The Marriage He Must Keep(38)

He cut himself off as he realized he’d said too much.

Octavia cocked her head in curiosity. “What do you mean you refused? Why did you feel guilty?”

He didn’t want to talk about it. He couldn’t revisit the past without self-hatred overtaking him. His grandfather was the one who had insisted he assume the role, pushing and testing and guiding, telling him he owed it to his father to care and provide for the family the way his father would have done if he’d lived.

Alessandro flinched as his crisis of faith crept up to revisit him.

In light of all they were going through, did he deserve to oversee the family fortune? Had he caused this fissure in the family by marrying her instead of allowing Primo to do it?

How would Octavia see his actions? Would she side with his grandfather’s view that he owed it to his father to shoulder the responsibility? Or with his own view that he was unworthy? Or with Giacomo’s dismissal that he was unpredictable.

Unfit.

“We were at a festival,” he said, rubbing suddenly chilly hands on his thighs. He cleared the huskiness from his voice. “I was twelve. You know that. I had a fight. It was a stupid argument between a pair of boys wanting to test each other. You understand what I mean? Hormones and immaturity. Bravado. Nothing more. But it felt like everything at the time.”

That was always the part that bothered him most: how quickly his fuse had lit and how blindly he’d acted.

“I didn’t even know him,” he said, berating himself all over again as he went back to that day, with its smell of dust and the heat off the buildings and sidewalks, even though the sun was down. The jarring music, the din of the crowd, the aroma of cooking thick on the air, it was all imprinted on him. “I took offense to something he said about my sister and stood up for her. We began to scrap. There would have been no harm beyond a pair of bloody noses. There were police there to keep the peace and one blew his whistle. That made my father look up from across the street. He was with some friends and had had a few drinks. He wasn’t drunk, just tipsy enough to react without thinking. He stepped off the sidewalk to come across and stop me, but he didn’t look. A car hit him and he was killed instantly.”

“Oh, Sandro,” she gasped, hand coming up to cover her mouth, as shocked as the entire street had been with the abruptness of it.

Her eyes held deep compassion, which wasn’t easy to bear when he expected, even wanted, recrimination. But he’d traveled this road many times with his grandfather. He had come to terms with his guilt.

Mostly.

He stood, restless, trying to shake off the darkness.



Sandro moved into the sitting room and stood over the boy who carried his father’s blood as well as his name.

Octavia gave him a moment as she took stock herself. Her husband was such a confident man. She never would have guessed he carried such a terrible burden on his conscience.

Following him, she saw the sun was beginning to angle across to Lorenzo’s cot. She closed the doors and curtains, dimming the room.

“Is that why your uncle continues to challenge you?” she asked gently. “He holds you responsible for his brother’s death?”

Sandro jerked, then nodded once, keeping his back to her as he stared at their son. “Yes. And it’s why Primo felt he had a right to this role.”

“But he’s not...” you, she wanted to say.

He lifted his head, seeming to hang on to what she’d been about to say.

“They’re not like you,” she said awkwardly. “Primo is selfish and Giacomo doesn’t have your patience. There’s no one else in the family...like you.” She wasn’t expressing herself well at all, but how did she describe his calm acceptance of responsibility, as if million-dollar decisions were nothing more than a choice between coffee or tea? He sifted through a hundred details and distilled a problem and found the solution all within seconds.

His reaction was difficult to read. His head went back a little as he absorbed her summation of his relatives, making her wonder if she’d crossed a line. Dismay curled his lip before he sighed.

“At any other time I would have defended them, but you’re right. I’ve never wanted to see it, but of course you have.” He looked at her as though reassessing her. “You keep your opinions to yourself, but you gather a lot, don’t you? You’re very astute.” He pushed his hands in his pockets, shoulders tense. “But if you think me selfless and patient, it’s because my grandfather taught me to be everything this family needs, so I could provide what my father would have given if he’d lived. I’ve let my guilt blind me, though. I’ve seen only the wrong in me, none in Giacomo. Certainly I refused to face the extent of Primo’s shortcomings. I preferred to make him into what I wanted him to be, which was a loyal partner, not an adversary.”