I could just see the looks on my sisters’ faces if Xavier ever crossed Nonna’s threshold. Like vultures, all of them. They’d peck his eyes right out. And that was if Matthew didn’t beat the crap out of him first.
Xavier shuddered like he was reading my thoughts.
“Do you want her to know?” I ventured.
It wasn’t until then I realized that I did. It hadn’t taken long, but I realized I’d only been delaying the inevitable. All the reasons had only been because of one thing: my own fear.
But here in the dark with him, I felt perfectly safe. And I knew without a doubt that Sofia would always be safe with him too. Maybe Xavier didn’t understand love—yet. Or maybe he did already. Wasn’t that what he had just described about Sofia?
It sounded like love to me.
“I want her to know,” he said. “I do.”
I stiffened. There was hesitancy there. “But?”
“But…” He shifted against me. “I’ve grown up my whole life having people talk about me when I wasn’t there. Depending on who it was, I was either Rupert Parker’s no-good bastard, or maybe Masumi Sato’s son-in-rags, or else just that nasty prick who ruins other restaurants for fun.”
I frowned. “I never knew you as any of those things.”
He peeked down at me, a shy smile playing over his lips. “Don’t think I don’t love that.”
There was that word again. Not in the way I wanted it, but he still used it more than he thought.
“At any rate, the rest of the world isn’t you.” He shook his head ruefully. “Am I a coward, not wanting anyone else to poison what she thinks of me when I haven’t even had a chance to build that for myself?”
“And you think my family will do that?”
He cocked his head to one side. “You think they won’t?”
I wished I could say he had nothing to worry about. My family were many things, but discreet wasn’t one of them. Neither was forgiving. My sisters were expert gossips, my brother was basically a military-trained guard dog, and every one of them held a deep grudge against Xavier for his absence over the last five years. The second they knew he was back in the picture, I wouldn’t be able to stop them from stalking every social media profile they could find, probably leaving him a variety of choice messages and pieces of advice shielded as threats. More importantly, however, I wouldn’t be able to keep Sofia from hearing all sorts of things about her father. And most of them wouldn’t be good.
“You’re not wrong,” I admitted quietly.
“And is there any chance of our four-year-old keeping this a secret from her aunties and her uncle while we get to know each other?”
I just looked at him.
He snorted. “What about my name? Do they know that?”
I shrugged. “Kate does. The others know Xavier Sato, if they remember it at all. But Kate won’t say anything, and Mattie’s in Italy. Plus, he’s so damn tied up with his lady friend, he won’t notice if Sof mentions you when he gets back.”
Xavier nodded. “So we use Parker, tell her to call me Xavi, and keep the truth between us. Just a bit longer. A few months, maybe?” His mouth quirked again in that sad way that made me want to kiss him. “You were right about that too, I guess.”
I found I couldn’t argue with him. I didn’t like it, but it was the truth.
So, instead, I buried my face in his neck, allowing him to wrap his big arms around me and pull me close. I wanted to sink into him, to pretend like the outside world and all its complications didn’t exist. I wanted that simple peace we’d enjoyed just moments before.
There was another way to get it, I realized, as I felt him stir beneath me.
His hands tensed at my waist. I turned my lips into the crook of his neck and enjoyed the way he shivered in response.
But then he spoke again.
“We can’t do this either, can we?”
I closed my eyes, willing the sudden shooting pain through the middle of my chest to ebb. Dread. That’s what it was. Pure, heavy dread.
I sighed and turned my head the other way, still leaning on his shoulder, but looking toward the kitchen instead of him. “Probably not.”