Page 15 of A Son Hidden from the Sicilian

She stepped closer to Lorenzo so he could get a better look at his son even if Gio was burrowed into her as tight as he could get. She wouldn’tforcehim, but she would give him the space to get comfortable with his father.

“Gio,” she said, holding him close so he didn’t feel abandoned. “We’re going to go on a trip.”

Gio didn’t loosen his grip, but he moved his head a little. “Zoo?”

“Not the zoo, sweetheart. We’re going to go to a whole different country. You, me, Grandma, Grandpa and...your father.” She tried to smile encouragingly at literally anyone in this room but wasn’t sure she succeeded.

And she didn’t know how to make an impromptu trip to Sicily sound exciting to a child who was just over a year old. She didn’t know how to make any of this palatable to him.

“There are zoos I can take you to in Sicily,” Lorenzo said, his voice oddly...soft. Maybe it wasn’t so odd since he was talking to a child,hischild. She’d just assumed someone like Lorenzo would have no clear idea of how to talk to a child. The people she knew who were never around children tended to be stiff and formal, and Lorenzo was often that in the best of times.

This was obviously not the best of times.

“Sicily, where we’re going, is my home,” he continued. He did not reach out to touch Gio, though she got the sense he wanted to. “So there are many places I can take you.”

Gio didn’t loosen his grip, but his gaze moved somewhat suspiciously to Lorenzo. “Roars?”

“That’s his word for tiger,” Brianna explained.

Lorenzo held the boy’s suspicious gaze and smiled. A smile Brianna hadn’t seen out of him since Florence. She did not like what that did to her defenses.

“Of course tigers.”

A silence stretched out as Lorenzo and Gio surveyed each other, interrupted only when her father cleared his throat behind her.

Brianna turned to face him and tried to keep her smile in place. To treat her parents like she was treating Gio—timid toddlers who needed understanding and patience in a new situation.

“I’m sorry. Lorenzo, these are my parents. Scott and Helene. Mom, Dad, this is Lorenzo Parisi.”

Lorenzo finally looked away from Gio and nodded at her parents, stepping forward and offering a hand. “It is good to meet you both.”

Her parents each took a turn shaking the offered hand, and though they had polite smiles fixed on their faces, there was clear suspicion in both their expressions.

“I am delighted you will be accompanying us,” Lorenzo said. “And apologize for the necessity of leaving on such short notice.”

“We would do anything for our daughter and grandson,” Mom said primly.

“Anything,”Dad said, with an attempt at menacing that might have worked on some football-playing boyfriend from high school, but hardly on this man.

Though Lorenzo nodded dutifully as if the threat had any weight against all his power and money.

“I’ve packed everything for Gio,” Mom said. “We’re almost done ourselves.”

“Allow my staff to help you bring the bags to the car,” Lorenzo said, gesturing for the door.

“We aren’t ones for having people wait on us, Mr. Parisi.”

“You must call me Lorenzo, and you must allow me to make this impromptu trip as easy on you and yours as possible.”

Mom seemed to mull this over. “All right,” she said eventually. “We’ll finish packing.” Her parents gave Brianna a look, but she could only smile overbrightly at them, hoping that at some point in the near future she’d be able to really talk with them.

But for now, it just... They had to go. She sucked in a breath as Lorenzo opened the door and gave instructions to his assistant and the driver who were to help with the bags.

“Do you have anything you need from here?” he asked, but his eyes were on Gio.

Brianna thought of her paints and embroidery supplies. It was the only thing of her own that she cared about. “I suppose not.”

Lorenzo frowned. “There is no need to play martyr, Brianna.”

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