“What is this? An attempt to make me jealous?”
Antonia looked her up and down, rolled her eyes. “Please. I know Luca better than you ever will. You are not worthy of trying to make jealous. Now, getting between my daughter and me . . . that is another issue.”
“I would never do that.”
“That’s not how I see things. Especially with one of Luca’s temporary lovers.”
“Wow, okay.” Brooke stood, walked past Antonia, and opened the door. “I’m glad we had this chat. I have work to do.”
Antonia walked away, her head high.
Brooke kept an eye on her until after she’d passed Luca’s door.
“Round two . . .”
Later that night, once Franny was in bed, Brooke sat on the terrace with Luca drinking wine and enjoying the night air. She told him about the entire exchange . . . word for word.
“This is unacceptable, cara.” Luca was pissed.
“We are in agreement there.”
“I’ll call her out tomorrow.”
Brooke held a hand in the air. “Hold up. This all feels desperate to me. She wants to make me jealous. She has an edge there. She is your ex-wife. The mother of your daughter, something I am not. She’s absolutely stunning and probably puts any swimsuit model to shame.”
Luca placed a hand on her knee. “And ugly on the inside, Brooke. She doesn’t hold a candle to you . . . or a match.”
Brooke looked at him . . . paused.
She made a waving motion with her hand. “Okay, keep it going . . .”
They both laughed.
“My point is, she has the tools to make me jealous. Why does she want to? Does she think she can get you back?”
“That won’t happen.”
“Your family would disown you.” Keep Franny and kick Luca to the curb.
“True.”
Brooke sipped her wine and vocalized what she’d thought about all day. “All of this feels desperate, which makes me wonder if her pursuit of being a mother is part of some unknown plan. Is she using Franny to get what she wants? And if that’s the case, you’re going to have to hold me back because I’m going to kick her ass.”
“I don’t know if she can be that cruel.”
“You know her better than I do.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
Brooke shook her head. “I say we ignore it. Let her guess whether we’re talking to each other about every detail. She’s looking for attention, and giving her any is feeding into it.”
Luca moaned.
“I bet she does something else soon. Something to come between us. She doesn’t strike me as a patient woman.”
He laughed. “She’s not.”
“As long as she doesn’t involve Franny.”
“She might not. We can hope.”
He patted her thigh. “Are you ready for your dad’s visit?”
It was Brooke’s turn to groan. “My dad will put Antonia’s melodrama to shame.”
“Are you really nervous we won’t like him, cara?”
“No. Everyone adores my father. It’s me he rubs wrong.”
Luca reached for her hand, intertwined her fingers in his. “I can’t adore a man who abandoned his daughter.”
“It was a long time ago, Luca. Better off in the rearview mirror.”
His eyes took on the glow of the moonlight. “I may like him, but I’ll never adore him.”
“That’s fair.”
“Where’s my car?”
It was Sunday. Brooke and Luca had returned the car to the dealership earlier in the week, and after a lot of back-and-forth, and a threat of legal action for taking advantage of an elderly person on a fixed income, they accepted the car.
Brooke walked away, stopped the payment, canceled the insurance, and considered it all good.
Now she was driving Luca’s SUV and picking her dad up for a slightly earlier than normal for the D’Angelos, and later for her father, Sunday meal.
Her father had put on a nice pair of pants, and from his report, he wasn’t having as much trouble getting to the bathroom in time. Which gave her some confidence that they would get through a meal without incident.
“I told you I was going to return it.”
“Oh.” He didn’t look happy.
She helped him into the SUV, put the walker in back, and climbed behind the wheel.
“Is this yours then?”
“No. It’s Luca’s. I’m borrowing it for now.”
She pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.
“I am getting better.”
“I see that.”
“I might be able to, to, to d-drive.”
Not this again.
Brooke thought about how she would talk to Franny. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I can’t spend your money on a car that I’m driving. It makes it look like I’m stealing from you.”
“You’re not.”
“I know that. But a judge might see it differently. It’s called being responsible with money, Dad. I know it’s a foreign concept for you.”
“Hey!” But he was smiling.
She winked at him.
“I talked to J-Jay.”
Jay was a friend from Upland.
“That’s great. How is he?”
“He said he will, uhm . . . v-visit.”
“That’s great, Dad. I told you, it’s not a prison.”
Her father looked out the window. “I know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Luca had the staff on alert.
When Brooke and her father arrived, one of the waiters told him she was there, and he rushed to the back door to meet them.
He saw her standing beside the passenger door, walker in one hand, the other on her father’s shoulder.
“I don’t need this,” Joe said to Brooke.
“Humor me. I can’t have you falling tonight.”
Luca grinned as they argued and walked toward the back door.
Brooke glanced at him, already looking frazzled. He saw a shoulder rub in her future.
“Why are we w-walking in-in here?”
Luca stepped toward them. “I know it looks like the service entrance, Mr. Turner, but it’s the family entrance.”
Joe looked up, saw him, let go of the walker, and stood taller. “You are Luca.”
“I am.”
Joe reached out a hand.
While he did shake it, Luca remembered that the man’s stroke had affected his right side. Still, Joe looked him straight in the eye, and he had to admire that.
“You’re the one, one . . . sleeping with my daughter.”
“Dad!” Brooke yelled, but started laughing.
“What? Am I wr-wrong?”
“Okay, Dad. Listen, yes, that’s funny. But none of that in front of Franny. She’s a kid.”
Joe waved Brooke away. “I know. I had a st-stroke. I haven’t lost it com-completely.”
Brooke blew out a breath. She looked at Luca. “I warned you.”
“You’re not wrong, Mr. Turner, but I promise my intentions are good.”
Joe looked at him.
Then Brooke.
Made a point of looking down.
“I don’t see a r-ring.”
“Oh my God!”
Luca laughed.
“Don’t take advice from a man with four divorces under his belt.”