Page 145 of The Billionaire's Fake Wife

"You are my daughter."

"Really?" I stare. "You lost the right to that when you decided to leave me and Karma to the vagaries of our fate."

"Don’t exaggerate." He frowns. "Look at you now. It doesn’t look like you suffered too much.”

If you don’t count the fact that we’d gone from having an abundance of every luxury to having two meals a day, and a school where we were the laughingstock because of how different we were. So, we weren’t abused physically. Mentally and emotionally, though, it was another story. I wrap a strand of my hair around my fingers. "You could have taken us with you—or better still, you could have told us what was going on, found a way to face up to the mess you’d created."

"And what? Gone to jail?" He rocks back on his feet, "Where would that have left you?"

"Exactly where you left us anyway. Fighting to make something of ourselves. Trying to undo the hurt of our childhood years, and betrayal. And yeah, issues with trust, let’s not forget that."

"Your husband has money; he can afford the best mental health professionals."

"Are you listening to yourself?"

He draws in a breath, "I didn’t come here to fight."

"Too bad." I wrap my arms around my waist, "I’ve been waiting for the chance to tell you how much of a shitty parent you were… No, strike that. That I disown you, for how you abandoned us." I attempt to close the door. He grabs the handle, "Sunshine, please."

I freeze. Only my father called me that. I’d been his ray of sunshine once, or so he’d told me. Those mornings when he’d cook me breakfast, before anyone else was up. Our time together. Then he’d drive me to school. Karma had been a baby then, and dependent on our mother. He’d been proud of me once. And I had looked up to him.

"Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking." Oh, he knows how to push the point when he has an advantage, huh?

I step back, walk inside, then head toward the living room that overlooks the garden. He follows me.

I stop at the massive French doors, and he pauses behind me.

"I can explain, Summer."

"Save it. I don’t want to listen to your sorry excuses."

He draws in a breath. "Everything I did was so I could ensure that you and your sister had a future."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"I was mixed up with the wrong people. After your mother died, I wasn’t thinking straight. I made many wrong business decisions. Ended up falling into debt."

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t.

He swallows, the sound audible in the silence, interrupted by the patter of the rain outside.

"I ended up owing a lot of money to the Mafia. I had to leave before they took everything I held dear to me."

"So you dumped us?"

"The only way was to start afresh, for all of us." He moves away. "I put you in the care system, then faked my own death. I moved to the US, changed my identity, wiped all traces of our past."

"You did it very effectively too." I stare straight ahead. "Guess you were good at something."

He winces. "Everything I did was to throw the Mafia off of your tracks. It was for your good."

"So parents say. They have no idea how much they screw us kids up. So we have to spend the rest of our lives unlearning everything we were subjected to in our growing up years."

The breath whooshes out of him. "I’m sorry, Summer. I did what I thought was best for all of us..."

"Yeah, I’m sorry too." I turn on him. "You’ve assuaged your conscience, said your piece… Why don’t you leave now, huh?"

"There is." He shuffles his weight from foot to foot. "One thing."