novelxo Chapter 248
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Daniel laughs as if he’s said something incredibly funny and my reaction is totally normal, looping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. “Laugh,” he orders in my car, a little urgent. “They’ll look away.”
I do as he says, not nearly as good of an actress as he is, but then again he’s had his whole life to practice. But he’s right, after I give a little laugh as if Daniel has said something that’s a little scandalous but ultimately hilarious, his family gives us a couple of confused smirks and then turns back to their business.
When they’ve all looked away, I snap my face back to Daniel’s, my expression totally serious.
“Spill,” I demand. “Now. Tell me everything.” I drain my glass of prosecco, needing to bolster my courage.
Daniel sighs and shakes his head. “I don’t know all of the details, Fay. What I heard is from my Italian cousins when I would go and visit them in Italy, and even what they knew was hushed up. It was apparently a big scandal.”
I nod, urging him to go on as I slip his Manhattan out of his hand and take a sip, deciding I need even more courage. Daniel gives me a little chagrined frown as if he was looking forward to that drink, but he doesn’t take it back.
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“Dad was destined for mom engaged to her at birth to unite the families, as I was to you. And my grandfather he was incredibly good to my dad. When dad went to Italy, he went basically as a pauper his father, the head of the Lippert family, had been killed, and my mom had nothing. So, the fact that nonno respected the engagement, when he could have married his eldest and favorite daughter to someone else, was…a big deal. Dad should have been grateful.”
Daniel sighs, shaking his head, and I nod, understanding. “But he wasn’t?” I ask, needing to know more.
He shrugs and shakes his head, unwilling to commit to that idea. “He was grateful, Fay he was just…” Daniel sighs and looks over to where his dad stands with a group of his family, Natalia again by his side. Kent is easy to spol, of course, being the tallest in the room.
“He what,” I prompt, frustrated by his pauses.
“He was in love with Natalia,” Daniel says simply, turning back to me and laying it out plainly. I feel my blood go cold in my veins. “They they tried to clope to Rome. But they were caught, and dad was punished, and…” Daniel shrugs, indicating that he doesn’t know much more, “a year later, he married mom. And Natalia stood next to my mother at their wedding, and since then she’s always been a close family friend. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Ohmygod,” I murmur, mushing the words together in my shock as I stare at Natalia across the room, slumping in my seat a little
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and raising Daniel’s drink to my mouth again to take a sip. “That explains so much…”
“It does?” he asks, looking over at Natalia curiously.
“Um, yah,” I say, glaring at him a little for being so dumb. “Why Natalia never got married? Why she looks at Kent like that when she thinks he’s not looking? Why she’s doing her utmost to prove that she’s the perfect Italian woman, wife, and mom? And then, Daniel – why she looks at you with such adoration, and treats you like you’re the son she never had? Because you are the son she never had.”
Daniel’s eyes g
go wide at this realization and he looks at her again, shocked to think that…well, yes, in some alternate universe, Natalia would be his mother, not Lenai. And that perhaps Natalia wanted that very badly.
“Plus,” I add, my voice a little bitter now, “the way she sticks to your dad like a little burr? Look at her, standing next to him, like she’s ready to take him back the moment he gives her any sort of hint that he wants her.”
“Really?” Daniel asks, turning that wide gaze on me now. “Do you think Natalia’s going to make a play for him, after all this
time?”
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