Antonio closed his eyes and listened. His lips were clenched. He tried to suppress the emotion that had overcome him. Yes, his grandfather touched a raw nerve where marriage was concerned. His own mother was a self-professed gold digger and his former girlfriend had more than betrayed him.
It was a bitter betrayal. The one girl he thought he was in love with when he was younger used him and then went on to sleep with his so-called best friend. Antonio chose to block memories of her from his mind but the fact that his grandfather remembered how much it almost killed him at the time when he was still in college brought the reality back that it had happened and it was real.
Antonio didn’t get love from his own mother nor from the women in his life he had dated and add that to the fact that his own grandfather had been strung through the alimony cycle several times didn’t make it any easier.
Antonio wasn’t like his grandfather, though. Hurt him once and no one would ever get the opportunity to pull that again on him. He was through binding himself or tying himself down to one woman. Sex not love was his motto. And that was good enough for him.
No one would ever get the opportunity to hurt him again. Antonio would make sure of that. And if his grandfather wanted to make a fool of himself and risk his health, then that would be his prerogative.
“I’ve made bad decisions in the past, Grandfather, and so have you. Yes, I agree with that. But I don’t agree with making similar decisions that could lead to the same results,” Antonio opined. “When you believe you’re in love, isn’t it possible to think things are better than they really are? Isn’t that why they say that love is blind?”
“Perhaps, grandson. Perhaps. But it is still my decision to make. I really wish you would change the way you feel about love and marriage. I really don’t want to see you have all this success and no one to share it with. I want to see you happy with someone who makes you happy, Antonio. There really is someone for everyone. The world is a big place. It is our thinking that can make it small. Please think out of the box where love is concerned.” With those words, Toni got up from his chair and pressed the button near his elbow. When the butler returned, Toni motioned to him to take his tray upstairs. “I will be having my evening snack in my room, thank you.”
The butler nodded and picked up the tray.
“Well, Antonio, I need to get some rest. We have the ball tomorrow night and I have some business to attend to during the day. And by the looks of it, you could do with some rest yourself.” Toni patted Antonio on the back and walked out of the study.
Antonio moved over to the desk and pressed his elbows on top of it, resting his chin on his folded hands.
He gave thought to what his grandfather told him. It wasn’t planned that way, yet it had turned out to be a heart-to-heart, man-to-man talk, didn’t it? So why hadn’t he mellowed a bit?
A flash of loneliness stabbed at Antonio’s heart.
The words of his late father’s surfaced in his mind. “Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely,” his old man once told him. The truth was, Antonio didn’t want to mess around with anyone’s feelings just because he was unsure of his own. That was what it all boiled down to, wasn’t it?
Antonio was sure of many things in his life but knowing when you meet the right person wasn’t one of them. Who could tell the difference? No one. Antonio took great risks with business decisions, stock options and game plans to do with the family business, but with his own personal life, that was no longer something he wanted to risk.
He squeezed his eyes shut then opened them again as if tortured by his own emotions as he stood in the dimly-lit study while the sun set outside.
Antonio was in the dark, emotionally and physically. Tormented by his own turbulent feelings and his own secret desires and his own…fears.
The worst thing a woman could do to a man was to damage his pride. Trample his male ego.
Emotionally, he was damaged.
Was Antonio merely lonely and longing for someone who cared for him for who he was and not for the material things he possessed or the lifestyle he could offer the so-called fairer sex? Was he fearful that Lucy could be the one but may not be the one? Or that he may end up ruining her just as he had been ruined? If she was looking for someone to love her completely then she shouldn’t look his direction. He would be all wrong for her. No one would be right for Antonio.
Emotionally damaged.
Antonio was a heartbroken, walking wreck.
He didn’t need nor want anyone to complete him. He just needed someone to accept him for who he was. He needed someone to be who she was and to allow him to be who he was inside. Unconditional love. That was what his father once spoke about. Someone who loved you in all conditions and was appreciative of you regardless of external circumstances. But that wasn’t possible in his books. Something or someone would always end up destroying that beautiful love.