Page 19

LIA

I entered my apartment and found my father asleep on my couch, surrounded by a ridiculous amount of lilies set on every other surface in the room—my dining room table, my kitchen counter, my bookshelves, my coffee table, my floor.

They made my apartment smell like a funeral.

“Who died?” I muttered, coming towards my father.

He didn’t bounce awake like he usually did—which was odd. I remembered as a child my father used to sleep like a cat, always half awake, just in case.

And now that I was standing above him, in a rare moment of superiority he looked…frail. I could feel the head of steam I’d been building in the Uber over dissipating—which felt entirely unfair.

I deserved this argument.

“Dad?” I asked, bumping my couch with a knee.

That made him blink to life, slowly. “Lia,” he said, as his eyes focused on me—and at saying my name, ten years faded off his face. “You’re alive.”

“Of course I’m alive,” I said, squatting on my heels. “What the fuck?” Then I realized that my question had too many possible antecedents for him to understand. “I’m not marrying him.”

I didn’t care that Rhaim said I needed to go through with this charade for the IPO—I wanted to have this fight first.

I’d earned it.

My father heaved a sigh and sat up on the couch. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

“I was up planning my dream wedding at an all-night wedding planners,” I said, as saccharinely as possible. “Gee, I can’t wait to wear a big poofy white dress and everything! Is it going to be at our place in the Hamptons?” I asked, pretending to be enthused.

“Stop that Lia?—”

“No, again, fuck you,” I said, finding my anger and holding on. “I’ve been working my ass off for your stupid fucking IPO and then you just went and sold me out in public? To some man more than twice my age?”

I watched the lines around his eyes harden. “I acknowledged, Lia, that you’re doing well?—”

“No, I’m doing fucking fantastically,” I corrected him, because Rhaim had said so—so I knew it was true. “But then you side-swiped me in front of the entire city, like you didn’t fucking care, and now I’m just some—some— girl again. You’ve taken away all of my power!”

“Your…power?” my father asked, sounding condescending. “I think you mean my money, and my last name.”

“So? Yeah, I didn’t come into things a blank slate—but that doesn’t mean I still haven’t been putting the time in! I’ve been devoting my life to this?—”

“And that’s part of the problem,” he snapped, cutting me off. “What’s going to be left for you once it’s through?”

I inhaled, but then caught myself. I could hardly tell him Rhaim was putting me on the board.

“I want to work,” I enunciated slowly, as he sharply shook his head.

“But a Ferreo woman shouldn’t have to.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Oh my God. We are now firmly in patriarchal bullshit territory—” and then Rio came up, looming over both of us.

“Tell her,” he said, looking at my father.

My father’s jaw clenched as he squinted up at his bodyguard. “I didn’t hire you so you could play Dr. Phil?—”

“Fucking tell her,” Rio said, as I looked haplessly between them.

“Tell me…what?” I demanded, rising up on my knees. “What?”

My father inhaled deeply and then sighed. “I’m sick, Lia. I have been, for quite some time—I’ve just been hiding it is all.”

“What kind of sick?”

“The kind that comes with a shelf life. Kidney cancer,” he said, then wagged a finger at me as I moved to cut him off. “I’ve already seen all the doctors I’m going to. I’m done. It’s my right.”

“Doctor Enzo’s not an oncologist!”

My father blew air through pursed lips and rolled his eyes.

“I don’t understand how you can get to decide when you get to give up, and who I’m going to marry!”

“I’m taking care of things—and of you.”

“I can take care of myself, dad!”

“Can you?” he said, staring me down. “When your mother killed herself—it shattered me.”

Only this time I stared right back. “Because you were sad? Or because for once something happened in your life that you couldn’t control?”

The words hung between us, as cloying as the scent of the lilies all around.

“Who the fuck sent all these, anyhow?” I said, standing, wanting to kick the nearest display of flowers over.

“Your fiancée. They’ve been arriving all morning,” my father said, standing up slowly. “You’re meeting him tomorrow for lunch to sign the pre-nup. Trevia’s going to be going over with you.”

