Page 26 of Dark Romeo

I shook my head. “I’m the only one that he has left.”

“You can’t live your life for your father.”

“You can’t live your life to avoid yours,” I snapped back.

We both stared at each other, the silence growing thick. I thought for a second that I may have crossed the line. Then his face softened and he nodded. “Touché.”

I suddenly felt like a jerk. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know the first thing about your relationship with your father.”

“You’re still right. I am living my life to avoid him.” Roman inhaled deeply and let out a long sigh. “He was never the same since my mother died,” he said quietly. His eyes flashed with sadness that he wasn’t even trying to hide.

My heart clenched. “Was that her funeral you went to yesterday?”

“No. My mother died fourteen years ago.” His voice trailed off.

Fourteen years. His mother died the same year that mine did. “So did mine.”

“That was the gravesite you were visiting yesterday.” It wasn’t a question.

I nodded.

“Tell me about her.”

I shouldn’t. My mother lived in a deep, safe space in the depths of my heart that no one, no one ever got to see. She was mine and my memories of her were mine.

“I’ll tell you about my mother,” he bargained softly.

That, apparently, was enough for me.

ROMAN

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“I’ll tell you about my mother,” I said before I could stop myself.

I was treading on dangerous territory. If I said too much about my family, then she might guess that I was Roman Tyrell, not Roman Lettiere as I had told her yesterday. I don’t know why I had lied about my surname. No, I do. I hadn’t wanted to see her eyes fill with judgment at the cursed name Tyrell. Besides, it wasn’t that much of a lie. Lettiere had been my mother’s maiden name. I had always felt like a Lettiere instead of a Tyrell.

“My mother was fierce,” Julianna said softly, “she stood up for what she believed in. She loved me and my father with a steady ferocity. She’d do anything for us.”

Julianna could have been speaking about herself. “It sounds like your mother was an incredible woman.”

She nodded, her eyes still facing forward. “I struggle to follow in her shadow.”

“I doubt that.”

She let out a long breath. “Your turn,” she said quietly.

My turn. I had agreed to give her a piece of my soul for one of hers. I felt my heart turn to steel the way it did when things hurt too much. “My mother was a good woman who was cursed to fall in love and marry the wrong man.” Even I could hear the bitterness in my own voice.

She had been cursed to love my father, a man whose ambition endangered her life and eventually killed her. “I’ve never stopped missing her,” I admitted.

“Me too,” she said.

“I don’t think you ever really get used to it.”

She nodded. “Every event for the rest of my life will be overshadowed by the hole she left behind.”

“Every birthday.”

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