Romance: In Love With A Billionaire (2 page)

Chapter Three

My father.

It is a term that I struggle to even think about.

I wanted a father.

I wanted a man to protect me and teach me the ways of the world.

I wanted him here for years.

But I learnt that men cannot be relied upon and I would have to fight for everything I ever wanted.

His departure was probably one the greatest things that ever happened in my life. Because of his exit, I learnt how to be a strong, independent proud woman.

His departure made me who I am today.

Maybe I should be thankful for that?

But if he dared to come up with an excuse for his actions, I would most certainly break his nose…

As all three of us sat at the table, a strange silence fell upon us. Neither Mom nor Thomas dared to say a word.

While I looked at the window, he was looking at my mother, like he was asking for her permission to open his mouth.

“Clara, you look beautiful,” he began, and I suddenly looked at him with nervousness.

“Please leave the chivalries aside,” I said, looking like wanting to throw him out the front door.

“Clara…” he started.

I approved. “That’s my name.”

“Clara, I don’t want your forgiveness if you don’t want to give it to me, but at least allow me to explain myself and tell you why things happened the way they happened. I really didn’t want you to suffer.”

“Just go through with it,” I said. “I don’t have all night to listen to your lame excuses.”

I was rough.

But that was the calmest I could be in such a situation.

“I loved your mother a lot, and you as well, but soon after the marriage something bad happened to me. I lost my only sister, and I guess because of that I started drinking…a little bit at the beginning, but soon enough I became a heavy drinker. Before I realized it, I was drinking bottles and bottles a day with no control over myself. I had no idea what to do, and by then I was doing more harm than good to both of you. I wasn’t able to work and your mother had to support the three of us from her small wage,” he said, trying to look at me.

“That’s all you got?” I asked rhetorically.

“Clara…” he pleaded.

“You’re asking for my forgiveness with this pitiful discourse? You’re pathetic, you should know that.”

“I know it sounds harsh and empty, but it’s the truth,” he replied. “And I’m lying to you…my intention is not to convince you of anything or to make you do something you don’t want. All I want is for you to know the truth and to stop living with fictional scenarios in your head.”

“Is that right,” I replied nervously, looking straight in his eyes because I wanted to see right inside his soul and make him feel sorry for his shitty decision made decades ago. “And you thought it now to be the perfect moment to come and destroy the little balance I’ve managed to establish after so many years of tears and hardship? You picked the wrong moment, DAD.”

“You have to understand that for me, it hasn’t been easy either. I had troubled times and almost killed myself soon after I left your mother because I regretted my actions. But I knew deep down that I did what was best for the both of you,” he said, looking at me with tears in his eyes.

But this little act wasn’t going to convince me.

No way.

After years of taking care of myself, I had developed a very thick skin.

“Leaving us was in our best interest? That’s what you call the thing you did to us?

“Well, that’s what I thought at that time to be the best thing to do…” he replied humbly.

“Hmm, let me tell you what I think would’ve been best for us: you quit drinking and act like a real man, a real father and husband, and not hide behind a bottle of liquor, ditching all your responsibilities. I’m telling you that in my eyes you have no alibi and no forgiveness for what you did to us, period!” I tried to stand but my mother stopped me before I could do so.

“Please, Clara,” she said calmly. “Don’t go. Stay a bit more, and let him finish.”

I was convinced by my sweet mother to stay for a couple more moments.

But my heart was racing—I just couldn’t stand the man who’s pretending to be my father.

“I know that what I did is unforgettable, and the years you lost can’t be brought back. All I ask of you is to let me compensate for that and try my best to repent my sins.”

I don’t know why, but his face started shining in a weird way.

His next words would reveal the reason.

“You see, after a second attempt at suicide, the Lord saved me and showed me the true path I should follow in life. Now I’m a changed man. I quit drinking and devoted my life to the church.”

“Is that right?” I said. “Good for you, you’ll go to heaven now.”

