If Loving You is Wrong

42: Daddy's Little Girl

"DADDY PLEASE!"

Liana screamed but her father paid her no attention and continued to pummel Antonio into the ground.

"DADDY STOP, PLEASE!" she screamed again, trying desperately to pull him off Antonio but he wouldn't budge from his mission.

Only when Leo punched the floor instead of Antonio's face did he stop.

Leonardo yelled out as he cradled his fist and staggered away from Antonio,

"I should kill you!" Leo roared. "I should rip your head from your fucking neck!"

Antonio sat up, nose bloody and leant against the back of the couch to catch his breath as Liana rushed over to him. She turned his battered and slowly bruising face towards her and Antonio winced,

"Daddy how could you do!" Liana screamed at her father who turned to her with a look of pure venom. He looked at her as though she'd grown a third eye,

"How could I? I have merely touched the tip of what I wish to do to him!"

"Daddy, please,"

"Please what Liana, I will kill him for what he's done to you!" Liana shook her head in confusion,

"Done to me? What are you talking about, Antonio hasn't done anything to me!"

"You call abusing a young girl nothing!" Antonio barked over at her as he paced the room like a wild animal in a cage.

Liana looked up at him from the floor where Antonio leant against her saying nothing,

"He did not abuse me Daddy!"

"He took advantage of you, of my little girl!" Leo roared.

Liana's eyes widened in horror,

"No! He don't not take advantage of me!"

"He's thirteen years older than you Liana!"

"So, what does that have to do with anything!"

Leo continued to look down at them, his face a picture of disgust,

"Antonio, tell him. Tell him it's not like that!"

"Will it matter?" he said touching his busted lip and laughing derisively at the blood that was on his fingers. "He won't hear anything I have to say Liana."

"Don't you dare speak for me!" Leo growled as he took a step towards them but Liana held out her palm, jumping up between them.

"Daddy stop!"

Antonio slowly got up from the floor and fixed his clothes as best he could,

"Daddy, I am so sorry you had to find out this way but it doesn't change how we feel about each other."

Leo looked from his daughter to Antonio and his eyes widened yet again as he shook his head in disbelief,

"No, this cannot be true."

"It is and you have to accept that...Antonio and I are in love."

"HE'S MARRIED LIANA!" her father thundered at her and even she had nothing more to say on that point. Anything she said would sound like an excuse of a mistress and she knew that, she'd thought it a million times. It didn't matter that she now knew Olivia Sabbatini was a vindictive and spiteful bitch just as Antonio had said.

"He is married, and he chose to use my daughter as his whore, my daughter!"

"It seems your more upset that he chose to love your daughter then you are that he may be using me?"

"Oooh no, don't you dare turn this on me young lady! You're my child!""

"That's the point daddy, I'm your child not a child and I choose to love this man and he loves me."

Leo looked like he would have a stroke just by looking at them,

"You have nothing to say?" he turned his gaze to Antonio who stood behind Liana, his hands encased in hers, "You stand there like a coward behind my twenty-three-year-old daughter and don't have the decency to stand your ground." Antonio looked Leo in the eye and spoke very firmly and clearly,

"I am standing my ground, by being here and looking you in the eye Leo. You're Liana's father and out of respect I have for you and the love I have for her...I could never fight you."

Liana felt proud of his response, even she had been wondering why he hadn't said anything!

Antonio stepped from behind Liana then and looked directly at Leo,

"I can never take back the cowardice I felt in telling you that I had fallen in love with your daughter or the injustice I've served her by not leaving my wife before pursuing something with Liana but I do love her, more than anything in this world and we will make this work whether you give us your blessing or not."

"My blessing?" Leo laughed mockingly as he ran his fingers through his greying hair and looked away from them,

"Daddy I'm sorry we didn't tell you, that I personally didn't tell you but I was so scared of disappointing you. I love you so much and I hope you can forgive me... at least before the baby comes."

Leo turned around slowly and the roar that thundered from him could have moved mountains,

"YOU'RE PREGNANT!"

Without a second thought, Leo punched Antonio in the face once again.