I stifled a smile.
“What a unique proposal! I can see why you went to the trouble to get the ring back. It’s stunning.” Janis lifted my hand and examined the obscenely large diamond. It was so heavy that lifting my arm qualified as a workout. “Dante’s always had a good eye, though I’d expected…”
Dante tensed.
Janis cleared her throat and dropped my hand. “Anyway, like I said, it’s a beautiful ring.”
Curiosity kindled in my chest when she and Gianni exchanged glances. What had she been about to say?
“We’re sorry we couldn’t make it to the engagement party,” Gianni added, cutting through the sudden tension. “We would’ve loved to be there, but there was a festival featuring a local artist who hadn’t attended a public event inten yearsthat same weekend.”
“He’s so talented,” Janis piped up. “We simplycouldn’tmiss the opportunity to see him.”
I paused, waiting for the punchline. It never came.
Horror crawled through me.Thatwas why they’d missed their son’s engagement party? To meet some artist they didn’t even know?
Next to me, Dante sipped his drink, his expression like granite. He appeared neither surprised nor perturbed by the revelation.
An unexpected pang hit my chest.
How many times had his parents chosen their selfish desires over him for him to be so blasé about them missing his engagement? I knew they weren’t close, considering Gianni and Janis left him with his grandfather, but still. They could’ve at least made up a decent excuse for why they weren’t there.
I brought a salt-cured prawn to my mouth, but the formerly delicious seafood suddenly tasted like cardboard.
After lunch, Gianni and Janis encouraged us to “take a nice stroll” along the beach behind the restaurant while they finished their “post-lunch meditation,” whatever that meant.
“Your parents seem nice,” I ventured as we walked along the shore.
“As people, maybe. As parents? Not so much.”
I slid a sideways glance at him, surprised by his candor.
Dante’s linen shirt and pants lent him a more casual air than usual, but his features remained strikingly bold, his body powerful and his jaw hard, as he walked beside me. He looked invincible, but that was the thing about humans.No onewas invincible. They were all vulnerable to the same hurts and insecurities as everyone else.
Some people just hid it better.
Another pang rippled through my chest when I remembered how cavalier his parents had been about missing the engagement party.
“Your grandfather raised you and Luca, right?” I knew this, but I couldn’t think of a better way to ease into the subject.
Dante responded with a curt nod. “My parents took off around the world soon after Luca was born. They couldn’t bring two children on their travels, given how much they moved around, so they left us in our grandfather’s care. They said it was for the best.”
“Did they visit often?”
“Once a year at most. They sent postcards on Christmas and our birthdays.” He spoke in a dry, detached tone. “Luca kept his in a special box. I threw mine out.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my throat tight. “You must’ve missed them very much.”
Dante had been a kid at the time, barely old enough to comprehend why his parents were suddenly there one day and gone the next.
Mine weren’t perfect, but I couldn’t imagine them dumping me at a relative’s house so they could jet-set around the world.
“Don’t be. My parents were right. It was for the best.” We stopped at the edge of the beach. “Don’t be fooled by their hospitality, Vivian. They fuss over me whenever they see me because theydon’tsee me often, and it makes them feel like they’re doing their job as parents. They’ll take us out to eat, buy us nice things and ask about our lives, but if you ask them to stick around during the hard times, they’re gone.”
“What about your brother? What’s his relationship with them?”
“Luca was an accident. I was planned because they needed an heir. My grandfather demanded it. But when my brother came along…taking care of two children was too much for my parents, and they bailed.”