Chapter 19

NINETEEN

D inner was a distinctly more contemplative affair, filled mostly with Xavier’s delicious curry and Sofia’s chatter while her parents ruminated at the table. Occasionally, Xavier would look up and offer one of us the trademark half-smile I always wanted to turn into an all-out grin. Sometimes, he’d catch me watching him while I pushed the remains of chicken and bell peppers across my plate.

Our daughter, bless her heart, did not notice a thing while she debated the relative magic of a unicorn horn versus a fairy wand and offered the occasional rendition of “Bastard Babes.” Although I came close to doubting myself when I overheard a conversation they had right before bed.

I was bringing up a load of clean towels when I found Xavier in her room, balanced on a pillow on one side of Sofia’s lilac-colored table and chair set while she set the room up for an impromptu tea party.

“What about me?” Xavier was asking. “I want a crown. I can’t be a princess too?”

Sofia just giggled. “No, Dad. You’re the prince, I told you.” She cocked her little head. “But here. I can give you wings so you can be a fairy prince.”

There was some shuffling, but when I peeked in a few moments later, Xavier had somehow managed to hang Sofia’s rainbow fairy wings over his massive shoulders along with a purple cape and a plastic tiara gleaming from his black waves. He calmly drank his pretend tea while Sofia put on her own costume.

Oh, my heart.

I ducked back out, stifling my own giggle, and was about to leave when I caught the next thing Xavier said.

“You know those are just movies, right, babe?” He asked her gently. “Princes don’t really exist like that. And little girls don’t have to wait for someone to rescue them, right?”

I turned back just to find Sofia giving him a long look I’d seen in the mirror more than once.

“You rescued Mommy.”

“Did I? Not so sure about that.”

The dejection in his voice made my heart sink.

“Well, the prince always makes mistakes before he makes it right. Everyone makes mistakes, Dad. You just have to say you’re sorry and try harder next time.”

There was a long silence filled by the sounds of Sofia “pouring tea” for the other tea party attendants, which appeared to be a large Kermit the Frog, a bear she always stole from Matthew’s room, and, of course, Tyrone the unicorn.

“Cheers, Dad,” she told him.

“Cheers,” Xavier replied. Then, a few moments of pretend sipping later: “I love you, baby girl. You know that too, right?”

“Yep, I know,” Sofia said cheerily. “But what about Mama?”

“What about Mummy?”

“Don’t you love her?”

There was a long pause. I should have walked away.

“Yeah.” Xavier’s deep voice was barely audible, but it still drifted across the room. “Yeah, babe, I love her a lot.”

“Good. She loves you too.”

“I’m not so sure about that one, babe. But we get on just fine.”

“No, she definitely loves you,” Sofia said. “Because whenever she sees your flowers, her eyes get all misty like the rain and she says, ‘that damn man!’ Same as when Zio lets us use his car or pays her bills. It means she loves him. She told me. So that means she loves you too.”

There was a low chuckle, but no other reply.

“Just say you’re sorry,” Sofia told him again. “It always works for me. Then she gives me a hug and sometimes makes me hot chocolate too. The kind with the little marshmallows. They’re really good.”

When I came back downstairs from putting Sofia to sleep, Xavier hadn’t retreated to his lair but was mulling on the back porch, swirling a glass of brown liquid like he was hypnotizing himself with it. A floorboard creaked as I went out to join him, carrying a can of La Croix and a heavy wool blanket.

I scrunched my ponytail with one hand and pushed the other over my face, stifling a yawn. “She’s finally down. I nearly went with her.”

He was quiet while I opened the La Croix and took a seat at the little table before covering my shoulders with the blanket. I figured I’d just address the elephant in the room—or the deck—head-on.

“So, Adam,” I said. “That was a surprise.”

Xavier scoffed. “That he’s in love with you? Not really. He tracked you like a hound all summer.”

“I wasn’t talking about that.” I tipped my head. “More the fact that you didn’t threaten to punch his teeth in, like he said. Or make an actual attempt to strangle the guy.”

Another ironic snort. “Well, I was tempted.” He took a long sip of his drink. “But I’ve been working on it, you know. Trying to remember the main reason why I don’t need to toss wankers like him into the river just for looking at you wrong.”

I tensed, gripping my blanket closer. “And why is that?”

He looked over to me, and there was a shocking gentleness in his eyes I’d never seen before.

