Loving Gigi (21 page)

Luke surprised Kane by stepping in front of him, blocking his exit. Had it been either of the other men, Kane would have given them a not-so-subtle shove out of his way. But getting aggressive with Luke would feel like swearing at Gandhi. In a low, tight voice, Kane said, “Get out of my way.”

Luke took out his phone, dialed a number, then held it up between them and put the call on speakerphone. “Gio? Yeah, we found him. He’s taking it pretty hard.”

“He should. His ass needs to be over there apologizing,” Gio said shortly.

Kane snorted angrily. “For what exactly?”

Gio didn’t have a ready response to that, so instead he said, “For possibly ruining everything. We finally have Gigi in our lives. I won’t lose her over something like this.”

“How she feels or doesn’t feel about me has nothing to do with her relationship with you.”

“You’re wrong. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. If you two break up, she’ll want to avoid you, and that means avoiding us.”

Kane shrugged. “Then I’ll make sure I’m not around.”

Gio barked, “No one wants that either.”

Max interjected, “Fifty pounds on him saying it.”

Nick shook his head, “You’re on. He won’t. He’s too angry.”

Kane hunched his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Gio. I knew it was a bad idea to come here, but I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Kane, people make mistakes, and you’re like family to us. If being perfect was a requirement for that, do you think the three little shits next to you would still be around?”

“Hey.” Max laughed as he pretended to be offended. “He’s referring to us, Nick.”

“That’s because he’s angry, not deaf,” Luke said dryly.

Nick joked, “For the record, Gio, the bet was Max’s idea.”

“Way to throw me under the bus,” Max countered and gave Nick’s shoulder a shove. “Besides, Luke, Gio said three. You would be one of those little shits he’s referring to.”

A hint of a smile pulled at Kane’s lips as he watched the men bicker. He’d known them since they were all in their early teens. Although they had each become successful, they sounded remarkably the same as they had back then. “I get your point, Gio, but I’m not apologizing when I have no idea what I’m supposed to have done wrong.”

Nick added, “In my experience, if you give a woman a chance to, she’ll tell you. Several times, until she’s sure you get it.”

Max joked, “Rena must have the patience of a saint.”

Nick stood taller. “Don’t talk about my wife unless you want yours to know about the year you kept wetting your bed.”

“Enough,” Luke said curtly and turned off the speakerphone and put his phone back near his ear. “To me, this is something Kane and Gigi have to work out for themselves.” After a pause, Luke said, “I agree. Yes, I’ll tell him.”

After hanging up the phone, Luke turned to Kane. “Gio said he’s relieved you didn’t do something we’d have to hurt you for. He also told me to tell you he loves you.”

“Ha,” Max said triumphantly. “Fifty pounds, Nick. I told you.”

Nick looked at Luke skeptically. “Did he actually say it?”

Luke shrugged one shoulder shamelessly. “No, I’m just screwing with you. He did agree we should pull back and let Kane and Gigi figure this out.”

Luke the Pacifier had blatantly poked fun at his brothers. Kane didn’t hide his surprise.

An easy smile spread across Luke’s face. “I’m not perfect, and I embrace that fact now. I can’t let them have all the fun.”

Although it was nice to see Luke joking with his brothers instead of having to play the peacekeeper, Kane grumbled and turned back to the bar. His mood was still sour. “If you don’t mind, I came here with a goal that you’ve delayed.” Luke sat on the stool beside him. Nick and Max retook the seats on his other side. Kane took in the stubborn expressions on the men who flanked him, and an entirely different feeling swept through him. Luke, Nick, and Max might have flown over to confront him, but they were staying because they cared about him.

Kane ordered four sodas and toasted the Andrade men around him.

When they raised their glasses, too, Max said, “To family.”

They all drank to that.

In the long silence that followed, Kane admitted to himself he would apologize to Gigi a hundred times if it would help. It wouldn’t. She wasn’t angry with him. She didn’t know if she wanted to be with him anymore. That wasn’t an issue an apology would solve.

