Page 83 of Loss and Damages
“Give Mama the divorce she wants,” I say. There’s no time to play around. I have bigger things to see to than where my mother wants to live out the rest of her life.
He turns and glares at me. “Why?”
My mother never said my father knew Leo wasn’t his. It’s a secret she’s told no one but Jemma. Leo’s gone and my father doesn’t need to know. I’ll give my mother that gift. I shouldn’t bother—she’s never done anything for me—but telling my father a boy he considered his son didn’t belong to him would start a war. A war I don’t think this Antonio is prepared or equipped to fight.
“Because you don’t love her, she doesn’t love you, and there’s no point being married if you hate your spouse.”
“I loved her once. She was all I wanted and I begged her father for her hand. But she was in love with another man and it angered me knowing she was thinking about him when I made love to her.”
“You knew about that?”
He scoffs. “I know when the president of the United States takes a piss. You think I didn’t know my own wife despised me?”
“Then let her be. You have your mistress, she has someone to run away with. Let it go.”
“What will you give me in return?”
I pin him with my stare. “My love and devotion as your first-born son.”
He matches my gaze, assessing me. He can feel there’s something different about me, and there is. Her name is Jemma, and the picture she made, holding up her cut hands, tears running down her face, shreds me every time I think of it.
“I should already have that.”
“I’ve given you every second of my life since I was old enough to understand my mother would just as soon spit on me as give me a hug. Never once did you ask why, only accepted the lines as they were drawn after Leo’s birth. Was it because I made you happy, or because you wanted nothing to do with Leo after Mama declared him her favorite?”
My father pours a drink, his hand steady. “Leo wasn’t mine. No son of mine would be that soft. A Milano is tough. We tolerate no bullshit and never take no for an answer. I’ve raised you to follow in my footsteps, and until recently, I’ve been satisfied.”
“You knew and never said anything.”
“What was there to be gained? He sucked your mother’s tit, then, as he grew older, kissed her ass. It’s always been you and me, Dominic.” He raises a lowball filled with whiskey in my direction and drains it in one smooth swallow. “Get me that homeless shelter and it will stay that way.”
His words sound good, or they would have, if I wasn’t listening to them over the soft whisper of Jemma’s promises.
She may have kicked me out of her cottage this morning, but if I went crawling back on my bloody hands and knees, she would open her arms, no questions asked. I know her love isn’t unconditional. If I hurt her family, she would never talk to me again, but she’s given me permission to hurt her over and over because she loves me.
My father has no choice but to leave the company to me. He has too much pride to sell off any piece of Milano Management and Development, nor would he break it up and donate a penny to charity. I have many cousins, but none of them have shown the aptitude needed to take control and he wouldn’t trust any of them to sit behind his desk for even a single day. The company is mine when he dies, a fact he may hate but will not change. I can do what I want, and he’ll say nothing.
For so long he’s had the power because I let him have it, but now I’m wise enough to turn the tables. He’ll be alone on his side, but I’ll have Jemma on mine.
“Make the call.” I’ll uphold the promise I made to my mother.
“I won’t give her one red cent.”
“She doesn’t want it.”
He walks to my desk and lifts the phone’s receiver. “Get my attorney on the line. I’ll speak to him in my office.” He hangs up and asks, “What do you care about your mother all of a sudden?”
“I don’t, but no one should live that miserably. She’s paid.”
He meets me nose to nose, and I don’t flinch. “I hope you’re not growing weak, like your brother. You’ll wind up in the ditch, just like he did. You may not believe it, but you’re my son, and I love you.”
What he offers as love isn’t the kind a little boy needs to thrive. I could only be so lucky to have grown up given the love that would have made me as kind and as sensitive as Leo. My father twists sensitivity and compassion into flaws and faults, but there’s strength in recognizing the beauty in the world.
Jemma will teach me how.
My own parents didn’t.
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
