Jeff’s shoulders slumped a bit. “I’m sorry it turned out this way for you, Nicole. That’s it. I’m just sorry you have to go through this.”

Nicole relaxed into her seat. None of this was his fault. “Me, too, Jeff. Me, too.”

“Where is my father?” Stephan asked the uncle who greeted him an instant after a member of their house staff had announced him.

Alessandro’s easy smile was replaced by a quick look of concern, but he didn’t voice his questions. “Victor is reading in my study.”

Stephan started walking away, but his uncle’s voice stopped his progress. “Stephan, I’m out here if you need me.”

If only I deserved his support.

Without turning, Stephan said, “I know. Thank you.”

Reclining in his favorite leather chair, one that had remained in the US for him to visit, Victor closed the newspaper at the sound of Stephan’s approach. His father was as comfortable here in Alessandro's home as he was in his villa in Italy, and Victor took pride in the knowledge that his brother felt equally at home in either.

Stephan stopped and stood humbly before his father's chair, unable to meet his father’s eyes, in a way he hadn't since childhood—not since he'd broken a guest's car window and gone to confess.

But this was worse.

Much worse.

"Dad¸ I need to talk to you."

He didn’t have to tell his father how serious it was. Victor’s asked urgently, "What is it? Nicole? Did you two have a fight?"

Stephan met his father’s eyes with a sad shake of his head. "I wish it were that simple, Dad. I am going to tell you something that will change what you think of me."

"Are you sure it needs to be said?" Victor laid the newspaper on the floor beside his chair.

"I have to tell someone."

Victor stood and laid a supportive hand on Stephan’s shoulder. “It’s never as bad as we think it is.”

Oh, sometimes it is.

"I helped a hacker upload a virus to Dominic Corisi's Chinese server. I used my connections to get his access codes."

Victor sat down in his chair with a heavy thud, his face suddenly pinched and white.

Yeah, that’s what I thought. There was no defense for what he’d done, only an explanation. "I was angry about losing the deal and I thought he deserved it. As soon as Dominic puts his software online, he'll lose everything.”

"Stephan.” He’d never heard such disappointment in his father’s voice, and it tore at him. “How could you do this?"

I’ve asked myself that same question a thousand times.

Stephan strode over to look out the study window, unable to see anything except his father’s pained expression which would forever haunt him. "I don't know, Dad. I got so wrapped up in winning that I agreed to something that I knew was wrong."

"Does Nicole know?"

It didn’t even occur to Stephan to lie. "She knows I used her to get back at her brother, but she doesn't know more than that. No one does. There probably isn’t a way to trace this back to me."

"So why are you telling me this, Stephan?" He’d expected his father to be angry. He was prepared for that. He didn’t know how to handle the regret he heard in his father’s voice, the unwavering love still evident in his tone.

"Because I won. I finally beat Dominic.”

"But?"

His father knew him too well.

"But I can’t live with the knowledge that I hurt Nicole by doing this. She has endured so many betrayals. She stormed into my office today and announced that she loved me. She wanted to know if I had betrayed her, too. I wanted so badly to say that I hadn't, but I had. I tried to undo what I've done, but it's too late. I'm no better than her family was to her. She came to me for help and I used her.” Stephan turned and looked his father in the eye.

The two remained motionless and silent until Stephan couldn’t bear it anymore. He said, “Say something, Dad. Say anything."

The older man rubbed one of his knees absently as if trying to ease an old pain. "I wish I knew what to say. I wish none of this were my fault."

Stephan’s head shot back in response to the distasteful idea. "Your fault? None of this is your fault. You're the kind of man I wish I were."

His proud father shook his head sadly. "No, Stephan. We all have our flaws. Mine are becoming clearer to me with age."

"What are you saying, Dad?"

Victor stood and faced his son. "You were a good son, Stephan. You did everything I asked when you were young. I thought you would take over the company when you were old enough, but after college, I saw you drifting away to California. Drifting away from me, the family, the business. All you cared about was making films with your friends. I saw no future in that."

"It's ok, Dad. That was a long time ago. It doesn't matter anymore."

His father’s face tightened with anger. "No, it does matter. I should have let you be the man you wanted to be. You were happy in that life. Maybe you and Nicole would have married and had children by now if I had not interfered."

"I don't understand."

His father continued, "The economy was taking a nose dive; I was tired. I wanted to retire and you were indifferent to the company...so, I approached Dominic. Andrade Solutions was already in the red. It wasn’t worth what I had hoped. Half of our family worked for me. Not like now with Alessandro running his own business. I had convinced them all to follow me here to the US and make this new life for ourselves. I had to give everyone enough money to start fresh. I owed them that. So, I included Isola Santos in the deal. Dominic didn’t swindle me out of it. I sold it to him and split the money between the families.”

