Dante shrugged. “Yeah.”
“So, no ranch. Instead, you brought her to New York. Moved her into your place. Accepted the kid as your own without asking for any proof—”
“The ‘kid,’” Dante said, his tone plummeting from cool to icy, “is named Daniel. And I don’t need proof. Gaby would never lie to me.”
“Right,” Nick said.
“She wouldn’t. And I don’t like the tone of your voice.”
Nick nodded. Falco cleared his throat.
“And you took all these days off because…?”
A little lift of the shoulders. “It just seemed the right thing to do.” Dante looked at Falco and Nick. Their expressions were benign, but something was lurking in their eyes, some truth they seemed to know and he didn’t. “Gabriella was new to my place,” he added. “New to the city.”
“No, she isn’t. She lived here. She worked here. You said so. She even knows your place, from when she dated you. So, try again, bro. You spent the time with her because…?”
Dante narrowed his eyes. “What’s your point?”
Nick sighed. “I don’t know, man. I mean, what could my point possibly be? You were ready to drop five million bucks on a ranch for a woman. You acknowledged her baby as yours. You brought her home, moved her in, spent every minute with her and you tell us the relationship didn’t mean a thing. Have I got the details right?”
Dante shrugged.
“You’ve got them right,” Falco said. He looked at Dante. “Then, how come each time one of us so much as hints at her being anything but perfect, you turn purple?”
“I do not turn purple.”
“He’s purple now,” Nick said lazily.
“He is, indeed,” Falco agreed. “And we haven’t even touched on why the lady’s leaving you.”
“No ranch. That’s why.”
“You don’t think it could have anything to do with the fact that she suddenly realized she was living her life, living her kid’s life, on your terms? That she has no money, no home, no anything here or back in Brazil that you don’t graciously choose to dole out, and—”
Dante slammed down his beer bottle. “You make it sound as if I trashed her life. But that’s not the way it was.”
Falco narrowed his eyes. “How was it, then?” he said very quietly, and Dante’s face all but crumpled.
“Oh, hell,” he whispered. He looked up. “I loved her. I still do. I’m crazy for her. I want to marry her. Wake up every morning for the rest of my life with her beside me.”
Nick arched an eyebrow. “But?”
“But last night, before I could tell her that, she turned cold as ice. Said it was time I met with her lawyer.”
Falco nodded. “Seems to me it’s one of two things happening here, bro. Either she’s tired waiting for her ship to come in—”
Dante lunged for him. Falco grabbed his wrist.
“Take it easy, man, unless you think you and me taking this outside will help calm you down.” Dante didn’t answer, and Falco let go of him and leaned over the table. “Or the lady loves you just the way you love her but she’s got her pride, she’s got the baby, and she’s decided she’d rather end this on her terms than wait for you to do it.”
“Why would she think that?”
“Maybe,” Nick said patiently, “because you haven’t said a word to her about what happens beyond today.”
“Maybe,” Falco added, “because of what you told us about how you broke up with her last time. The diamond earrings at dinner routine.”
Dante was bewildered. “That’s how we all do it.”
Falco nodded. “Exactly.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I wanted to bring her to the wedding today. Introduce her to everybody.” He gave a halfhearted laugh. “Of course, I warned her what it would be like, how rough it would be, what the old man is like, how Mama would probably go nuts learning she has a grandson, how the girls would swamp her, but before I could even finish talking, she interrupted, said she had no wish to go with me, that she wanted to discuss repaying the money she thinks she owes me…as if I’d take a dime from her.”
“And how did she react to what you told her? That she’d be meeting us all at once?”
“I just told you,” Dante said impatiently, “I never got that far. I just told her that—I told her that—” His face turned white. “Merda!”
“What?”
Dante shot to his feet. “I was preparing her for the big Orsini scene, but it must have sounded as if I were telling her there wasn’t a way in hell I’d bring her with me today.”