Billionaire Boss, M.D.

by Olivia Gates

  Not that her father noticed any subscript in Antonio’s words. He now led them to the open doors at the end of the expansive entrance hall, from which the sounds of music and conversation were emanating. “Between us, we’re going to make sure of that, Dr. Balducci.” Her father looked at him expectantly. “Can I call you Antonio?”

  “If you wish.” That was said in the tone of “don’t you dare.” Antonio looked so forbidding it was only thanks to her father’s enthusiastic obliviousness that he hadn’t turned to stone. Then his voice plunged into the subzero domain. “I understand you had no contact with Liliana as she grew up. Now, in your new eagerness to know her, I keep wondering what could possibly explain the years of absence and silence.”

  Her father stopped, looking as if Antonio had just handed him the best gift he’d ever had. “I’m so glad you asked! I tried to explain to Lili when I contacted her after Luanne’s death. But she always insisted what was past was past.”

  Yeah. She hadn’t wanted to hear his reasons. She could establish some kind of relationship with him not knowing them. But if she knew them and found them pathetic or unacceptable, she wouldn’t be able to go forward in any kind of relationship with him.

  Her father clamped her and Antonio’s arms. “Come, please. This can’t be told with dozens of nosy Accardis around.”

  Her father rushed them to an old-fashioned smoking room filled with burgundy leather chesterfields, Persian rugs and dark wood paneling. Though everything was authentic and antique, it showed the weight of time and clearly hadn’t had any recent maintenance. Though the three-hundred-year-old mansion was imposing, it wasn’t in the prime condition she’d expected from such an elite family.

  After her father sat them down side by side, he stood before them as if to give the performance he’d been waiting for all his life.

  Then he began. “Luanne was glorious, very much like you, my beloved Lili, at least in looks and in her brilliant mind. Unorthodox, independent, a trailblazer. I fell in love with her on sight in Saint Mark’s Basilica, as I believe she did with me. She told me she was the only child of a single mother who also worked in the medical field, that all she’d known since childhood had been academic endeavor and excellence.”

  So she’d been living her mother’s life. Until Antonio.

  “She’d just finished her medical residency and was about to start her fellowship when she discovered she hadn’t actually lived yet. So before she plunged into her hospital work she’d decided to take two years to roam the world. Italy was her first stop.

  “We spent every minute together for two weeks until she said she was heading north. I was besotted with her, but knew I’d never see her again if she left, so I proposed. She was stunned, refused on the spot, left the next day. So I followed her, all over Europe. My mother and uncles were enraged. I’d just taken my father’s place in the family law firm, which I’d trained all my life to do, and I left them in the lurch. Then Luanne finally succumbed and we got married in France, but when we went home, no one was happy. Not only had my desertion caused the firm irredeemable losses, but I was supposed to marry to benefit the family. But I wanted none of that. I told them I wouldn’t take my father’s place permanently, that I wanted to leave and be with Luanne and the baby we knew by then we’d made. You, my darling girl.”

  Her throat tightening with every word, she leaned closer into Antonio, who intensified his hold on her as if protecting her from her father’s revelations.

  Her father went on, his gaze looking backward in time. “My mother told me Luanne wasn’t wife material, would make a terrible mother, that I’d destroy my life and yours if I remained with her. Luanne hated my mother, too, hated all the Accardis and their elitism, hated being in Venice, and in what she called a moldy dwelling fit only for monsters and ghosts.

  “When our stay in Venice lengthened and Luanne gave birth to you while I took care of the problems my absence caused, she started believing I’d never stand up for myself or for you, that I’d remain under my family’s boot forever. To prove that only she and you mattered, I set a date for when I’d leave it all behind and go back with her to the States.

  “At first, she was ecstatic. But as your first birthday neared and I was getting ready to leave, she began asking me what I would do there while she worked. Stay home and raise you? I knew nothing but the law, but I wouldn’t be able to continue that in the States. My family threatened to disown me if I left them again, which would have left me penniless, but I didn’t care. Then on your first birthday, Luanne told me she no longer wanted me, that I was suffocating her, that she wanted me and my family out of her life. Out of yours, too.

  “I was convinced she was suffering from prolonged and severe postpartum depression. I told her so and she broke down. She wept and wept and begged me to let her go. My heart broke, but I couldn’t reach her. I could only say that whatever happened between us, I would remain your father. I had rights to you, and you had a right to me. Her misery deepened as she asked how I would be your father across continents. What would it do to you, always waiting for a father who’d come only when my family let me go? How many times a year would that be and for how long? I insisted I’d manage something regular, but she thought it would only keep her and you in purgatory forever.

  “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.

  “You’ll go down in the annals of our family history as the one who saved us all, Lili.” At her incomprehension, he elaborated, “As you may know, our family businesses are intertwined, and over a year ago, some bad stock market decisions led to a domino effect in all our holdings. Dr. Balducci, through his Black Castle division, offered to bail us out, saving us from the impasse—that has since regretfully worsened—in return for acquiring our major ancestral assets.”

  The other man nodded. “We two were the ones charged with conveying the family’s decision to turn down his offer. The damned family rules dictate those assets stay within the family at any cost. I can’t tell you how relieved everyone is now that we can finally accept his offer, since he will be family shortly.”

  “If his offer is still on the table,” said the other man.

  The first man winked at her. “If it isn’t, we’re sure you, dear Lili, can convince him to put it back there.”

