“So what now?” Matthew asked sharply, cutting through the entertainment once again. “Now you know. But you’re what, a duke or earl or something on top of being a hot shot restaurant owner or whatever? You don’t live here. So are you going back to England all over again? Break your kid’s heart alongside my sister’s this time?”
Beside me, Xavier’s hands balled into fists, and he started to chew his bottom lip. The rest of him was a statue. Matthew couldn’t know the effect that such an accusation would have, but I did.
What I didn’t know, however, was the answer to his questions. What would he do once Sofia found out?
“As it happens,” Xavier said through his teeth, trying to be civil the same way a lion might try to charm a mouse. “I have plans to move to New York while I expand the Parker Group in America. The first restaurant opens next week in Soho. It’s called Chie. That’s Japanese for wisdom.”
“Sofia means wisdom too.”
We all turned to Nonna, who had spoken.
“It’s my name too, you see,” she finished. “And my great-granddaughter’s.”
Everyone pivoted immediately back to Xavier.
“I know,” Xavier said, meeting my grandmother’s sharp gaze straight on. “That’s why I chose it. I wanted the first step in this country to remind me every day of why I’m really here. It’s not for a business. It’s for my daughter.” He swallowed, taking on a more genial tone. “And you’re all welcome to attend the grand opening, by the way. As family, of course.”
He couldn’t have picked a better thing to say. The entire room sprang into excitement, the invitation eliciting eager smiles and jabber from Joni and Marie, tentative nods of approval from Kate and Lea, and even a look of mild respect from Matthew.
“I just want to know one thing.”
Nonna’s voice shut down the commotion once again. She might have been the smallest in the room, but she was undeniably the matriarch of the Zola clan. Even Matthew would have given her the shirt off his back if she asked for it.
Nonna took a few steps forward until she was less than a foot from Xavier, forcing him to hunch slightly so she didn’t have to stare so far up. “Who are you really?” she asked.
Xavier looked like he was waiting for more, and when it didn’t come, glanced at me as if for answers. I just shrugged. It was a simple question. How to answer it was much more complicated.
He swallowed. “They call me a lot of things back home. Some call me duke, but only if they don’t know me. Others say I’m a rude offspring, a rebel heir, or maybe just a bastard, and for a long time, I believed them.” He shook each of the words away like a dog shaking water off its back, then rotated slightly so he was facing everyone, not just Nonna. “But in the last six months, I’ve learned who I really am. I’m that little girl’s father. I’m the man responsible for showing her what’s right and wrong in the world, how to be treated and how to treat others, how to respect people and how to respect herself. That’s all that matters to me anymore. Not my estate or business or restaurants or anything else. Just her. Just being Sofia’s dad.”
“You’re my dad?”
Everyone in the room froze, this time including me. At my side, Xavier’s eyes grew approximately the size of Nonna’s dinner plates. I, for one, couldn’t feel my legs. I glanced at Kate, who only just managed to give me a weak smile as all the other heads in the room began to turn one by one, mine the last, toward where Sofia stood on the stair at the entry of the room, tiny hand tucked into Nonna’s skirt while her great-grandmother stroked her hair.
Sofia, however, only had eyes for Xavier, who slowly turned and found the girl who looked so much like him. If he was conscious of the seven pairs of eyes glued to him, he showed no sign of it. His attention was focused purely on Sofia as he made his way to her, then folded his legs into a squat so that he was at her level.
“That’s right,” he told her solemnly. “Got a bit delayed there, but yes. I’m your daddy, sweet girl. And I always will be. I promise.”
His deep voice was shaking by the time he finished, though no other part of him betrayed what I knew had to be excruciating nerves. I knew because I was feeling them myself.
Sofia’s eyes found me over Xavier’s shoulder. “Mama?”
Silently, I nodded. “It’s true, Sof.”
For a split second, I wondered if she would be angry. If she would ask versions of the same questions we’d just suffered from my siblings. Why I hadn’t told her? Why I’d held onto such a secret? Why I had kept him from her for so long?
But instead, my daughter turned back to the man whose eyes matched hers, gave him a grin that was brighter than any star in the universe, and launched herself at him so hard that her tiny body managed to knock his enormous one over with the force of her embrace.
“Daddy,” she whispered before burying her face in his neck. “I knew it. I prayed and prayed for it. I did.”
“That’s right,” Xavier whispered. “I’m your daddy. And I—” He took a deep breath. “I love you.”
No one spoke. No one dared. Sofia and Xavier rocked slowly in each other’s arms, whispering tiny secrets between themselves while the rest of us witnessed a solemn, if unspoken, bond that had been months in the making. Years, really. Or maybe it had been there from the start.
“Here.” Kate materialized next to me with a tissue floating in her hand.
I took it, only to realize that tears were streaming down my face, just like every other person in the room, my brother and Xavier included.
“Well, fuck,” Xavier laughed through his own tears, swiping them with the back of his broad hand. “I guess we’ve got another reason to celebrate Friday, don’t we?”
“Swear jar, Daddy,” Sofia said, opening up her palm expectantly.
“Ha,” Matthew said even as he dabbed with his handkerchief. “At least now I won’t be the only one getting that treatment.”
At the casual use of “Daddy,” Xavier grinned, yanked a bill from his wallet, and popped it into her hand with a kiss to her cheek.
“No, a real one, Dad,” Sofia said.
Xavier just rolled his eyes, and I couldn’t help but giggle.
“On Friday, yes,” Nonna piped up, reaching down to clasp Xavi’s face between her palms. “But Katie, go get the limoncello. In this house, we can celebrate more than once.”