Under His Name

Matteo Vitali arrived the following Saturday with a driver, a leather folder, and the expression of a man who had never waited on a doorstep.

Rafe made him wait anyway.

I watched from the upstairs landing while Alessandro stood in the open front door.

"You could have called," Alessandro said.

"I've been calling."

"I've been choosing not to answer."

There was no raised voice. Somehow that made it worse.

Matteo saw me above his son's shoulder.

He was handsome in a way that had hardened with age, all clean lines and silver hair. I could see the resemblance. I could also see, with unexpected clarity, the difference.

Alessandro looked at me as if my response mattered.

His father looked at me as if he had already calculated it.

"Miss Hayes," Matteo said. "Or do you prefer Mercer?"

My hand tightened on the banister.

Alessandro moved, blocking his father's view.

"You don't address her from the street."

"Then invite me inside."

I came down the stairs.

"He can come in," I said. "I want to hear what he thinks this visit will accomplish."

Alessandro looked at my face for a moment, then stepped aside.

In the sitting room, Matteo declined coffee. I was glad. The idea of serving him anything made my hands itch.

He placed the folder on the table.

"There's a great deal you don't understand," he began.

"Then use small words," I said.

A muscle moved beside his mouth. Alessandro sat next to me, close without touching.

"My son has told me about your condition."

I turned toward Alessandro.

"I told him this morning," he said. "After I found out he was asking our doctor through an administrator. She didn't give him information. I wanted him to hear it from me before he tried again."

I was angry at the intrusion. I was relieved he told me in front of his father instead of waiting until the conversation was over.

"Don't ask about my medical care again," I told Matteo.

He opened the folder.

"An independent residence can be arranged. Financial support. Proper security. There's no need for you to be uncomfortable in a situation that's become emotional."

"My parents are dead," I said. "I would call that emotional."

"And I'm sorry for your loss."

I looked at him, waiting for something more than a phrase people wrote on supermarket condolence cards.

Nothing came.

"Did you listen to the recording?" I asked.

His gaze shifted to Alessandro.

"You had no right to take material from a company archive."

"I have the authority to access that archive," Alessandro said. "You gave it to me when you wanted me to clean up your acquisitions."

"That wasn't an invitation to hand family records to strangers."

"She's not a stranger."

Matteo gave me a brief, appraising look.

"Six weeks is a short acquaintance on which to make permanent decisions."

"You made a permanent decision about my father without ever meeting my mother," I said.

His fingers stopped on the papers.

I leaned forward.

"Was he alive when Sloane called you?"

"Yes."

Hearing it in person was worse.

"Did you warn him?"

Matteo's silence answered before he did.

"I believed Sloane intended to threaten him into returning documents."

"And afterward?"

"Afterward, I was protecting thousands of jobs and people who had nothing to do with it."

"You protected yourself."

"Those aren't always separate things."

I stood because if I stayed seated I thought I might throw the folder at him.

"You don't get to offer me a nice apartment and call that help. You had something that could have told me why they died, and you kept it because it was useful to you."

Alessandro stood beside me.

"Take your papers," he told his father.

Matteo remained seated.

"The child will bear our name. That means there are considerations beyond whatever the two of you believe you're doing."

A cold anger moved through me.

"My baby is not an extension of your property."

"No one said property."

"You brought a contract before you brought an apology."

For the first time, Matteo looked properly displeased.

He turned to his son. "You will not jeopardize everything I've built over a woman you met in a hotel."

Alessandro's hand found mine.

"You can leave now."

"Think carefully."

"I have. Rafe will show you out."

His father rose slowly. "There are men who will see this as weakness."

Alessandro stepped closer to him. His voice lowered until I had to strain to hear it.

"Then I suggest they come to me with that opinion. They don't come near her."

Matteo stared at him.

I had felt Alessandro's restraint for days. Now I saw what it contained. Not noise, not swagger. A capacity for violence held very close to the surface.

His father saw it too.

He picked up the folder and left.

Only after the front door closed did I realize I was shaking.

Alessandro turned to me. "Did he touch you?"

"No."

"Do you need to sit?"

"I need to stop feeling like your father can buy the room out from under my feet."

He looked toward the door, and his face did something I couldn't read.

Then he took a breath.

"This house is owned by me, not the family company. Nora can confirm it. But if it ever stops feeling safe, we go somewhere else."

"We?"

He looked back at me. "If you'll have me."

I stepped into him before I could consider all the ways that answer might hurt.

His arms closed around me. I pressed my cheek against his chest until his heartbeat steadied beneath my ear.

"I hate him," I whispered.

His hand spread over the back of my head.

"I know."

That afternoon, he left to speak with his own attorney. When he returned, there was blood across one knuckle.

My stomach dropped.

"What happened?"

"I hit the wall in my office."

"Was the wall responsible for any of this?"

He looked at his hand with faint embarrassment. "No."

I fetched the first-aid box.

He sat at the kitchen counter while I cleaned the scrape. His hand was heavy in mine, his fingers uncharacteristically still.

"You could lose your place in the family," I said.

"I know."

"I don't want you waking up one morning and deciding I took your life away."

He caught my wrist gently before I could reach for another bandage.

"Emma. Look at me."

I did.

"You didn't come to that gala looking for me. You didn't ask me to find you. And you certainly didn't ask my father to be who he is. Whatever I lose, I lose because of choices I make now."

I swallowed.

"What if you regret them?"

"Then I'll have to live with regret like everyone else. It won't become your debt."

I finished the bandage. He lifted my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist.

That night, we lay awake talking about ordinary things that suddenly seemed extravagant. Whether he could cook anything besides damaged toast. Whether I wanted to keep working at the diner. Whether there was room for a crib without turning the house into a showroom for a child who couldn't yet lift its head.

"I don't know how to do this," I admitted.

"Neither do I."

"That should probably worry us."

He kissed my shoulder.

"It does. I still want it."

I turned toward him in the dark.

"So do I."