Chapter 1
Generally they never fought. But this time when Alessandro had left they had one of their very rare fights. She hadn't wanted him to leave and he had shrugged her off to fly off to Sicily like she mattered lesser than a speck of dirt under his shoes.
"I must go!" He had replied coldly as he had dressed up to leave. "Alessandro please. You have just arrived back home after four days of that business conference. Can't this urgent business wait for a few more days? We need to talk."
Alessandro hadn't replied. He had been busy, texting his driver to be ready to drive him to the airport. "Alessandro…please…"
"I don't have time for this cara…." She had seen him grimacing, while looking at the screen of his phone and she had given up. How can you argue with a man who was barely aware that you existed in the same room with him?
In the end, she had even tried smiling, to send him off at a good note if nothing else but she never found his smile back. She stood up on her tip-toe to kiss him goodbye, but he had already pushed the door open, ready to leave.
Alessandro hurried into his car, his phone pressed to his ear as he commanded his pilot to be ready in an hour to fly him to Sicily this afternoon.
Things with his grandfather weren't looking up. He had been sick from last many years, his heart had been acting up but things had gotten even worse these last few months, most of which the old man had spent bed ridden.
The doctors have suggested bypass surgery at first and they had all been waiting for the preliminary tests to be done before they could fix a date for the surgery. But the old man had been getting melancholy these few past days and that had really spooked Alessandro.
His grandfather was a strong willed man, he had always been so and yet the way he had been behaving all solemn and silent had got Alessandro thinking that things were not as easy as they had seemed.
As the car pulled away from the driveway of his Paris apartment, he looked up, his eyes automatically falling on the top floor window where his eyes met a pair of feminine doe shaped once, watching him sadly through the barrier of the glass.
And he felt guilt, pinch him. He knew he was treating Grace unfairly. She didn't deserve this. And yet he had no other choice!
'He had the choice to let her go!' His brain mocked him. 'But he was too weak to do it! He didn't want to let her go, yet!'
'I still have time!' He used tell himself daily, whenever he used to look at his gorgeous lover's beautiful face, flushed with exertion after they had made love, her eyes glowing with spent passion i the darkness as she used to snuggle closer to him. 'Plenty of time!'
And yet now it looked like the said time was finally running out.
A few hours later, when he finally reached his grandfather's home in Sicily, he hadn't expected to find him sitting alone in his study, deeply lost in his thoughts. He had expected to find him in his bed as he usually does.
And yet today, something seemed changed.
"I have contacted the Rossi's…" That was the first thing the frail old man said and Alessandro already felt attacked.
"There's still time nono….We don't have to rush anything," He gulped down the protests that had risen up her throat just a the mention of that name.
"It's time Alessandro!" His grandfather had finally turned around from the window to look straight at him. His sharp gaze penetrating to the depth of Alessandro's soul.
"I don't know why you are trying to delay this even further boy. But there had been enough delay already! You and Francesca Rossi had been betrothed since the two of you were teenagers. I wanted you to marry her when she turned 19. At first you protested saying that – you wanted Francesca to go to University and finish her degree….I agreed to that! Although, god knows what the girl would do with that degree when all she has to do is to be a good Italian wife to you and give you lots of babies." The man shook his head, his white billowy hair flying in the air.
"But I agreed! She went to the bloody collage and returned with a degree and that was a year ago!" Antonio De Lucca, once the most powerful person of Sicily looked accusingly at his eldest grandson. "The Rossi's are getting restless now, because you still haven't put a ring on their daughter's finger! I don't know what the hell you are playing at Alessandro!" Suddenly he started coughing, his whole shrunken body shaking with the effect.
"Nono…" Alessandro quickly poured him a glass of cool water, from the tumbler on the table.
"We could talk about this later. You need to rest now! I will call for Jaime….he will take you to your room."
"Alessandro!" five bony fingers clutched his arm in a tight grasp, before he could turn around to leave. "Please, son! Do your grandpa this last favor…" Suddenly, the arrogance, the intimidating glares, the accusatory looks…all fell away! The power game was over!
Antonio was about to show all his cards! His last cards! "Francesca is a good girl! You know that! Why won't you marry her?"
"There's still time to talk about this nono! Once you have that Surgery and get well again, I will…We will talk about this after you have that bypass surgery. I was just talking to your doctor the other day and he seemed positive that it'll work –" Alessandro had barely started when his grandfather cut him off.
"Yes-yes..." Before he started to cough, again. Alessandro stood up to help him, but the old man signalled him to stay back. "That was before last night's angiography."
"You had an angiography done last night? Why? And why did no one informed me?!" Alessandro felt like someone had just punched him out of the blue. "What the hell is going on?"
"Don't swear at me boy!" He grumbled. "No one told you because no one had the time to. I started having chest pain last night after dinner. Your brother was here, he called the doctor. They conducted angiograms and some other tests." He looked away, almost as if his mind was someplace else.
"And?!" Alessandro demanded.
"I am fine." The old man sighed. "For now. It had been concluded that the operation would be of no use now. Dr. Moretti says, that if I am careful now and don't stress myself out too much then I can have a few peaceful years."
"Bullshit!" And that was the least colourful word that came out of Alessandro's mouth right then. His father had been dead for fourteen years now and this was the only parent he had since then. Even imagining about loosing him made him loose his own mind. "Dr. Moretti is an imbecile! He has no idea what he is talking about! I will contact some specialist, have them flown into Sicily if necessary. You are going to be fine-"
Antonio De Luca, once the biggest and most powerful person in all of Italia, was now reduced to this – this forlorn looking old man, who simply stared at his grandson until he stopped pacing the room like a crazy person.
"Your brother said the same thing last night, after Dr. Moretti made his diagnosis." He sighed. "He spent all day cooped up in the office talking to different heart specialists, sending them my reports, asking for their opinions."
"And?" For the second time that night, Alessandro asked that question with his heart in his mouth.
"And they all had the same answers. There's too much risk in operation. My body won't be able to handle being cut open." He looked at the strong handsome man standing in front of him and recalled the boy he had been, when he had taken him in. It was sad to see that the fear of loss and vulnerability that had plagued the boy years ago after his father had died was once again plaguing the man, he had become.
And that's what he didn't want! He never wanted either of his grandsons to be alone ever again. He will start with Alessandro. Get him married to a nice girl and then start with the younger one.
"It's time Alessandro! It's time! Francesca has been waiting for you, for so long! Don't make her wait any longer! Don't make me wait any longer son!"