She swallowed hard, hit by a wave of loss. Those were the very same words her father used to say when she was a little girl.
His two favorite expressions had been “There’s nothing more important than family” and “Family is everything.” Only he hadn’t meant it.
Or maybe once he’d meant it, before he’d become consumed by greed and reckless ambition.
“I agree,” she said softly, hating the awful emotions churning inside of her. Growing up she’d been a daddy’s girl. He’d adored her and she’d loved him deeply in return. He’d been such a handsome, gregarious father. Outgoing. Charming. Full of jokes and laughter.
And then it all changed, virtually overnight. Her father, learning he’d be arrested and prosecuted for a long laundry list of crimes, cut a deal with the feds and confessed his part, and everyone else’s role in organized crime. He saved himself but sold his crime family out.
He should have gone to prison. Because even fourteen years after her father confessed everything to the government, revealing everything he knew, and giving up everyone he’d known, he remained hated and hunted. He’d done the unthinkable. He’d turned on his people, and the mob had turned on him.
“Are you feeling all right?” Vitt asked, shifting Joe in his arms and scrutinizing her face.
She tried to smile but her eyes burned and acid rose up in her throat. Discovering at twelve that the father she’d loved more than life itself, was a thief, a traitor and a coward, had broken her heart. She’d lived with shame every day since. “I’m fine.”
“Do you need some mineral water?”
Did she need mineral water? No. She needed forgiveness. She needed peace. She needed grace. And most of all she needed to forget she was Frank Giordano’s daughter. But married to Vittorio, she could never forget. Married to Vittorio, she’d never be forgiven. “That sounds like a good idea.”
He took a couple steps, pressed a button on the wall and in seconds the flight attendant appeared. “Yes, sir?”
“A mineral water, and some crackers or dry biscuits.”
The flight attendant disappeared to fulfill the request and Vitt drew a chair from the table. “Come, Jill, sit, before you faint.”
Perhaps if he knew the truth now, perhaps if she confessed everything right away, he’d possibly forgive her. Perhaps he’d even understand…because surely, he wouldn’t really hurt her…she couldn’t believe he would hurt her, not after their two weeks together in Bellagio….
Katie flashed to mind.
Had Katie thought the same thing about her new boyfriend, Marco, the handsome law student she’d wanted to bring home to meet Mom and Dad? Had Marco made her believe that she was safe? That he could be trusted? Had she opened up and shared everything, thinking she’d finally found someone who would protect her?
Her eyes burned gritty and pain rolled through Jillian, hard, heavy, sharp, obliterating everything but a desperate determination to survive. To survive at all costs. And to make sure her son did, too.
So even if Vittorio wouldn’t hurt her, Jillian knew there could be no confessing, no pleading of innocence or begging for protection. Instead she’d play the role she’d agreed to play.
She gave Vittorio a calm, steady look, maintaining the steely façade she’d so carefully cultivated over the past year and a half. “Feeling guilty for treating me so callously earlier?” she asked, taking the offered chair.
He gazed down at her, black eyebrow arching slightly. “You practically wept with pleasure. I’m glad I could still satisfy you.”
She crossed her legs, feeling the tenderness between. “Is this how our relationship is going to be? You take what you want, when you want, and I comply?”
“But of course. You’re my wife.”
“Yet you make me feel like your whore.”
The moment the words left her mouth she knew she’d said the wrong thing. She didn’t even need Vittorio to speak to know she’d blundered. The ugly words hung there, suspended, between them.
Did she really feel like a whore?
Or had he merely possessed her the way he knew best—thoroughly and totally?
She opened her mouth to retract the words but was cut short by the appearance of the flight attendant who’d arrived with a small bottle of Perrier, a glass and a plate of crackers balanced on a silver tray. The attendant was pretty and professional and until now had been extremely poised, but her expression faltered as she sensed the mood.
The mood wasn’t good.
The mood would be even worse when she left.
The pretty brunette placed the silver tray on the table near Jillian’s elbow and then Vittorio transferred Joe into her arms. “Have Maria feed him dinner,” he said, giving his son a comforting pat on the back. “Tell Maria we’ll be sure to see him before he goes to bed.”