“Because I trust you, Ces,” he said simply.

“I—oh.”

“I know,” he continued carefully. “That if we were together, you wouldn’t do anything like that. But since we aren’t, I also know that you don’t suffer fools. If someone’s in your life, it’s for a good reason. If you were talking to him, it was because you needed to. I don’t need to question what you do if it’s what you want.”

I was…stunned. Flabbergasted, to say the least. Whatever I’d been expecting him to say, it wasn’t this. Just when I’d been doubting any kind of growth whatsoever, here was Xavier acting more mature than most humans on the planet could manage and about someone he genuinely could not stand.

“So, is he?” he finally asked a few minutes later.

I looked up from where I’d been staring at my hands. “Is who what?”

“Adam Klein.” He couldn’t quite keep the derision out of his tone, but he was trying hard. “Is he…what you’d want?”

We eyed each other through the crisp night air. Xavier’s gaze sparkled like the stars hidden by the city’s corona of light. Just like this man’s smile, you know they were there, even if you couldn’t always see them.

“No,” I admitted softly.

The blue in Xavier’s eyes glimmered with something I doubt he would have even wanted to name as hope. “Then…what…who do you want?”

I gulped. My tongue felt like it was about three times bigger than normal. Unable to keep eye contact, I looked out at the darkened yard, then back at my hands, which were toying with the edges of the blanket.

Who did I want?

What did I want?

I’d been thinking of little else for months now, but every time I came up with an answer, it felt like the one I wasn’t supposed to have.

Until tonight. Until now.

“I want my life in New York,” I told him honestly. “Close to my friends and family. People who offer me safety and solace for Sofia and me when we need it.”

Xavier nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”

“I want to go back to school and become a professor,” I continued. “I want to write my dissertation on those journals. I want to have a job I actually love. I want my kids to have a mother they respect, who can teach them what it means to persevere and not give up on their dreams.”

Xavier watched me intensely. “I think that’s fucking great. I think you should do it all. Our children are already lucky to have you as a mum, Ces. They’ll be lucky to watch you grow, too.”

I swallowed again, looking away as tears pricked my eyes. Why was this so hard?

I knew exactly why this was so hard. Because there was another truth roiling in my gut. One that had been nipping at my tongue most of the evening, thrashing to be said since the moment Xavier had chosen to walk away from the door instead of giving in to his demons.

Perhaps it was time to give up the ghost. To stop fighting the inevitability of the two of us. I had my pride, and I had my standards, but I also had needs, and none of them ever seemed to be as desperate as what I felt for him.

And if he could change, maybe I could too.

Maybe that change could start now.

“Xavi?” I said in a voice shaking with need, fear, anticipation, and so much more.

He looked back at me with sad, mournful eyes. “Yeah, babe?”

I took a deep breath. “I also want you.”

Xavier stared at me for a long time. Seconds ticked by. Maybe minutes. Enough time that I wasn’t sure if he understood what I’d just said.

“Xavi?” I asked. “Did you…did you hear me?”

Xavier started then, like he was pulled out of a trance. Then he frowned and stood up. “I need a moment.”

And without waiting for a reply, he left the deck and disappeared into the basement.

I turned back toward the yard.

“What the hell?” I asked the night.

There was no answer, of course.

Well, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get one.

I got up and followed Xavier downstairs, where I could already hear the telltale thwacks of his fists smashing a heavy bag.

“Xavi?” I called. “Xavier!”

I landed at the bottom of the stairs and had to squint to see across the dark room, where he was, yes, punching the crap out of a heavy bag that was swinging so hard on its chain it was creaking loudly and threatening to pull out of its frame.

“Xavier!” I called after he landed one last hard punch.

He froze, then exhaled roughly. “Francesca, I asked for space.”

“I know,” I said as I gave him the opposite as I walked closer into the room. “But I don’t understand why. Xavi, we weren’t fighting. I just spilled my guts out there. I told you—I told you?—”

I couldn’t bring myself to say it again. Not when he was turning me down. Not when he was already pretending it hadn’t happened.

“Christ.” Xavier shoved a hand over his brow before muttering something under his breath.

I picked up a pillow off his couch and chucked it to the ground, wishing it were something harder. More breakable. “Care to share that with the whole house, Mr. Parker?”

“I said , what good is asking for space if no one will fucking give it to you?” he spat between his teeth.