“If you don’t trust me, Elaine will tell you how hard I tried to make this change. She helped throughout the entire journey from damnation to salvation.”

“Elaine? Elaine who?” I asked my mother, looking confused at both of them because I had no idea who he’s talking about.

“Well you see,” he said to me, “Elaine is my wife. She was the one who saw my potential and saw there was good in me.”

“Your wife, huh?”

“Yes Clara.”

“And how long have you been married?” This conversation was rapidly changing from death and booze to wives and the church, and frankly it’s too dramatic for me.

“Well, twelve years by now, with the help of the Lord Jesus…”

“Oh, hell no. So you quit drinking and decided it’s time to get yourself some new chick with no child and no responsibility? And you have the guts to come here and ask for my forgiveness.”

I got up from my chair and grabbed my head with both hands in desperation and indignation.

“Clara please…”

“You should go back to your beloved wife and tell her all these things because you left us to struggle and cry. Please get out of my face—I really don’t have the time for this shit right now! I came here to have a nice dinner with my mother and what did I get? This mess with some guy pretending to be my father. Just leave before I call the police!” Then I returned to the kitchen to have a glass of water and tried cooling myself down before I exploded.

“Clara,” called my mother, shocked by the words that came out of my mouth.

This wasn’t the way she raised me, but I just couldn’t keep all that anger locked up!

I couldn’t believe how wrong the night turned out after how happy I was when I left my apartment.

This was a nightmare!

Thomas came through the kitchen door and explained that he and his wife just moved in our neighborhood because he wanted to be a part of my life again.

“Great. I hope your house falls on your head on the next earthquake and kills both of you,” I replied.

Then I nervously and hurriedly left the house.

“You can keep him if you are so fond of him, Mom!”

Chapter Four

My heart was pounding harder than I had ever experienced.

All I could think of was that I needed some booze to calm my nerves.

I hurriedly drove back home with one thought: I couldn’t stand that place anymore knowing that he was there, in my mother’s house – a house that she paid for with so much pain and sweat.

It’s unacceptable!

I went straight to a liquor store and bought the largest bottle of wine I could find.

As I called my best friend Madeleine, all sorts of thoughts about how my father—like how he could hurt my mother again—kept popping in my mind. I swore to myself that I would kill him if he even thought of doing something nasty to her again.

“Hi there, what’s up?” said Madeleine on the phone, but my thoughts were back to my mother’s house. “Hey, Clara, are you there? That’s funny; you call then don’t say anything. This better not be a prank because you are in big trouble, miss!” she said while I came back to my senses.

“Ah… hey, Madeleine. Sorry, I was distracted. Are you home? I brought you something that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.”

“Yes, I’m home, and I was just about to call you because I was bored and really had nothing interesting to do,” she said as I arrived in front of her door.

I wanted to give her a bit of a surprise.

“Well you better open your door because I’m in front of it, and I’m carrying a huge package—I can barely hold it!” I said, hoping she wouldn’t get mad that I took her by surprise.

She’s the ordered type who hates spontaneous things like being caught in her trashy moments.

“Right now?”

“Yes girl.”

“Well, if you’re carrying wine you should come inside then! The door is open, so help yourself.”

Upon hearing this I entered, trying not to let the huge bottle of wine fall and break into millions of pieces.

After all, that was my salvation for tonight.

I had to drown in booze to forget the things that just happened…at least for one night.

“Hi girl, what’s up with you at this hour, and with that huge bottle? Are you trying to get me wasted? You know I have to go to work first thing in the morning,” she said, smiling, but I knew she would never refuse a bottle of wine.

This night’s was going to be a long one, and who knows how many bottles we were to buy after we finished this one!

“You know I was raised only by my mother from the age of five, and she never married again?”

“Yes of course,” replied Madeleine. “You told me how much you had to struggle. How much you worked and studied to compete with those rich kids who had everything served on a golden plate. But why are you asking me this? Something happened?”

