Sweet Temptation by Cora Reilly

“Is Dad a bad man?”
I almost fell off the ladder, my breath lodging in my throat. Daniele had said
one or two words at the most in the two weeks since his birthday, and now he
chose the morning before Christmas Eve for a loaded question like that. I waited
for my initial shock to fade before I hung up another ornament on our Christmas
tree. Then I slowly climbed down.
Daniele sat among the boxes with Christmas decorations, which I’d bought
because I worried Gaia’s old things would bring back too many hurtful
memories, while Simona ripped apart the silver tinsel that she discovered in one
of them.
I sat down beside Daniele, searching his face. He was spinning a red
ornament on the floor, watching it with a little frown. Loulou had dashed off the
moment Elia had carried the tree into the living room this morning and refused
to go anywhere near it. “Who’d tell you something like that?” It couldn’t be
something he had decided for himself. He was too young.
“Mom.” His voice was a fluttering whisper and my heart ached hearing it.
He still didn’t look at me, only at the ornament.
“What did she say?”
“That Dad’s bad. That he hurt Andrea and that made Mom sad.”
I bit my lip, trying to decide what to say. I bid my time by taking a piece of
tinsel out of Simona’s mouth, which led to an angry cry, but I was too distracted
to react. Put off by my lack of reaction, she fell silent.
Daniele lifted his eyes, meeting my gaze head-on. He trusted me enough to
ask me this question, a question that must have weighed heavily on his thin
shoulders in all these months. The truth was out of the question. And if I was
being honest, I wasn’t sure how to answer his question truthfully. All I knew was