He turned to the back and delivered another loud blow. Anyone could see he was struggling. That his buttons were out, dying to be pushed.

I knew it was my fault. Maybe it was because of hormones or sentimentality, or maybe it was the fact that I’d just realized my entire soul belonged to this man, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. But whatever the reason, now I was the one who could not hold back. This time, I was the one who wouldn’t stop.

“What is your problem?” I demanded as he turned away, shoulders rising and falling like waves in the ocean. “You’re here. I let you stay. I let you live here. I’m basically a doormat, considering how you walk all over me, so what is it, Xavi? What do you want now that I haven’t given you yet?”

“My God, it’s you !” he roared, voice thundering enough to rattle the pictures on the walls when he whirled around to face me again. His face was red, chest heaving, every tendon and muscle standing out on his neck and face.

He really was a beast.

But I didn’t shy. I didn’t run. I stood there, jaw dropped, watching at this animal of a man like he had just spoken Oompa Loompa for all the sense he made.

“What?” was all I could manage in the end.

When he looked up, he was gasping like he’d just sprinted a mile.

“You,” he said again, more sedately now, as if the first version had broken some mysterious seal and now he was acclimated to it. “What I need…is you.”

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I looked everywhere but at him, as if literally anything else in the room could give me some inkling of what in the world was going on here. My shoes, the ugly painting on the other side of the wall, Sofia’s doll on the couch, my slightly swollen belly.

My hand rested atop the tiny bump, barely even visibly under my shirt, tight as it was. Nothing moved there—not yet—but oh, God, my heart ached.

“But you had me,” I said. “Xavi, you had me more than once. And both times, you tossed me aside like I didn’t matter. Like I meant little more to you than…than one of those dolls over there. And up there, I told you I still wanted you. And you—you walked away.”

I couldn’t help the tears that started when I said it all out loud. Like everyone else in this life I’d loved, he had left right when I’d said what mattered most.

“You say you want me again, but do you mean it? Honestly, I’ve been wondering if you ever did at all.”

I jerked my head up. “What the hell? How could you possibly think that?”

“I’m serious,” Xavier said with a face that matched his iron tone. “You’ve said it too, and then you left, Ces. You ran away, left me among the wolves, took away my daughter, broke my fucking heart in ways you can’t understand.”

“ I can’t understand? Of course I understand. Xavi, my heart was broken before I ever got on that plane because you broke it every time you weren’t there for us! You left me to those exact wolves more times than I can count! Could you really blame me for leaving? For taking our daughter back to where I knew she and I could both be safe?”

“No.” Xavier closed his eyes and appeared to take several deep breaths before he spoke again. “I can’t. But Francesca…”

“Say it.” My voice was cracking with the effort not to break completely. “If you don’t want me like that anymore, just say it.”

When his eyes finally opened again, their fathomless blue sparked through the dark room. “Don’t fuck with me, Ces. Don’t you dare fuck with me.”

“I’m not ,” I croaked. “I wouldn’t. If anything, I’m down here laying my heart on the table for you. What do you want me to do, Xavi? Do I need to get down on my knees? Do you need to know that all I have dreamed of for the last six years is that we could be a real family? That I’d be more than just the girl you knocked up—more than once, I might add? I wanted to be your wife, your partner, someone you actually trust, someone you’d think of as your equal…”

I trailed off as I finally said the things out loud I’d only barely allowed myself to imagine in the years past. By the time I was done, I was crying so hard I couldn’t see clearly. I stumbled around and fell into the couch with my face in my hands. Xavier waited a moment, then quickly crossed the room and knelt in front of me, though he didn’t touch me. Didn’t offer any more comfort than just his nearness.

So close, and yet so far away.

It nearly killed me.

“I know I’m nothing special in the grand scheme of things,” I managed in stuttering breaths through chest-wracking sobs. “I never have been. And I don’t expect to be. But I never thought it was too much to ask to be special to one person, at least.” Tears fell, two silent streams through my fingers. “I guess I was wrong.”

“Ces.”

The tenderness in his voice almost broke me as he gathered me into his chest and started to stroke my hair, cupping my head with his big hand and rocking me side to side.

Cradled by his warmth, his strength, and the solid wall of him, I was eventually able to calm. Soothed by his scent of fire, soap, and just a hint of spice from cooking, my heart slowed. My tears subsided to a mere trickle. My breath evened. Much as he had hurt me, there was still no safer place in the world to me than right here in his arms.

