Page 32 of Worth Every Moment

His grunt conveys his irritation, then his energy shifts, and he becomes hyper-focused. “Your brothers are settled.”

“Okay…” I begin when he says nothing more.

“Your reputation needs to be tamed.”

Oh, fuck. Not this again.“My reputation—”

My father holds up a hand to silence me, then picks up a remote from his side table and clicks it. The large TV on the other side of the room turns on, and he presses more buttons. Images of me with a stream of women flick across the screen. Paparazzi photos. “These are only this year. There are more, in case you need reminding.”

As I look at the images of the women, and me, all of us drunk, stumbling out of bars and clubs, climbing into chauffeur-driven limos, an unpleasant sensation bubbles in my stomach. But this is what he wants. To catch me on the back foot. I refuse to let him know I’m unnerved. I grin at the photos as if I’m entertained. Perhaps even pleased with what I see, even thoughbeing confronted with evidence of those meaningless encounters lands like a dead weight in my gut.

“Wipe that smile off your face,” my father snaps, and the succession of images pause. “This is not a joke. You are making the family look bad.”

I turn my focus to him. “As if you’re a paradigm of morality.” His eyes pin me like twin missiles. As a kid, I’d have cowered from this expression, but now I steel myself to meet his gaze. “You fucked every woman on the payroll.”

“All of whom had signed NDAs. My dealings were quiet. Yours are despicable. Childish. You need to stop this and dedicate yourself to one woman.”

Erica pops into my mind, and I clench my jaw so hard it hurts. No matter what I might or might not feel for her, she’s made it clear she’s not interested. Probably for a lot of the same reasons I’m standing here in front of my father like a naughty fucking school kid. Well, he can’t reprimand me like one. I’m not doing anything to please him. God knows I spent enough time trying to do that in my youth. "If I want to do that, I’ll do it. My relationship status is my business. Not yours.”

He switches off the TV, lays the remote aside and places his palms on his thighs, sitting a little straighter. “Our family name is recognised the world over. The name is the business. You fuck around, you’re messing with the business. The two cannot be disentangled. Why do you think I was so careful over the years? Did you ever read an article about my love life? My affairs? No.”

“You’re seventy-five. Things were different then. People didn’t have iPhones, for one. Everyone has a camera in their pocket now.”

“A man who makes excuses is no man at all, Sebastian.”

I draw in a breath that puffs my chest. The old fucker might have a point there. I tip my chin to acknowledge it.

He clears his throat. “I won’t last forever. I’m unwell. This time, my heart nearly killed me."

I keep my face still. I’ve never felt much emotion towards my father, but to hear him speak so plainly about dying causes an unpleasant sensation to sweep through my body, as if everything beneath my ribs is being scooped out.Emptied. A reminder that one day, we’re all going to die.

“You’re like me, Sebastian. We’re made of the same cloth—”

“I’m nothing like you,” I spit, thinking of all the women he fucked when we were young, a parade of them through the house, all while Mum turned a blind eye. I might have had my fair share of casual sex, but it was all consensual and I have never cheated on anyone.

He coughs and clears his throat. “Oh, you are. You love to fuck, but you can’t love. You don’t really care about the women you’ve been with.”

“How would you know that?”

He reaches across to the side table and grabs a folder, which he throws at me. “They’re all in there. Every woman you’ve ever been seen with. I have statements from most of them.”

“What the fuck?”

“Open it.”

I do as he asks. Each entry includes multiple photos and a typed statement with the woman’s details. Address, birth date, fucking zodiac sign. The lot. Anger rises like a red flood. This isn’t a montage of publicly available images. This is something else. “You’ve had me under surveillance? You approached these women? You—”

“Your time is up. I hope you’ve enjoyed sowing all those wild oats because it ends now.”

I clench my fists to curb my fury. “What are you talking about?”

He picks up a large manilla envelope from the side table. “This.” He holds it out to me, and for a second I stare at it. He jerks his chin. “Take a look.”

I snatch it and open it, taking out a sheaf of large photographs. They’re all of a beautiful young woman. She can’t be much more than twenty. A decade younger than me. I vaguely recognise her face.

“Diana Marchetti,” my father fills in. “Your future wife.”

A chill runs through me like someone filled my veins with ice.The girl sitting next to Antonio Marchetti at London Fashion Week.“Wife?”