Stephan rocked back with shock. “Why, Dad? Why would you go to Dominic of all people?”

“He could easily afford to buy out my company, and I was angry with you. You were living your life carelessly. You'd found a woman the family adored, and you were propositioning her like some common tramp. I knew that involving her brother would end it between the two of you.” He looked away. “I wanted you to grow up.”

“All this time, I blamed Dominic…”

His father looked older suddenly. “I know. In the beginning, I thought having an adversary would be good for you. And for a while, it was. You moved home, and before I knew it you’d started your own computer company. I had no idea how strongly you and Dominic would clash, and by the time I realized that you had genuinely cared for Nicole, it was too late.”

Stephan swayed beneath the news. This changed everything. He’d spent seven years obsessing over an event that had never happened. Dominic hadn’t stolen anything.

And more importantly – Nicole was innocent.

What have I done?

“I am sorry, son. This is my fault.”

“No,” Stephan said. He was a better man because of his time with Nicole. He could hear her voice in his head. You’re thirty-one years old, Stephan, time to take responsibility for your own mistakes.

Stephan said, “You may have set this in motion, Dad, but I could have let Nicole explain back then instead driving her off with my accusations. I could have stopped this obsession at any time over the last seven years. I did this. I took it too far.”

Victor asked softly, "You do love Nicole, don't you?"

Truth was the antiseptic this entire situation required – even if it stung. "Yes, but our engagement was just a cover, Dad."

"I know. Alessandro finally told me.”

"How did he know?”

Maddy!

"If you all knew it wasn't true—why did everyone play along?" It didn’t make any sense.

Victor answered with a one-shoulder shrug. "Nicole is the kind of woman we'd all like to see you with. She's got a heart the size of Italy and anyone who has been around the two of you for even a second can see that you're crazy about each other."

Stephan slumped a bit in defeat. "She’s gone, Dad. I screwed up and lost her.”

Resting a supportive hand on his son’s shoulder again, Victor said, “That doesn’t sound like the son I know. You’ve never given up on anything you cared about.”

Stephan met his father’s eyes. “This isn’t something I can simply apologize for.”

His father nodded. “You’re right. How much are you willing to risk to get her back?”

Anything. Everything.

“I could go to jail for this, Dad.”

His father squeezed his shoulder. “That’s true and that’s why I can’t tell you what to do here. I won’t betray your secret, no matter what you decide.”

Stephan bit back a question. The answer didn’t really matter anyway.

Victor caught his son’s expression and asked, “What do you want to know, Stephan?”

The question jumped out of him. “Why aren’t you yelling at me that I’ve ruined everything? We’ll never get Isola Santos back now.”

Shaking his head, Victor said, “Stephan, you think our legacy is really a rock in the ocean? How we treat our wives, our children…even our enemies – that is our legacy. You did something you never should have done, but you still have time to fix it. I don’t want to see you go to jail, Stephan, but I fear for who you will become if you don’t make this right.”

Stephan straightened and announced, “I have to stop the virus from taking down Dominic’s server.”

His father nodded slowly.

Stephan hugged his father tightly. He had never had more respect for his father than he did at this moment. Any good Stephan had left in him was because of the strength and integrity of the man who had raised him. If he survived this folly, Stephan was going to spend the rest of his life trying to live up to his example.

“Where are you going?” his father asked when Stephan stepped away from him.

Stephan paused at the door, not turning back from his course. “I’m going to see Dominic. He’s the only one who can stop this now.”

As he walked out the door, he heard his father say, “Now that is my son.”

Chapter Twenty

Nicole sat in her father's old leather chair behind his huge mahogany desk.

How did I get here? There must have been a time when I was happy.

She remembered back to before her mother had left, a time between her father’s fits of anger, when she'd visited him here with her mother. She’d been so proud of her strong father. He’d commanded those around him like a king with his army, and this chair had been his throne, one that he’d let her climb up into and use to reach the intercom to order a glass of milk from the secretary. No, she hadn’t always been miserable.

That revelation didn’t provide the answers she desperately needed.

Why would her mother come back now and where had she been all this time?

Had Dominic meant anything he’d said about wanting to be part of her life again?

How could I have been so wrong about Stephan?

Nicole smoothed her hands over the surface of her father’s desk and another question came to her. Is this really where I want to be?