Page 50 of Secret Admirer
“Was?” She stepped back like she’d just seen a monster. Her chin lifted. “Always will be. Bart, you're just like our father.”
“What?” He placed his hands on his chest as if shot. He never wanted to be his father.
This was why he was better at not letting any woman near his heart. Rebecca had used a blender to destroy his when he’d told her himself that he didn’t even have one.
Aurelia's wild dark chocolate waves shook around her red face. “I'd hoped I was wrong but if you’re fine and don’t care about her then you treated her exactly how our father treated our mother.”
He scoffed. “I never kidnapped her child.”
She turned to leave as she said, “You used her and broke her heart.”
The opposite was more true, but he’d never say that. His sister’s comparison to their father tore at his gut. “I… I’m sorry you see it that way.”
“I have to go.” She twisted the knob and opened the door. “Goodbye, Bart.”
His spine was like ants marched up his back. Was this the last time he’d see his own sister? The hollowness inside him grew as he imagined himself and his father--the same. It haunted his dreams.
The click of the door closing behind his sister was like another bullet, but this time aimed at his head. This wasn’t good.
He stumbled and sat in the living room with the rest of his brothers and wished their mother was alive. She’d probably like Rebecca’s surety and her devotion to her father.
Gio poured the wine for all of them and when he handed Bart a glass, he asked, “What did you say to our sister that made her run so fast?”
Aurelia saw herself as Melissa, Rebecca’s friend. But the rest of his brothers had no divided loyalties. They’d have probably done the same in the situation as he had. He perked up and stared at the four of them gathered on his sofas. “Rebecca and I broke up today.”
Gio handed the last glass to Anthony and then asked, “Why? She seemed into you.”
Everyone here would understand. He sat straighter. “She said I was like our father.”
Anthony didn’t blink. “What’s wrong with that?”
His stomach clenched. Their father wasn’t anyone to emulate. The day their mother threw Mitch out of the villa and spit on the dirt outside the door, when prior to that she'd always been a lady, replayed. Her face had been distorted, red like Aurelia’s just now, and she'd screamed words he didn’t know she knew. How did Anthony not pick their sainted mother’s side in that? “He hurt people.”
Anthony drank his wine like that didn't bother him. “And got whatever he wanted.”
And destroyed people in his way. Bart started to explain, “Our mother-”
“Had a temper,” Anthony interrupted. “Our father left her-”
“She left him, Anthony,” Lorenzo corrected.
Anthony held the stem of his glass higher as if bored. “I don’t remember it that way.”
No one else said anything, but they all drank more of the wine.
The silence grew more pronounced with every sip. Lorenzo broke the heavy moment when he asked Anthony, “Have you found Jennifer?”
“She’s not speaking to me.” He gulped his last sip of wine like that somehow washed away his feelings.
Gio refilled Anthony’s cup. Bart’s stomach knotted. No one here had come to his defense about how wrong the comparison was between him and their father. His skin crawled worse than if he'd fallen into a pile of snakes.
Gio asked Anthony, like his problem mattered more, “And that’s okay?”
“She married a cousin, apparently.” Anthony swirled his second glass.
Lorenzo asked, “What?”
Anthony's lips pursed like the rest of them should know this already, and he thought less of them for not knowing. “Father’s brother, Jake, had four sons. Jennifer married Chris.”
