Page 68 of Raziel
“Holy shit,” she breathed, turning to look at me, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and dawning delight. “Raziel, did you…?”
“No,” I said, the word clipped and hard.
“So your daddy bought me a car?”
I didn’t answer her. I turned on my heel, stormed back into the bedroom, and snatched my phone off the counter. My father answered on the second ring.
“Raziel.” His voice was calm, as if he’d been expecting my call.
“What the fuck is this?” I snarled, dispensing with any greeting. “A car? You bought her a car?”
On the other end of the line, I could almost hear his shrug. “I like her. She has spirit. And she’s good for you. Seems you’ve finally found something real.” He said it so simply, as if he’d just bought her a bouquet of flowers, not a six-figure vehicle. “I have money. Why shouldn’t I spend it on the woman who makes my son act like a human being for once?”
I was speechless. Flabbergasted. This wasn’t a power play. It was… paternal. Approving. Something he had never, not once, extended to Alessia in all the years we’d been engaged. He’d never sent her so much as a birthday card.
I stared at the ceiling. “She doesn’t need a car from you.”
“She needed a gesture. And I had time. Now, did you eat yet? I made sea bass. I want a steak. I’m coming to Florida to take you out for steaks.”
He was talking about food? He had just bought my girl—whatever she was—a car.
“I’m gonna hang up, old man.”
He laughed. “Suit yourself. Ask Maya if she likes the carbon fiber trim. And don’t stop her from calling me.”
He hung up.
I stood there and watched Maya through the open door. She was circling the car, running a hand over the glossy paint, a look of pure, unadulterated joy on her face.
Fuck him. I felt like my father had stolen something from me. I could have bought her a fucking car.
I sighed.
Suddenly, the decision I’d needed to make was made. Alessia was a tie to a promise, a duty. But this… my father buying Maya a car, calling her, accepting her… it was a permission Inever knew I needed. It was a door swinging open, and all I had to do was walk through it.
Finality settled into my bones. I was breaking my engagement.
Chapter Twenty Nine- Raziel
The drive to the house in Hyde Park felt longer than the three weeks I’d been gone. The place was a fortress of old money and older sins, a monument to a life I was supposed to want. I pushed the heavy oak door open, and the scent of lemon polish and imported flowers hit me like a familiar, suffocating blanket.
Alessia was waiting in the grand living room, perched on the edge of a silk-upholstered settee like a porcelain doll. She’d clearly been waiting for hours. Her makeup was perfect, her dress impeccable, but her eyes were raw.
“You’re back,” she said, her voice tight. It wasn’t a greeting. It was an accusation.
I didn’t bother with taking off my coat. I just stood there, in the center of the ornate rug, hands in my pockets. “I am.”
“Three weeks, Raziel. No call. Nothing. Do you have any idea how that looks? What people are saying?”
I shrugged, a minute, infuriating movement. “Let them talk.”
Her composure began to crack. A fine tremor started in her hands. “I am your fiancée. I deserve more than your indifference. I deserve respect!”
“You deserve a man who wants to be with you,” I said, my voice flat, final. “I’m not that man. The engagement is off.”
The words hung in the air and felt stark and brutal the way I had spat them out, but I didn’t have the patience to clean them up and make them pretty.
For a moment, she just stared, as if waiting for me to take them back. When I didn’t, her face crumpled.
