His Adam’s apple bobbed and he glanced at his office door like he was willing an interruption. “We should keep our relationship purely professional.”
The heat in my chest pushed down out of my limbs, a chill racing down my spine in its wake. I didn’t know whether to feel angry or sad. “If you don’t want to date me, you don’t have to offer me a job that makes it impossible. You can just tell me you don’t want to date me. You’re not usually so indirect.”
“Sofia,” Andrew said in the angry growl I’d come to know.
“I mean it. Don’t be a coward.”
“I told you, I don’t lie. I want you in this job. But it requires a sacrifice. Working together and . . . being together.” He shook his head with such certainty it was like he was plunging a knife into my skin. “It’s not possible. You’ll be great at this job. You have a deep well of creativity, an appetite for hard work, and impressive qualifications. You’re perfect for this role. And the money . . . It will make your life a lot easier.”
If he hadn’t made me an offer I couldn’t refuse already, reminding me that the job would come with a pay raise sealed the deal.
I couldn’t turn this down. If I didn’t get what I needed from my father, I’d have to find another way of paying for my mother’s operation. This might be that way. Anyway, I didn’t want a man who didn’t want to be with me more than he wanted a CEO.
Maybe my mother had been right: Andrew had been playing with me all along. Now he was bored and didn’t want me anymore. At least I wasn’t pregnant. I supposed I should be thankful for that.
The Rossi women always knew how to look on the bright side.
“Fine,” I said. “When do I start?”
Andrew glanced down at his desk, and if I didn’t know him better, I could have sworn he wore an air of disappointment. There was no pleasing this man. Maybe it was better things between us were over now, before I got in too deep and realized I’d never be enough for him.
He cleared his throat. “Right away. Liaise with HR. They have the contract details. I want to see your ninety-day transition plan by this time next week.”
I stood and smoothed down my skirt, hesitating. Was that it? He was done with me, and now I was dismissed—from his office, his life outside work, and his bed.
Thirty-Six
Sofia
I held up my glass, mirroring my father’s pose. I was here at lunch with my father in body, if not mind. My mind was all Andrew Blake’s. I tried to distract myself and keep busy, but I kept replaying every moment we were together in my mind.
“Congratulations on your brilliant promotion,” he said, beaming at me. “So much good news this week. Did I tell you Bella got accepted at the school Evan and I really wanted her to go to?”
“Oh no, I didn’t know about that.” I needed to focus on the moment right here or I could blow things with my father.
“Yes, it’s been a challenge. We want to give her the very best start in life and it starts young, you know?”
My mom had wanted to give me the very best start in life, too. That’s why she’d worked as hard as she had.
“The people she goes to school with now will be the people she does business with in the future. It’s such a responsibility.”
I stayed silent. If I uttered a word, I feared that my fury and frustration would spill out. How could he be so insensitive, talking to me about the responsibilities of raising a child? To me, the child he abandoned and never made any effort to be responsible for.
“Evan’s delighted. We both are.”
“Does Bella like the school?” I wanted to steer the conversation onto more neutral territory. Bella was adorable and absolutely not responsible for anything I didn’t have growing up.
“Yes, but only because two of her friends are also going to the same school. Anyway, enough me talking about Bella’s school. Sometimes I feel that’s all I ever talk about. Tell me what you were like at her age.”
I shrugged. “Nothing to say, really. The people I went to school with are the drug dealers and gangbangers of today. But my mom was strict and I worked hard so . . . here we are.”
Silence pulled between us. “You’ve done amazingly,” he said. “You didn’t have anything like the resources that my . . . that Bella has had.”
“Nope,” I said. “Just a bunch of student loans.” And a mother with a knee that needed replacing because she’d scrubbed so many floors.
My feet started to tap against the plush carpet of the restaurant we were in. I wanted to go. Leave. Every time I was with this man, all I could feel was what I’d been missing in my life. What I’d gone without. He’d never taken responsibility—not when he’d grown out of his father’s control, not when he got married. He’d had so many opportunities to right his wrong, but he’d never taken a single one of them. If I’d never called, he would have gone the rest of his life without ever setting eyes on his first daughter.
“I hear college in the US is very expensive,” he said.
I nodded. “It is. I’m going to be paying my loans off for decades.” It felt good to tell him even a little bit of the impact his lack of support had had, even if it would take days to articulate the full scope. It was too soon to ask him to pay off my debt—and use that money to pay for my mother’s surgery—but not soon enough to get him thinking about what he owed me. Yes, I had my salary increase, but it wasn’t going to give me the money overnight like a check from Des would. I’d do anything to relieve my mother’s pain as soon as possible.
“I suppose you have a great education to show for it,” he said. At least he had the decency to sound a little awkward. It had obviously registered at some point that him talking about his daughter getting into some fancy private school was insensitive. I had to keep my eye on the long game and remember that I didn’t need to like the man in front of me. I just needed him to like me.
“I absolutely do.”
“I have no idea what really brought you to my door, Sofia. I don’t know if it was curiosity or something more. But I’m glad you’re here. I never wanted to lose all connection to you.”
I couldn’t help myself—my eyebrows arched of their own accord. “Really?”
“Really. I understand why your mother cut off contact. What she needed from me was money, but I didn’t have any to give her.”
Had I heard him correctly? “Skip back a beat. My mother cut off contact? With you?”
“Yes. You know that, right? After I came back to England, we kept talking . . . and then one day I tried to call her and the number was dead.”
My mouth went dry and my palms began to sweat. It felt like I was chewing chalk. She’d cut him off?
No. He had to be wrong. He’d abandoned us.
“I thought you knew. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
I glanced up at him. “I want to know the truth. I think I deserve that.”
“I can’t blame your mother and neither should you. She was protecting herself. I’d hurt her and she was just trying to stop the pain. I get it. I got it at the time.”