“Can I say something now?” His deep voice was a caress as gentle as the hand stroking my hair.

I inhaled deeply, then finally sat up with him, swiping a few more tears from my eyes. “I—all right.”

Xavier reached out to dab the last tear with a broad thumb. “It will never cease to astound me that you see so little in yourself when all I see is utter fucking majesty.”

I gasped, almost coughed in surprise. “You see wha-what?”

Xavier took my hands between his, holding them between us. “I look at you, and I see the only person I have ever known who is strong enough to love with her heart and soul. I don’t see weakness, babe. I don’t see someone broken. I see someone who makes everyone around her whole.” He shook his head as if in disbelief. “It never occurred to me to fight for you because you always seemed too strong to need it.”

I took a deep breath. “Well, I do need it. Not every day. Not all the time. Everyone needs to be fought for on occasion.”

“I see that now. So strong to fight for others, but for yourself, why not?”

I sighed and looked away. “When everyone ignores you, treats you like you’re nothing special, maybe you start to believe it.”

“Who said that?”

I shrugged. “Everyone. No one.”

It was hard to explain. I hadn’t been called names growing up (aside from regular sibling squabbles). No one had explicitly said, “Here is Francesca, the wallflower no one cares about.”

But while I had always loved my siblings, there was also the sense that when I was with them, I faded into the background. Each of them had such intense personalities. Matthew and Lea were classic Type A control freaks. Kate was a creative, Marie was the eccentric, and Joni the life of the party.

I was just Frankie. The quiet kid who liked books. The girl who taught instead of did. The lady whose only real purpose was to take care of her daughter.

No one had ever seen me for more until I’d met this man.

When I managed to turn back, Xavier’s eyes were fathomless blue depths, full of sorrow, yes, but even more heartbreakingly, compassion. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I understand.”

I thought of his parents. A mother who died young, who worked so hard to provide for him but, by his own admission, hadn’t been particularly emotive. A father who at best was absent, at worst abusive. The way he had spent most of his life being labeled a misfit bastard or else the rebel chef.

Pigeonholing was the same no matter how much money you had. Just as insidious. Just as stifling.

I thought of my own parents, one dead, the other an addict trying to make a career out of shaming her own daughter to the press.

We weren’t really so different, he and I.

“But Ces?”

I hummed. “Yeah?”

“Some of us can choose different,” Xavier said. “If there’s anything I’m learning these days, it’s that.”

“Oh, Xavi. Not everyone has your brand of self-confidence. Not everyone has your ability to change.”

“I’ll teach you,” he told me, tilting my chin so I was looking at him. “I’ll teach you every day until you see what I see.”

By the time he was finished speaking, I could hardly breathe.

“Starting,” he continued quietly, “with this.”

Then, before I could say a word, he shifted so he was fully on one knee, reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out a box.

And when I saw it, I couldn’t breathe.

“I should have done this right the first time,” Xavier said. “But since you’re giving me a second chance, I won’t mess it up again.”

Any woman would know this box. Small and black velvet, the kind that made no noise when he used his other hand to open it and once again reveal the most exquisite ring I’d ever seen in my life.

I stared at the setting for a long time, taking a few moments to appreciate its beauty in a way I hadn’t done the first time he’d shown it to me. I’d almost forgotten the way the delicate cluster of gems, rather than a solitaire, fit together just so. They were set on a delicately filigreed white gold band, sparkling even in the dim basement light.

And they were pink. The color of the perfect blush of an ingenue’s cheeks or the shade of a London sky right after the sun had set.

The color of camellias.

Of longing.

Of us.

“Francesca Zola,” Xavier said in a hushed voice, barely above a whisper. “Since the day we met, you changed me. You changed me with your smile and your kindness. You changed me with the way you love our daughter and the way I know you’ll love our son. You changed me with every iron-strong, quietly ruthless, breathtakingly beautiful part of your soul, and I will never be the same for it. You beg for me, babe. Well, I’m on my knees for you.”

“But you don’t get on your knees for anyone,” I pointed out with a shy smile.

That earned me a grin that positively lit up the room.

“I’d stay on my knee forever,” Xavier said just as his left dimple appeared, “if you’d answer just one question. Francesca Zola, will you marry me?”