  As her father exclaimed that he’d never heard of this, Lili’s gaze sought out Antonio again, her mind spinning.

  He’d never mentioned it. So maybe he hadn’t been involved and it had been his brokers trolling for acquisitions?

  No, there was no way he wouldn’t be in charge of every offer issuing from his organization. So why hadn’t he told her about this aborted transaction involving her family? Could it have slipped his mind? That was again something she found impossible to believe. Nothing slipped Antonio’s mind.

  Could part of his tension around her family be on account of the thwarted deal? And it continued in part because he didn’t know yet that it would go through? Did he know their engagement would provide a solution to this deadlock?

  Whoa. It seemed she could still slide back into insecurity. She thought she’d stopped wondering why Antonio wanted to marry her, stopped looking for reasons besides that he loved her.

  But this deal certainly couldn’t be even a contributing reason. The financial benefit would all be her family’s in their current bind. At best, the acquisitions could have only minor value to him compared with his other assets.

  Dismissing her absurd thoughts, she concluded her side meeting, laughingly promising the two men to put in a good word for them with Antonio.

  As she rejoined him, his mind seemed to be elsewhere as he received her, his gaze leaving her whenever anyone came to talk to them to fix on one certain part of the ballroom. She followed it and saw the same relatives who’d first made him tense up.

  By the time he asked her if she didn’t mind leaving, she’d had enough tension for one night and eagerly agreed.

  Her unease lingered until the moment they entered their hotel suite. Then he swept her up in his arms, threw her down on the bed and took her with an even more ferocious hunger than ever before. Flesh on flesh, he melted her disquiet and bound her deeper under his spell.

  * * *

  In the next week, her family members competed to invite them to their homes.

  Antonio gave her carte blanche to accept all invitations, though it meant flying all over the country. His brotherhood family had taken up the slack in the arrangements for their wedding and kept them apprised of all developments, so they could afford the time to get to know hers better.

  As the visits started, a new discomfort crept over her. Though he seemed willing to know everyone for her sake, and she was grateful since there were some members she liked and wished to know better, she soon noticed his focus was on one woman. One of those he’d tensed around during the reception. She’d become a common denominator in all the gatherings.

  Sofia Accardi.

  Sofia, her father’s third cousin, was in her late fifties, but looked like a great mid-forties. She oozed charisma and distinction and she seemed intensely interested in Antonio. Her children—her daughters especially—were present on most occasions, flocking around him like moths to the flame.

  Then Sofia invited them to her home, despite it being in the midst of a major renovation. When Lili said they’d come later when the work was done, the woman was insistent. It was Antonio who ended the debate, accepting the invitation.

  It was insidious—the feeling Lili had that Antonio had consented to every invitation so far only so it wouldn’t look strange when they accepted Sofia’s. The woman he’d remained stilted around all week.

  Now as the day progressed at Sofia’s estate, everything Lili felt from Antonio intensified her suspicions.

  Sofia did provoke something inside him. Something volcanic in intensity. Could it be...attraction? Lust? Worse?

  Sofia, though older, was incredibly beautiful and voluptuous, a very sensual woman who was known as a man-eater, having gone through three husbands and uncounted lovers. Lili, in her relative inexperience, felt decidedly lacking compared to the woman who was more on his level than she would ever be.

  After dinner, while she was trapped in conversation with Sofia’s daughters, Antonio, who’d said almost nothing to her all evening, walked out of the family room. And her agitation boiled over.

  She couldn’t wait until they left. She had to find him, ask him, now. If he was having second thoughts of any sort, this was the time to come clean.

  As she excused herself, she realized it wasn’t only Antonio who was unaccounted for. Sofia, too, had disappeared.

  Feeling like her whole world was sinking under her feet, she went in search of them through the immense house.

  The areas under renovation were barricaded, so that left only the private quarters. The bedrooms. Nowhere a guest like Antonio would be. It couldn’t...he wouldn’t...

  Suddenly she heard his voice. An emotion-filled growl.

  It was followed by a husky, pleadi
ng moan. Sofia’s.

  Her heart almost uprooted itself in her chest and every muscle trembled as she stepped through a door she hadn’t noticed was ajar in the dimness of the corridor, one a barricade announced off-limits.

  The room inside was pitch-dark, but its French windows opened to a terrace, from which their voices emanated.

  Then she saw them.

  In the lights coming from the garden, under the canopy of a starlit night, Antonio stood like a monolith with his back almost to her as Sofia hugged him frantically.

  Then slowly, as if he couldn’t resist anymore, his arms wrapped around her.

  Ten

  Lili froze.

  The sight in front of her... Antonio, with another woman...

  There was nothing. No more air. No more heartbeats.

  Then the woman’s lament pierced her like a bullet. “You have to believe me, Antonio. I never wanted to give you up.”

  The agony the words contained lodged like an ax in her chest.

  They...they had a previous affair? And Antonio still felt that fiercely for her? Still loved her? But he’d said she was his first love. He’d said he’d grown a heart to love her.

  Antonio pushed Sofia away on a butchered groan, as if tearing himself from her arms hurt him, badly. The sound of his torment made Lili shrivel.

  Had he been with her only because he’d thought Sofia had abandoned him? Because he couldn’t have her? And now that he evidently could, he was fighting his desire for her?

  But Lili didn’t want him honor-bound or obligated. If he didn’t love and desire her as completely as she did him, she only wished him to have what he wanted. If that was no longer her, she had to set him free. Now. Now.