you all them fancy clothes and what. Took you to the best restaurants, gave Sofia the fucking world. But it’s not enough, is it? It’s NEVER FUCKING ENOUGH!”

By the time he was finished, I was already on the move. Something in me clicked, something deep down. The part of me that was still that scared little girl listening to her parents rage after a bender or when her grandfather used old-school discipline a little too harshly. She woke up and was screaming for help.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be here.

“Where are you going?” Xavier demanded.

“Out. I need some space.”

I dodged around him and strode out of the bedroom, down the hall, and back into the kitchen, where I swiped my keys off the counter, then made for the elevator. Sofia was with Elsie. There was no reason for me to stay here—with this. I could wait him out. I could.

But Xavier was quicker.

He stepped in front of me, blocking my way to the elevator. For a moment, it was like playing chicken with a linebacker. If I hadn’t been so upset, I might have laughed.

I darted around him, but he caught my arm. “Why the fuck are you running again?”

“Because of this!” I shouted finally, whirling around and wrenching my arm free.

I was done. Done . He wanted a fight? Well, now he was going to fucking get it.

“Because of you !” I continued. “Because of your neglect, your jealousy, your fucking temper! Xavi, I cannot do this anymore, tiptoeing around, worried that if I step wrong, or someone looks at me wrong, or I say the wrong thing, I’m going to get belittled, ignored, screamed at or worse! I am not a vending machine you can stick money into and get what you want. I am a fucking PERSON, XAVI!”

“Worse?” he parroted, looking genuinely confused. “What do you mean, worse? You can’t possibly think I’d ever really hurt you or Sofia?”

I gulped. I didn’t think that.

Did I?

“I’ve seen you threaten violence more times than I can count,” I told him. “And it’s been like this since the beginning. The night we met again, Xavi— the night we met —you were at my front door screaming like a madman because you had convinced yourself I had a man in my house. I’ve watched you practically strangle an employee, and today you actually assaulted someone for checking on me.” I shook my head. There were too many red flags to count. “As for you and me…can you really say what you did to me today was out of love ?”

His mouth fell open, but nothing came out. It was as if he couldn’t argue with the facts.

Then another thought appeared to cross his mind. “Maybe not,” he admitted. “Maybe not that time. But can you honestly say a part of you didn’t enjoy it?”

Shock was replaced with something else—something knowing. Calculating. And as his gaze dropped down my body, I knew exactly what it was.

“Absolutely not.” I immediately ducked around him and sped to the other side of the kitchen counter.

A rakish half-smile spread across Xavier’s face. “Don’t run away from me, Francesca. It’ll only make it worse.”

I hated myself for being even the slightest bit confused. A part of me wanted to obey, wanted to go to him, let him soothe our anger and troubles with his deft touch. He could take his frustration out on my body and help me learn to do the same.

But another part of me, a bigger part, hated him for even trying.

“Stop it,” I told him. “Seriously.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said as he prowled into the kitchen.

I moved to the other side of the counter. He blocked that passage. I tried the other way. He was still too quick.

I was trapped.

“Stop bullying me!” I shrieked.

And at that, Xavier stood up straight, looking for all the world like he’d just stuck his fingers in an electrical outlet. “You think I bully you?”

“I think you bully everyone,” I said bitterly.

“I don’t?—”

“You do ,” I interrupted. “I’m a third-grade teacher, Xavi. You don’t think I know a bully when I see one?”

I shook my head with realization. As soon as the words came out, I realized I’d known this all along but had shoved it under the carpet, time and time again.

“Bullies are kids who hurt people because someone hurt them,” I told him as I splayed my fingers across the counter. “Someone taught them long ago that their feelings didn’t matter, so they don’t know how to access them. They shove them deep down, sometimes to the point where they don’t even know they have them anymore. But they’re still hurt. They’re scared. And the only way they know how to feel better is to hurt someone else in return.”

Xavier continued to stare at me like he was punch-drunk. “And you think I hurt to feel better?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes. I think you dominate me. Especially with sex. At the polo club. Behind your restaurant.”

“I thought you liked it when I took you like that.”

I chewed on my lip, trying to understand as much as he was. “I like knowing you can’t wait to have me.”

Satisfaction settled over his carved features, but I went on before he could say anything.

“Those times weren’t about me, though,” I continued. “They were about control. They were about asserting yourself when I presented a challenge. You felt vulnerable. Angry, yes, but mostly vulnerable. And fu-fucking me makes you feel strong. Doesn’t it?”

He swallowed thickly, conviction erased. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

Finally, he backed away from the counters, leaving me ample space to slip out. I did, but paused near the end, looking back at him. His shoulders were hunched, and he was clearly processing what I’d said in a way that was quite painful.

“Xavi,” I said.

He looked up.

“Please consider it,” I told him. “For your sake, but also Sofia’s. Kids who grow up seeing that, Xavi…it’s what they expect for themselves.”

It was as if I’d delivered the final blow to knock him out. He sank to a stool at the counter, head in hands.

“All right, then,” he murmured. “I guess I should let you…go.”

Heart breaking, I took that as my leave to return to the bedroom to pack…or figure out what else I could do.

Because really, what was I saying?

That I wanted a life without Xavier Parker in it?

That I wanted Sofia to live without her daddy too?

I hadn’t taken ten steps before turning around once more, feeling more confused than ever but knowing one thing for sure. I didn’t want things to end like this.

“Xavi,” I called as I walked back into the living room. “Xavi, wait.”

I didn’t need to say anything. He had gotten up only to move to the couch, where he had collapsed on the white leather, head in his hands, while his cell phone sat on the table in front of him.

A message was still visible on the front as I approached.

Georgina: We’re needed in Kendal. Henry’s had another stroke. In a coma. Doctor says he may not have long.

“Oh,” I breathed. “Oh no .”

I stood beside him, not knowing if he even wanted me there or not. His big shoulders were hunched, but it wasn’t until I touched one that I realized he was shaking too. He flinched, but then a second later, flung his arms around my waist and buried his face into my hip. He breathed deeply, like I was a direct source of oxygen.

I stroked his hair. I couldn’t help it.

“Please, Ces,” he whispered into me. “Please don’t go. You’re all I’ve got left. You and Sofia. I can’t—I can’t lose you too.”

Perhaps I should have said no. Our fights, these hardships—they didn’t just disappear because he was sad and needed me.

But at that moment, I realized something else.

I’d never seen Xavier Sato Parker this vulnerable.

Which is also why I knew I couldn’t just walk away.