“Great. Your mafia lawyer.”

“Don’t say that,” he growled.

“Why not? It’s true! Everyone knows it!”

“I raised you to be something different!”

I blinked at him, panting with barely suppressed emotion. “Did…you?”

He ran a hand through what remained of his hair. “Well I tried to, in any case.”

“You don’t even know me. Or you would know that I don’t want this—with every fiber of my being.”

My father gave me a look that was withering for both of us, a mixture of disappointment and sorrow, because I’d told him the truth, and he knew it.

“The thing is Lia, that in this case, I don’t care what you want.” He came up to me and tried to put his hands on my shoulder, but I shook them off and stepped back. “You’re a child. You’ll see that, eventually, when you look back at this moment.”

“But I don’t want to—” I said again, fully aware of how even the mere statement made me sound like I was whining.

There was no way to win—Rhaim was right. If I ran away from this engagement now, it would look bad, not only for Corvo, but for me.

“It’s my dying wish,” he snapped, “and all I want is to walk you down the aisle.”

My jaw clamped shut. There was no fighting it.

And when he stepped up to me again, I didn’t step back, and his papery lips kissed my cheek like they had at least a thousand times before.

“I love you, Lia,” he said, from up close, and then turned around to leave the room, before pausing in the doorway.

“I’m only doing what’s best for you. You’ll see that, in time,” he said, and left, with Rio at his heels.

My audience was over, and my fate was sealed.

I sat down on my couch, which was still warm from him sleeping on it, and pulled my knees into my chest to cry.

I spent the rest of the day watching Netflix, eating ice cream, and making my doorman come and take all of the flowers out of my room. I didn’t care what he did with them, give them to his friends, or put them out on the street, or threw them in the trash, I just needed them away from me.

Once he was finished, I moved the books away from Rhaim’s camera.

I wanted to message him, but I had no idea what he was off doing, and I didn’t want to come off as needy?

Which was stupid—I’d just found out my father, the one shitty fixture in my life, was dying.

The thing was though—was I was fairly sure that Rhaim had known that, too.

Which was why he’d wanted me to go easy on him.

I vacillated between being pissed and understanding—but if another man in my life hid one more thing from me, I couldn’t be held responsible for what I’d do.

And then, right at sundown, a text came onto my burner phone.

Get in front of the camera.

I set my bowl down and did as I was told, so he could see me text him back.

You do know facetime’s a thing, right?

Of course. But I prefer it when this is one-way.

What if I don’t?

I asked, sitting on my bed cross-legged, my phone in my lap, looking sorrowfully at its screen.

You okay?

he immediately asked back.

How long have you known my dad was gonna die?

I texted—and looked straight at the camera as I was hitting send.

The dots on the bottom of the screen bounced for a while.

He needed to be the one to tell you.

The thing that sucked the most was that Rhaim wasn’t wrong. I could totally understand why he’d wanted my father to broach the subject.

But it still felt like a betrayal.

Are you sad?

he texted over.

I tilted my head and gave the camera a look that said, Of course, without typing a thing.

I wish I could be there to comfort you.

I stared at my phone some.

I wish that too.

You gonna be able to go to sleep tonight?

Yeah. I’ve got some Ambien I stashed for an international flight I can break into.

Good. Get some rest. Text me tomorrow when you wake up.

I swallowed, looking at the screen.

I’m supposed to meet Marcus for lunch. Taking Trevia with me—to sign the pre-nup.

You think you can do that?

He asked, then quickly added,

Without stabbing him, I mean?

That made me snicker.

No promises.

I could almost feel him laughing on the other side.

Get to bed, little girl. I have work to do—but I want to see you tucked in.

I set my phone down and went to brush my teeth, take a pill, and put on PJs, before coming back, to settle myself down inside my bed with all of my surrounding nightlights still on. Then I picked my phone back up.

He waited until I was looking at it again before sending what I knew would be my final messages of the night.

Good night, Lia.

I still remember the way you taste.