“As a matter of fact, something did happen, something I never expected to. And now I’m all pissed because of it! This evening, I was supposed to meet my mother to enjoy a family dinner—you know, just the two of us, all nice with a little gossip and great food.”

“So?” she asked. “Did you get to go to your mom’s house?”

“Oh, I did,” I told her. “And when I left home, I was so happy and even sang in the car as I was driving. I was so happy I would see my dear mother that I even forgot all of my problems from work and between me and Mark. But my happiness wasn’t going to last because at my mother’s house, a big surprise was waiting for me…a damn huge one!”

“C’mon, juts tell me for my sake: what did you find? Was your mother paralyzed in there?” she asked curiously.

I wasn’t going to hide the truth from her. “Well my father was there sitting in the dining room, waiting to ask for my forgiveness. Or something like that.”

“Your father? The father who abandoned you? That’s something indeed.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Did you forgive him?”

“What?” I said. “Forgive him? I don’t know what that means. He came now after two decades and expects me to go and hug him? Stuff that, I don’t even know if he’s really who he says he is—I’d have to take a DNA test to be sure, because after twenty years, I’ve forgotten what he really looked like. Those are twenty years! Some people don’t even get to live that long, and he expects me to act as if nothing happened, telling me that he has a new wife now and he’s so happy and religious… Stuff him, I don’t want to have anything to do with that man!”

“Wow, that hit a tender spot, uh?”

“Don’t even get me started,” I gritted through my teeth.

“Clara, he’s your father after all. He gave you life, so you have to be more forgiving. I know you suffered a lot because he left you and your mother, but you should know that it’s easy to judge things from only one perspective. Life is much more complicated than that…you should analyze the situation a bit more, and then make a final decision about it,” said Madeleine as she emptied the bottle into both our glasses.

“You know what he told me?” I tried to say half sober, half drunk.

“What?”

“He told me that he left us because he got into heavy drinking and thought he was a burden to the family. That we’d be better off without him…so he took his things and just left us. I never saw him again until this evening. Isn’t that something?”

“Ah stuff him. If that’s the reason he left both of you, you should hang him off a bridge or something. He doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, let alone your love.”

Over the rest of the night, much wine was consumed amongst tears, laughter and hugs.

Waking up in the morning, we were both tipsy, our eyes looking swollen.

Maddy said, “Hey, Clara, you know that whatever I said last night, I didn’t mean it. I’m telling you just in case.”

I couldn’t help but laugh because the situation was funny. Under the influence of alcohol, people can be quite surprising.

“It’s okay, Maddy. If you ask me, I have no idea what we said last night. My head is too dizzy to remember anything—I’m lucky I remember my own name! Don’t worry, we’re friends!”

After we decided we needed to have some breakfast, she came back to me on the sofa where I was lying looking at the TV.

I couldn’t care less about what was on; all I could think of was the return of my father and how much it had complicated the things that were already messy!

“Clara,” Maddy sighed, “He’s your father. You should at least listen to him carefully before casting him away from your life forever. You should at least see what’s on his soul and then make a decision, because people can change for the better. If he came to you just now, it means he’s ready now. He probably missed you the entire time and blamed himself for the mistakes he made, so don’t make his burden even heavier. Give him a chance.”

My friend talked to me full of calm and peace, as if she’s another person totally different from the one last night.

“If you say so,” I agreed, trying to find some sense in her words. “I’ll give him just one chance and if he messes it up, I’ll never speak to him again.”

“If I’m wrong, you can choose to never speak to me. I’m willing to take this risk just to make you see the opportunity you have in front of you.”

“Fine, Maddy.”

“And?”

“I’ll try not to get upset when seeing him, and give him another chance. I hope it’ll be worth it.”

As I was leaving her house, she showed me the empty bottle while making funny signs.

As I drove home, an overwhelming sense of calm drifted over me.