Kane thought about his father’s favorite speech about why everyone should play a sport when they’re young. His father had said, “Life is going to knock you down sometimes. You need to know what to do when it happens. When you land on your ass, you don’t give up and go home. You stand back up and try harder. Surrender is not an option. Not in sports. Not in life.”

It was a philosophy that had served Kane well during his athletic years, as well as in business. When he set a goal he went after it relentlessly, again and again, until he achieved it. Failure was not in his vocabulary.

This was different. If winning meant Gigi or her family lost in some way, it wasn’t something he would pursue. He couldn’t do that to Gio or his brothers any more than he could do it to the woman he loved.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. More than anything else, he wanted Gigi to be happy. Plain and simple. Her childhood had been full of confusion and doubt. Although she had reunited with her father’s side of the family, it was still a fragile bond, and Gio was right to protect it.

Pursuing Gigi was not an option. Even the heaven of spending another night in her arms was not worth the collateral damage it might cause.

I knew that before I came here, and it didn’t stop me, but the only deplorable mistakes are those a person makes twice.

As she frequently did in person, his mother followed his father’s life advice with some of her own. It might have been the alcohol rushing through his system, but he could hear her as clearly as if she were there. “No one wins every time, Kane. Not even your father. When you do lose, accept it and grow from it. There is good in even the darkest of days. If you look for it and don’t find it, make it.”

Kane opened his eyes and broke the silence. “I’ve been working on something for Gigi. It’s a project that needs to be completed even if she and I are no longer together.”

Kane shared that Leora had asked him to help Gigi find her way back to her Venetian roots. He explained how Gigi’s mother had sold off her belongings to pay for her daughter’s schooling, and how Gigi had been determined to repurchase everything she’d sold.

“Why wouldn’t she ask for our help?” Nick asked.

With a sympathetic expression on his face, Luke said, “She might not feel she can yet.”

Max shook his head in confusion. “We’re her brothers. We’d do anything for her.”

In a low voice, Kane said, “If she doesn’t rely on you, you can’t disappoint her again.”

All four men fell into a pensive quiet.

Taking a last swig of his soda, Kane said, “I have most of the items already. They’re stored just outside of Venice. I had planned to bring Gigi with me while I negotiated for the remaining items. I’ll complete those purchases this week and have everything in that storage facility. All you need to do is take Gigi there, and she’ll handle the rest.”

Luke turned in his chair to face Kane and his brothers. “Does she know you’re doing this?”

“When she first mentioned some of the collectors were holding tight to some of the paintings, I offered to help her. I didn’t tell her I had started the project. I’d planned to surprise her.”

Nick looked skyward. “Oh, boy.”

Max whistled. “Even I can see the problem with this one. Gigi doesn’t handle surprises well.”

“Most of it was hardly a surprise. She’s the one who gave me the list of each item.”

“Interesting,” Luke said slowly as if he were fitting pieces of a puzzle together.

Nick shook his head. “He doesn’t get it.”

Luke began drumming his fingers on the bar again. “It would explain why she’s so upset. I bet she thinks you haven’t done anything to get those items back.”

Kane snapped around to meet Luke’s eyes. Could it be that simple? “She never asked about it.”

Luke shrugged one shoulder. “As you said, you can’t disappoint her if she doesn’t rely on you.”

Kane fisted his hand on the table. “I would do anything for her. She has to know that.”

Max interjected, “So are we all going to sit here and commiserate on being the people she has no faith in, or are we going to do something about it?”

“Do something?” Nick parroted.

Luke sighed. “Trust isn’t something you can force, Max.”

“Maybe not,” Max replied, “but you can damn well prove yourself worthy of it.” He turned to Kane. “Before we do this, I need to know if you love Gigi. I mean, the forever after type of love. Because if we do this right, you just might end up married to her.”

