Page 93 of Say It Isn't So

Okay, quick rundown of the facts for my own benefit:

Yes, Daddy had forbidden me from seeing Knox.

But Daddy loved me.

We were family, that counted for something.

He couldn’t stay mad at me forever.

What was the worse he could do anyway? Tell me to break things off with Knox before it got too serious? Well, I respected my father and loved him with every fiber of my being but I wasn’t going to just bend to his will on this one.

I was old enough to drive, drink, and everything in between, so I was old enough to make a decision about who I wanted to be with.

Heck, what made me any different from Perla? She’d been able to choose who she wanted to be with. Albeit Frankie was Italian and in my dad’s good graces long before he and Perla had entered into that ridiculous fake marriage. But then there was Maria. She may have acted like the good daughter, but look at her. She had a child already and. . . and. . . Dom. Even if Dom was amazingly sweet and like the big brother I’d always wanted but never had. None of that mattered, though. What mattered was that my sisters had been able to make their own decisions and now I wanted to do the same. And I’d decided I wanted to pursue things with Knox.

How was that for a speech? Now if only I could stand up to my dad like that and not do it on wobbly, noodle legs.

It was just that this was a lot different than causing trouble as a teenager or sneaking boys in and out of the house because now I had too much to lose. He was the only parent I had left and I hated to admit it, but I needed him.

Entering the dining room, I plastered a smile on my face and tried my best not to sound off alarm bells in his head. He was the father of four girls, he always could tell when trouble was brewing or there was something he wasn’t going to like. Like a hound dog, he could sniff these things out.

Lifting his head from his phone, he looked at the dinner table I’d set for us and said, “You didn’t have to do this, baby girl.” I pulled his chair out and moved to the hot dish I’d placed in the middle of the table to serve him. “Is that your sister’s veal I smell?” he asked, setting his phone down.

I nodded. “She brought it by earlier. I just heated it up, thought it’d be nice for us to eat together tonight.”

He smiled and waited for me to sit down after serving us. “I’m glad. I missed you these past few weeks. It’s always quiet when you’re not here.”

“I missed you, too. It was good I went, but after a while I get weary from all the travel and can’t wait to get back to normal.”

“Did you see the new sneakers Dom bought Isabella?” he asked. “He took her shopping for new ones since the others are an old style now.”

This is good. Nice, easy conversation. Then I can work my way up to what I have to say.I chuckled, thinking about how Dom spoiled her. “Of course, only the best for Peanut.”

“Of course,” he repeated and grinned, cutting into his veal.

Should I do it now?I mean, he was in a good mood. Especially after talking about his granddaughter. Not much else made his face light up quite the same. Yeah, maybe this was my window.

“Daddy,” I began, treading lightly.

He shifted in his seat and put his guard up, that much was immediately obvious to me. It was all in the way he laid his fork and knife down and leaned his wrists against the table, his expression serious and his brows coming together to form a V. “What is it, Bianca?”

Okay, so the hound dog is alive and well tonight.

I cleared my throat and decided to just say it. “I’m with Knox.”

If it was possible, his brows were now so furrowed, so pulled together that they had formed one giant caterpillar. Just below, a fire burned in his eyes. I let my eyes scan the rest of him. His back was rigid, his hands coming together to play with the ring on his finger. Then came the upward gaze as he cursed under his breath in Italian. Finally, he said to me, “What exactly does that mean, Bianca?” his voice deep and booming in the otherwise quiet house.

I tried again, explaining, “Knox and I have decided to see where things can go between us, so, I guess you could say we’re seeing each other.”

“Even after I forbade it?”

I nodded slowly, biting the inside of my lip as his anger grew more obvious with his nostrils flaring. “Yes,” I answered honestly.

Unfurling his hands that were white knuckling it over there, he opened one all the way and slammed it down on the table with enough force to shake the plates. “No!” he yelled in a volume he saved for when he was not only angry, but disappointed in the person. That hurt more than he could ever know.

I stood my ground, though, and gritted back, “Yes.”

“No,” he deadpanned, daring me to disobey him.

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