Billionaire Boss, M.D.(50)

“After I failed to soothe her and her health declined, I was forced to grant her a divorce, but I gave her all the money I had. I wanted her to buy a beautiful house in an upscale neighborhood, to have enough money to bring you up in luxury, so she never had to work too hard and could be with you more. Problem was, only a portion of the money was mine. The rest was family funds. I thought I’d manage paying it back before anyone found out, but they did.

“They went after her for the money and things escalated. I was helpless to stop it from spiraling into an ugly legal fight. During the proceedings, my family even tried to get custody of you, claiming she was unbalanced. That was when she told me she never wanted to see me again, that she’d already told you I didn’t want to see you, and that my family were horrible people who wanted to throw you out on the streets. I still came regularly through the years, trying to see you, but she wouldn’t let me. She said you were stable and hardworking and the last thing you needed was the upheaval of my erratic presence and the influence of my evil family.

“By the time you became an adult and I could approach you without her consent, you’d had too many years without knowing me. I knew she’d turn it into a fight over you, causing you the upheaval she said she protected you from. I felt I already failed you, so... I gave up.

“When she became ill, I installed a lump sum in a new account in her name, asked her attorney and bank to let you think it was a backup plan she always had, and gave you full control of it, so her care didn’t burden you, at least financially. Dio mio, figlia mia, my daughter, I wanted to be there for you, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to blame her for anything in her condition. But the moment I heard of her death, I had to try again. She wasn’t there to be hurt if your opinion of her changed, or for you to be torn between us. And...here we are.”

It all added up. Knowing her mother, Lili accepted this as a plausible explanation. It shed a new, understandable light on the Accardis and a favorable one on her father.

Before she could get any words past the vise gripping her throat, her father bent over her, taking her hands in his. “I don’t ask that you forgive me for not fighting harder to be your father. I only hope you’ll give me the chance to be in your life now, in any way. Like your future groom, I believe you deserve only the best, and I hope you’ll give me the privilege of doing my best to provide you with it.”

And she found herself in his arms, hugging him and being hugged by him, the father she’d never had, but would now have for as long as life allowed them.

After her father deluged her in apologies, and obtained her promise to let him into her life, she turned to Antonio. He was on his feet, muscles bunched, gaze pinned on them.

Unable to read his expression, she reached out to him.

He at once claimed her to his side, wincing down at her. “Mi amore, your tears kill me, even ones of happiness.”

Blubbering a laugh, she wrapped her arms around him. “You’ll have to withstand those. It’s not every day that I get my father back.” She met his turbulent gaze and smiled, asking him silently for his blessing.

As he took her trembling lips, he murmured against them for her ears only. “He can call me Antonio.”

Whooping with delight, she invited her father closer, hugging him with her other arm. “You can call him Antonio.”

Realizing the significance of that, her father poured jubilation all over them. After getting confirmations that they’d make use of him in their wedding preparations, and anything else, for life, he led them back to where the Accardis awaited them en masse.

Entering the ballroom tucked into Antonio’s protection, Lili boggled at the number of polished elites who queued to introduce themselves.

Not that she thought their regard had anything to do with her. They were here at her father’s demand, to make a grand gesture in his atonement campaign. But all the awe everyone exhibited was on Antonio’s behalf.

The night blurred from then on. The only thing she registered clearly was Antonio’s simmering intensity. He might have sanctioned her father’s story and had acquitted him of being a cold-blooded deserter, but it was clear the Accardis hadn’t passed his test.

Then suddenly, the unease she felt in Antonio spiked to something else. Something darker.

Trying to understand why, she paid extra attention to the people who’d just come forward, but she found nothing different about them.

Before she could probe the situation further, her father pulled her away while Antonio remained held back by the newcomers.

As she greeted two more of her father’s cousins twice removed, her focus remained on Antonio as he frowned at those who thronged around him. Then one of the two men said something to her that made her give him her full attention.