‡

G
igi sat on
a stool in her mother’s kitchen in Venice and watched her mother rolling pasta. “We need to talk, Mamma.”

Leora paused and glanced at Gigi. “I figured as much. You don’t usually come home without a good reason.”

Gigi rubbed her cold hands on the thighs of her slacks and blurted, “Why did you accept that Papa wouldn’t leave his wife? Why didn’t you ever demand more from him? Didn’t you think we deserved better than he gave us?”

Leora stopped and wiped her hands on a towel. “I loved him, Gigia. And he left you as much money as he did his sons. That must mean something to you.”

Gigi stood angrily. “Yes, he gave me money, and he gave you this palazzo, but if he had actually loved either of us, he would have left his wife. He wouldn’t have kept us hidden. You were nothing but his mistress, and I was his bastard child.”

“That’s enough, Gigia. Your father is not here to defend himself, and I will not allow you to speak badly of him. He was a good man.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve heard you describe him that way? But you’re wrong. He wasn’t. Not by my definition. He was a cheater and a liar. Considering the way he hid us from everyone, I would say he was also a coward.”

Leora studied Gigi’s face for a long moment. “He’s gone. He can’t change the past. He can’t even try to make amends. What are you looking for me to say? Do you want me to hate him with you? I can’t. I loved him. I still love him.” Gigi frowned and her mother continued, “Are you angry, Gigia, or afraid? I can’t help you fight your demons if you don’t tell me what they are.”

“My demons? Mine? What kind of mother lets her daughter be raised by a man who doesn’t love her? A man who fills her head so full of lies she can’t believe anyone? What am I afraid of? I’m falling in love with a man, Mamma, and I am terrified I’ll end up like you.”

Gigi’s words hung heavy in the air between them. Although voicing her fears to her mother had been cathartic, the pain in Leora’s eyes instantly filled Gigi with remorse. “Mamma—”

Leora raised her hand in a signal for her daughter to stop talking. She raised her chin, sniffed, and dabbed at the corner of one of her eyes. Finally, in a calm voice that was not reflected in her stormy dark eyes, Leora said, “Is that why you wanted to go to school in England? Why you turn your back on your own heritage? Because you’re afraid of becoming me?”

Gigi could have lied. It would have been kinder, but she had spent a lifetime concealing how she felt. So, instead, she whispered, “Yes.”

Leora rubbed one hand lightly across her face. “You think I stayed with your father because I was too weak to leave him? That I should have been more than some man’s mistress?”

Gigi swallowed hard and held her mother’s eyes. “Yes.”

Pursing her lips, Leora took a moment to choose her words. “You may be right, Gigia. But from the first moment I met your father, I knew we belonged together. He never lied to me. He had given his heart and his name to a woman who could not love him back. They had four sons, and for that reason he would never leave her. He gave me a choice, and I chose him, even though I knew I could never have all of him. He loved me as deeply as he could, and there was not a day together where he wasn’t a kind and gentle man. He cried the day you were born because he loved you so very much.”

“So much that he never told his other family about me.”

Leora clasped her hands in front of her. “You know he did that to protect you.”

Gigi shrugged doubtfully. “That’s what you’ve always said.”

“His wife was an angry and spiteful woman. You were safer if she didn’t know about you.”

Gigi looked at the floor. “That sounds like a lie a man tells his mistress to keep her quiet. Papa couldn’t very well call his wife a saint because then his unfaithfulness wouldn’t have been so easy to excuse.”

“Gigia, you’re not a child anymore. It’s time for you to stop being angry with your father. And with me. Perhaps I didn’t live the life you would have chosen, but I was happy in it. You never went to bed hungry or scared. I made sure you had not only what you needed, but also what your heart was set on. There is nothing I can do or say that will change what you think of me, or how you feel about being Venetian. The only one who can do that is you. I have seen the destructive nature of anger that is allowed to fester within a person’s heart. You don’t want that. Ask your brothers about their mother. See if holding onto the past is truly what you want to do.”