“Swan wrestling, eh?” Gianni, as he insisted on being called, laughed. “Dante, non manchi mai di sorprendermi.”
“Anche io non finisco mai di sorprendermi,” Dante muttered.
I stifled a smile.
“What a unique proposal! I can see why you went to the trouble to get the ring back. It’s stunning.” Janis lifted my hand and examined the obscenely large diamond. It was so heavy that lifting my arm qualified as a workout. “Dante’s always had a good eye, though I’d expected…”
Dante tensed.
Janis cleared her throat and dropped my hand. “Anyway, like I said, it’s a beautiful ring.”
Curiosity kindled in my chest when she and Gianni exchanged glances. What had she been about to say?
“We’re sorry we couldn’t make it to the engagement party,” Gianni added, cutting through the sudden tension. “We would’ve loved to be there, but there was a festival featuring a local artist who hadn’t attended a public event in ten years that same weekend.”
“He’s so talented,” Janis piped up. “We simply couldn’t miss the opportunity to see him.”
I paused, waiting for the punchline. It never came.
Horror crawled through me. That was why they’d missed their son’s engagement party? To meet some artist they didn’t even know?
Next to me, Dante sipped his drink, his expression like granite. He appeared neither surprised nor perturbed by the revelation.
An unexpected pang hit my chest.
How many times had his parents chosen their selfish desires over him for him to be so blasé about them missing his engagement? I knew they weren’t close, considering Gianni and Janis left him with his grandfather, but still. They could’ve at least made up a decent excuse for why they weren’t there.
I brought a salt-cured prawn to my mouth, but the formerly delicious seafood suddenly tasted like cardboard.
After lunch, Gianni and Janis encouraged us to “take a nice stroll” along the beach behind the restaurant while they finished their “post-lunch meditation,” whatever that meant.
“Your parents seem nice,” I ventured as we walked along the shore.
“As people, maybe. As parents? Not so much.”
I slid a sideways glance at him, surprised by his candor.
Dante’s linen shirt and pants lent him a more casual air than usual, but his features remained strikingly bold, his body powerful and his jaw hard, as he walked beside me. He looked invincible, but that was the thing about humans. No one was invincible. They were all vulnerable to the same hurts and insecurities as everyone else.
Some people just hid it better.
Another pang rippled through my chest when I remembered how cavalier his parents had been about missing the engagement party.
“Your grandfather raised you and Luca, right?” I knew this, but I couldn’t think of a better way to ease into the subject.
Dante responded with a curt nod. “My parents took off around the world soon after Luca was born. They couldn’t bring two children on their travels, given how much they moved around, so they left us in our grandfather’s care. They said it was for the best.”
“Did they visit often?”
“Once a year at most. They sent postcards on Christmas and our birthdays.” He spoke in a dry, detached tone. “Luca kept his in a special box. I threw mine out.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my throat tight. “You must’ve missed them very much.”
Dante had been a kid at the time, barely old enough to comprehend why his parents were suddenly there one day and gone the next.
Mine weren’t perfect, but I couldn’t imagine them dumping me at a relative’s house so they could jet-set around the world.
“Don’t be. My parents were right. It was for the best.” We stopped at the edge of the beach. “Don’t be fooled by their hospitality, Vivian. They fuss over me whenever they see me because they don’t see me often, and it makes them feel like they’re doing their job as parents. They’ll take us out to eat, buy us nice things and ask about our lives, but if you ask them to stick around during the hard times, they’re gone.”
“What about your brother? What’s his relationship with them?”
“Luca was an accident. I was planned because they needed an heir. My grandfather demanded it. But when my brother came along…taking care of two children was too much for my parents, and they bailed.”
“So your grandfather took over instead.”
“He was thrilled.” Dante’s dry tone returned. “My father disappointed him on the business front, but he could mold me into his perfect successor from a young age.”
And he had.
Dante was one of the most successful CEOs in the Fortune 500. He’d tripled the company’s profits since taking over, but at what cost?
“Let me guess. He took you to boardroom play dates and gave you cartoon explainers on the stock market?” I quipped, hoping to ease the tension lining his shoulders.
The empathetic part of me wanted to shift to a lighter topic; the selfish part wanted to dig deeper. This was the most insight I’d gotten into Dante’s background, and I worried one wrong word would cause him to shut down again.
Faint amusement ghosted through his eyes.
“Close. My grandfather ran his household the way he ran his business. He was the first, last, and only word on any subject. Everything operated by a strict set of rules, from our playtime hours to what hobbies Luca and I were allowed to pursue. I was seven when I took my first factory tour, ten when I started learning about contracts and negotiations.”
In other words, he’d lost his childhood to his grandfather’s ambitions.
A deep ache unfurled behind my ribs.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Dante said, correctly assessing my expression. “The Russo Group wouldn’t be where it is now if it weren’t for him and what he taught me.”
“There’s more to life than money and business,” I said softly.
“Not in our world.” A gentle breeze swept by, ruffling his hair. “People can join as many charities as they want, donate as much money as they want, but at the end of the day, it’s about the bottom line. Look at Tim and Arabella Creighton. They were once superstars in Manhattan society. Now Tim’s facing trial, and no one will touch Arabella with a ten-foot pole. All her supposed friends dropped her.”
Dante’s mouth twisted. “If you think any of the people who kiss my ass now will stick around if the company folded tomorrow, you’re sorely mistaken. The only languages they understand are money, power, and strength. Those that have it will do anything to keep it. Those who don’t will do anything to get it.”
“That’s a terrible way to go through life,” I said, even though I’d witnessed those scenarios play out enough times to know he was right.
“Some things make it better.”
My heart faltered, then picked up speed again.
Dante and I stood on a secluded stretch of beach, close enough to see the restaurant but far enough that its sounds and crowds didn’t touch us.
A fissure cleaved his stony mask, revealing a trace of weariness that tugged at my soul.
CEO Dante was all stern frowns and hard commands.