Bartered Betrayal - The Billionaire's Wife 08 Read Online Free Page A

didn't show up.
    But I didn't expect him to. I had to call him to me. I had to let him know it was okay.
    I worked harder.
     
    *
     
    A knock on the door, again, sometime during the second week. I looked up from my meticulous detail work and wiped sweat from my face. I was starting to get so lost in my art that I now didn't jump immediately when someone knocked on my door. It felt strange, but also freeing. No, I thought, I don't have to get up and answer the door for you. Go away.
    They kept knocking. And knocking.
    An unpleasant sense of deja vu swept over me. That was how this had all started, hadn't it? My father knocking on my door, refusing to go away until he tricked me into saving him from his own stupidity. The knocking increased in intensity.
    I was decently dressed at least. Detail work is less strenuous, and my apartment was cold. I still hadn't bothered turning on the heat. That would dry the clay out too quickly, and I needed it to remain pliable. Standing up, I stretched and told myself that I still didn't need to hop to. I could just walk casually across my floor and check to see who it was. I did just that, pressing my eye to the peephole.
    It wasn't just deja vu. My father stood on my doorstep. Again.
    Full circle. Here we were. I opened the door.
    My father stood there, hand raised, a look of incredulity on his face, as though he hadn't expected me to open the door. Truthfully, I hadn't expected to do so either. I'd told him I'd never wanted to see him again, and that was the truth.
    Yeah, well, we all do things we don't want to do. Might as well get them out of the way, right?
    "What?" I said.
    He lowered his knocking fist, but didn't seem to know what to do with it afterward. He seemed awkward, as though he didn't know where to start. His hands floated uselessly in front of him, without purpose, until he finally shoved them in his pockets.
    "I'm sorry," he said.
    "Okay," I told him, and started to close the door.
    Then he knew what to do with his hand. His palm slapped against it, preventing me from shutting it all the way. I made an annoyed noise and paused, waiting for him to tell me whatever was on his mind.
    "That's it?" he said. "Okay?"
    "What do you want me to say?" I asked him.
    His lips thinned. "That you forgive me?"
    "Oh," I said. "Well, I don't. Now go away."
    "Felicia, please!" The desperation in his voice sent a little tickle of suspicion through me. I was getting cynical. Actually cynical. At least when it came to him. Bout damn time.
    "What?" I said. "What do you want? I mean, really? What do you really want?"
    His hands found each other, began pulling and plucking at themselves. "I... I need you to talk to your husband."
    I almost laughed in his face. I wasn't talking to my husband for myself. What made him think I'd do it for him? "Why?" I said. I couldn't keep the amusement from my voice.
    The look of dejection on his face was comical to me now. "He's taken over the company. Kicked me out. I'm... I'm not on the hook for the debt any more, but I have nothing."
    I quirked an eyebrow. "And?"
    He blinked. "And what? I can't rebuild my life without that money, Felicia. I have a car and some clothes to my name. That's it."
    I smiled. "So?"
    A scowl crossed his face. "Your mother married me to avoid a life of poverty," he said. "She's in her sixties. She can't start working now, and her sobriety... this will threaten her sobriety."
    I must be an idiot, because I considered his words for more than a fraction of a second before actually laughing. "Dad," I told him, one of the few times I'd ever called him that, "I can't help you. And I can't help mom. I have my own problems right now.
    "But your inheritance!" he said as I started to close the door. "I know your prenuptial agreement leaves you nothing! I would give you everything."
    Everything? I wondered. "No," I said. "You'd give me money. And I don't want money." Money made life easier a lot of the time, but it sure as fuck wasn't everything.