Page 81 of Billionaire Accidental Daddy

I round the corner and run into my dad. My shoulder slams into his as I stalk past him without looking at him. If I look at him, I might start a fight here in the hallway, where all our employees can hear it.

“Watch it,” he says.

I ignore him.

“Why are you in such a foul mood?” he calls after me. “You won.”

I wheel to face him. “I didn’t win.”

“You did too—”

“How long was she working for you?” I demand. “When did she choose you.”

He stares at me for a moment, confused. And then he snorts out a laugh. “Oh. You’re talking about the Maguire woman. That was a bluff.”

My whole body freezes. “What?”

“I saw the napkin poking out of her purse and swiped it when I recognized your handwriting.” He shrugs, hands in his pockets. “The rest was just a guess. She hadn’t signed the contract yet, and you were clearly head over heels for her. When you went ahead with your presentation to the board anyway, I figured you’d realized I was bluffing.”

I lunge for him, grabbing his shirt. “You fuckingbastard. I fired her. How could you hurt her like that?”

Understanding flashes across his face, followed by gentle pity. The worst part of it is, I think the pity is sincere.

“I’m not the one who hurt her,” he says quietly.

I release his shirt.

For once in his life, my dad’s right. He’s not the one who hurt Amelia. That was me.

Which means it’s up to me to make this right.

She didn’t betray me.The thought runs through my head as I take a cab across town to her old apartment. Thank God I still have the address from when I sent my driver to pick her up and help move her into my apartment.

She didn’t betray me.I follow a delivery man into her building and climb up the stairs to her apartment. That thought is the closest thing I have to hope.

If she didn’t betray me, then maybe she didn’t want us to break up. I’ll explain everything. I’ll beg her forgiveness. I’ll man up and tell her the truth—I love her, and I want her back, however she’ll have me.

I rap on her door.

She doesn’t answer.

I knock harder. “Amelia. Amelia, open up.”

From the other side of the door, I hear a muffled voice call, “Go away.”

“Please, Amelia. I was wrong to fire you. My dad lied to me, said you’d betrayed me and told him everything about our arrangement.”

There’s silence on the other side of the door.

I hold my breath.

I hear footsteps on the other side of the door, and then she yanks it open. Amelia’s wearing old, stained sweatpants and a mustard yellow sweater. Her hair’s a tangled mess. She’s got dark circles under her eyes, and not a lick of makeup. Objectively, she looks horrible.

And yet, the sight of her is such a relief, I grip the side of the doorframe to keep from doing something crazy, like reaching for her, or falling to my knees and begging.

“Why would you believe anything your dad said about me?” she demands. “Don’t you know me at all?”

When she says it like that, the shame races through me. “I’m sorry. It was the pressure of the board vote. And he had the napkin. He said the thing I feared the most. And I...I believed him.”

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