“What did you do?”
Thanks, Dad. “Why don’t you ever take my side, huh?”
His father waggled a finger in front of Leo’s face. “Because you’ve got that guilty look. And Tessa is a sweetheart. So if you made her mad enough to leave, you probably did something wrong. Plus, you already said you screwed up.”
Leo sighed. “She found a proposal for the sale of the bakery that Joanna gave me a long time ago. I hid it from Tessa because Joanna asked me to. And I hid it from you because…because I knew buying the bakery was the wrong thing to do. Joanna wants Tessa to have enough money to go to pastry school.”
“That’s very noble of her,” his dad said.
Leo lifted a brow in question. “You don’t sound surprised.”
His dad shrugged. “Joanna already told me she felt she had no choice. That time has passed. How much does pastry school cost?”
His dad knew? So Leo had hidden the truth for…nothing? “Twenty-five thousand dollars for five months of school in Chicago. Not including rent.”
Leo’s dad let out a low whistle. “Did you apologize for keeping a secret?”
“I did it to protect her. But she said she didn’t need my protection.”
“Did you tell her that you love her and you’re sorry? Because that’s what you do when you screw up. You know that, right?” He looked like he was thinking about that for a while. “Also, husbands and wives don’t keep secrets from each other.”
Ugh. The truth was everything; Leo knew that. Especially to someone who’d had it hidden from her in a relationship before.
Also, he couldn’t bring himself to tell his father the rest.
He’d told Tessa he didn’t want attachments. He’d told her that she was replaceable.
That made him wince. Seems that he had a very bad habit of saying hurtful things when he was angry.
“I think I’m coming down with something.” Fool’s disease, for sure.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m hot and cold. And shaky. And my chest hurts.”
His dad muttered something under his breath that he recognized as an Italian saying: Che cavolo. Which literally meant What cabbage!
Yeah. That about said it all.
His dad played with a napkin on the table. “You took your mother too literally, Leo.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were fifteen when we found out her cancer had come back. And you were so upset. You weren’t eating or sleeping, and your grades were falling. We felt helpless with the cancer, with everything. Your mother couldn’t bear to see you that way. I think she felt desperate to give you some advice to carry through your life that would help you to deal with her death. So she told you to be upbeat, to look on the bright side.”
Always smile, Leo, she’d said, touching his cheek. Promise me. When you give a smile to another person, when you make them laugh, it’s like giving them a present. And it lifts you up when you’re feeling sad.
“It was good advice for a teenager,” Leo said. “I get why she said it.”
“My point is that life isn’t all smiles, though. Sometimes we need to feel the pain. You might think you can escape it, but if you’re human, you must feel the pain. That’s how we know we love someone. We feel their pain as well as their happiness.” He smiled. “And sometimes they cause us pain. Ha. Like when we disagree. But the pain helps us realize how much we need the other person. Plus, you get to make up afterwards.”
“I get it, Dad.” He forced himself to look at his father. “But this wasn’t a little argument. I told her it was a good thing we weren’t serious. That the marriage was just a business contract.”
“A business contract? What are you talking about?”
Leo sighed. “We got married to save the restaurant and the bakery. I thought it would get you to listen to my ideas. And get our families to work together for the common good.”
“A business contract,” he mumbled. “That’s pretty desperate.”
Leo shrugged. “I knew I could turn things around, but I couldn’t get you to listen. I—I love you, Dad. And I’m sorry for the deception. But the joke’s on me now.”
His dad folded his big arms. “Leo, I was stubborn. And I’m sorry that you felt you had to make such a last-resort move. But I learned. And you can, too. You’re an Ivy League graduate. You can figure this out.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
His dad sat back and stared at him and gave him a look like you poor clueless sap.
Yeah, he was feeling things, all right. In his head, stomach, legs, and chest.
He put his hand up and rubbed his sternum, which felt like the worst indigestion of his life.
So this was what heartache felt like. “I love her, Dad.”
“Finally,” his dad said with relief. “And by the way.” He clapped his hand on Leo’s back. “I love you, too. So stop wasting your time talking to me and go do something about it.”
…
The next morning, Tessa had just tossed her third oven full of baguettes into the trash. If this kept up, all the headway the bakery was making with new business leads was going to go straight to hell.
She checked her watch. Hopefully not many people would visit in the next two hours. Then her sisters were taking her somewhere. Out of this bakery, out of town. Away. She’d said fine. Anything was better than thinking about Leo every second of the day. And night.
She walked out into the shop and found Sam bending over, looking at the bakery case. Which wasn’t very nice-looking right now because she seemed to have forgotten how to use the oven. As she approached, he straightened out, smiling his same clueless smile as if they’d been friends every day of their lives. “Hey, Tessa,” he said. “How about a chocolate croissant and a coffee?”
“I’m sorry, Sam, all I’ve got are bread loaves and a few plain croissants. And I’m closing early today.”
“Oh. Well, I didn’t really come to eat, anyway.” He rummaged through his pockets. “Can I get your opinion on something?”
Her first impulse was to just answer his question and get him out of here as soon as possible, like she always did. He probably wanted advice about his tie or what to buy Marcy for her birthday. Or some other silly question she could answer in thirty seconds and send him on his way.
But then Tessa suddenly saw before her eyes a vision of her future, plain as day. A version without Leo. Where Sam still came in every single day asking for guidance about his wife, his kids, and his dog. Where she was still keeping her real thoughts and opinions to herself and pretending everything was just fine.