He couldn’t wait around for them to reject him. Better that he do it first. So he’d gone to live with his mother’s brother in New York, a lawyer who worked eighty-hour weeks and had little to offer his grieving, lonely nephew except his example as a workaholic.
Now Vin stared at Giuseppe in the doorway of the villa. The man he’d once believed to be his father, whose hair had since gone gray. They’d both changed so much over twenty years. Would Giuseppe even recognize him now?
“Good evening,” Vin said haltingly in his native Italian. The language tasted rusty on his lips. “I apologize for the interruption. I’m not sure you’ll recognize me—”
Giuseppe’s lips parted. Then his eyes suddenly shone with tears.
“Vincenzo,” he choked out. “My boy, my boy—you’ve come home at last!”
The old man’s arms went around him, and he felt the force of his father’s sobs. A stab went through Vin’s frozen heart, as if it had painfully started beating again.
Giuseppe pulled back, wiping his eyes, and called out loudly in Italian. Suddenly there were more people at the door, including two dark-haired women, one young, the other older, both pretty and smiling.
His stepmother, Joanne, and...could that be his sister, Maria, now a young woman of twenty-four? They both hugged him with cries of joy, and Giuseppe, weeping openly, hugged all three of them in his vast arms.
Vin blinked fast, feeling like his soul was peeling.
His father. His family. He longed to love them again. But he didn’t have the right. And if they ever knew the truth, their love would evaporate.
“But who’s this?” Giuseppe said in Italian, looking past Vin’s ear. He saw Scarlett fidgeting shyly behind him in the gravel driveway. Heavily pregnant and still in the same casual khakis and jacket she’d worn in Gstaad, she looked incredibly beautiful, with her red hair, chewing her pink lower lip, her green eyes uncertain.
Vin took her hand.
“This is Scarlett, Papà,” he said quietly in the same language. “She’s carrying my child and we’re going to be wed.”
His father gasped, and all the new people now flooding around them—only a few of whom he confusedly recognized—immediately began crying out their welcome and approbation.
“You brought her home to meet us?” Reaching out, Giuseppe patted her cheek.
Vin said drily, “She insisted.”
“Then she is already beloved by me,” the old man said.
“Scarlett doesn’t speak Italian.”
He smiled. “She understands.” And indeed, she had a bright, joyful smile as she looked between him and Giuseppe. She thought she’d brought Vin and his father back together.
If only it was the truth. If only it were even possible.
But in this moment, surrounded on all sides by love, Vin could not fight it. He pushed away his shame about the lie. As the Borgias whisked them into the villa, it was easier to just pretend, for just a short while, that he really was their long-lost son, their long-lost brother. Easier to pretend he was actually deserving of their love and care.
“You came to my engagement party!” His dark-haired young sister said happily, slipping her arm around his as she led him through the grand hall toward the courtyard outside. “You have made this a party to remember!”
“You are engaged, Maria?” he said incredulously. “You were a toddler last time I saw you! Do you even remember me?”
Her smile broadened. “I confess my memory is not perfect, but I know you from your picture.” Her smile faded. “Our father often cried over it.”
“Maria...”
“But all is forgiven now you are here.” Brightening, she motioned across the decorated courtyard, her eyes sparkling. “That is my fiancé, Luca.”
Luca barely looked old enough to be out of college, Vin thought. Or maybe he himself was just old. Outside of Manhattan most people did not wait until they were thirty-five to be wed. And even in New York, no one waited that long to fall in love.
“Forgive me for interrupting your party. If I’d known—”
“Vincenzo, having you here is the best engagement present in the world! Did you see Papà’s face? He’s prayed for this. When we sent you the invitation, we never dreamed you would accept.”