I Married a Billionaire: The Prodigal Son (Contemporary Romance)

by Marchande, Melanie

  At times, he makes it difficult to talk to him. Sometimes he will try to circumvent the facts, but he hates dishonesty, and so you will find yourself poking and prodding, asking and re-phrasing the same questions over and over again.

  But when a smile is coaxed out of him, it makes the whole experience worthwhile.

  When it was suggested to Daniel that now was the time to get an autobiography written, he was charmed by the idea. But once the process began, he started to realize what the trade-off was. If he wanted people to know his story, he would actually have to tell it. Warts, skeletons and all.

  As always, no good idea comes without a price.

  It was, of course, a delicate proposition. Daniel would need someone with whom he felt comfortable, which is no small feat for a man like him. They would need to be able to capture, not just his stories, but the essence of him. It’s been said that no human being can really fit into a book, but he needed someone who would at least try.

  The search was grueling. I looked at manuscript after manuscript, because he didn’t feel qualified to make such an important decision on his own. But ultimately, our search led us right back to our own living room.

  When Daniel first asked me to write his biography, I balked. I’m not a writer, I told him. I’m not qualified. But he thought all my excuses were nonsense, and finally, I came to recognize the task for what it was: an opportunity to learn about my husband.

  Daniel Thorne is an intensely private man. So private, in fact, that writing his biography at all seems absurd. He’s so withdrawn that most of what I’ve written here, in this book, was news to me just as it will be news to you. When it came time for publication, I thought for certain he would balk. I expected him to think twice about allowing everything he’d told me to become public knowledge. But he never said a word.

  Because, after all, no good idea comes without a price.

  Three

  “Maddy, how are you?”

  I turned around, slowly. My yoga teacher rarely said more than few words to me personally; she was a busy woman with a lot of students, and that was absolutely fine with me. So why on earth was she suddenly making a point of talking to me?

  “Fine,” I said, cautiously, rolling up my mat. “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I just…” she was eyeballing my midriff. Oh, God. Please no please no please no. “I just thought - I have pregnant yoga class too, you know. If you’re interested.”

  My mortification must have been written across my face, because she immediately stepped backwards, raising her hands a little. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t say anything. But it’s just - not all of the poses we do in here might be the best thing for you, if you’re…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “Do I look pregnant?” I realized I was putting her into an impossible position, but she had violated the cardinal etiquette rule about assuming pregnancy - tabloid or no tabloid.

  “Well - no. I mean -” Her eyes were very big. “Of course not. I just thought - I read that…”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, flatly, shoving everything into my bag and heading for the door. I was so consumed with my irritation that I almost collided with someone as I came out of the door and went around the corner.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I exclaimed, as the other person jumped out of the way just in time. As I looked up, I realized that it was Genevieve Winters.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling a little hesitantly. “How’ve you been?

  Genevieve was one of the only journalists who’d been kind to us during Daniel’s insider trading scandal; in fact, my current success as an artist could be mostly attributed to the fact that she featured a picture of one of my sketches in an article she wrote. But due to her obvious crush on my husband, relations between us were slightly strained.

  “Fine, thanks,” I said, re-adjusting my bag on my shoulder. “Why are you stalking me at yoga?”

  “Stalking is a strong term,” she said, still smiling. “Is there somewhere we can go and talk?”

  We ended up at a hole in the wall deli a few blocks away, sitting in front of some “world famous chicken salad sandwiches” so we wouldn’t get odd looks for sitting down without ordering anything.

  “I hesitate to even bring this up,” she said. “Because it could just be some lone crazy. But, I thought it merited someone’s attention. And Daniel…” She took in a deep breath through her nose. “Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you what happened.”

  “Please do,” I said. I took a bite of the sandwich, because it was something to do. Damn, the chicken salad was pretty good.

  Gen interlaced her fingers and started to talk.

  “A few weeks ago, right after that ridiculous ‘baby bump’ story broke, I got an anonymous email asking if I knew whether or not it was true. I have no idea how the person got my email address, unless they just guessed at it. That’s the downside to corporate email accounts, they all have the same structure. I get some weird ones occasionally. This one included. I had no idea why he thought I would know that, and I told him so. He responded that he’d seen my name on the byline of that ‘very nice’ feature from back during the insider trading thing, and he thought I might have some kind of contact with you and Daniel. I said that I didn’t really, but that as far as I knew, you weren’t pregnant.”

  “I’m not, by the way,” I said, around a mouthful of chicken.

  “I figured.” She smiled, briefly. “Mind you, all of this happened in the space of a few hours. When a few more days passed and he never responded, I assumed he was just some wannabe stalker or something. I kept them on file in case anything came up down the line, but with things like this…you know, you just tend to forget about every little lone odd thing that happens, right?”

  I nodded. I had no idea where this was going, but I was beginning to feel a distinct sense of unease about the whole thing. I set my sandwich down, half-eaten.

  “Sure, go on,” I said, finally, when it seemed like she was hesitant to continue.

  “I will,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s just that it’s so weird, and you’re going to think I’m completely insane for even entertaining the idea.”

  “Just spill, for Pete’s sake.”

  She took another deep breath. “That’s when everything started to get very odd.”

  After another moment of silence, she absently picked a rosemary leaf out of her bread, twirled it around in her fingers, and then finally began to speak again.

  “He sent another one, asking how well I knew Daniel. I told him that professional courtesy prevented my going into details about my sources and the people I feature, and his next request was that I put him directly in touch with Daniel. I told him that I absolutely couldn’t do that, but if he had something to tell him, I could certainly do my best to pass the message along.

  “At this point I figured I was going to get some kind of insane diatribe about Area 51 or something, but instead, he just repeated his plea to be put directly in touch with Daniel, saying that the subject he wanted to discuss with him was ‘private and important.’ He told me that he understood it was unorthodox, and that I had absolutely no reason to trust that he wasn’t a crazy stalker or someone who wanted to otherwise harass Daniel, but that I ‘just had to trust that he wasn’t.’ He wouldn’t respond to repeated requests for further clarification, and eventually, I told him that I absolutely couldn’t help him unless he told me exactly who he was, and why he needed to talk to Daniel.

  “He was silent for a few hours, then responded, saying he wanted to speak over the phone. I have a few throwaway Skype numbers that I use for things like that, when I don’t want someone to actually be able to contact me after the fact, so I agreed.

  “The voice wasn’t what I had imagined, at all. He sounded older, and very tired, and very sad. He told me that he’d once known Daniel personally, and that he wanted more than anything to ‘reconcile’ with h
im. When I asked him what he’d done that he needed to ‘reconcile’ about, he told me that he’d once disappeared out of Daniel’s life, a few years ago. He wanted to get to know him again. He wanted to get to know you. He wanted to ‘make things right.’”

  I felt like my heart was resting on the bottom of my stomach.

  “I told him I would do my best to explain the situation and see if Daniel would be interested in talking to him,” said Gen, softly. “But now you see…it’s insane, isn’t it? But all the pieces fit together. Daniel told me about what happened to his father - or about what he thinks happened to his father, and I know if I came to him with this, he’d just reject it out of hand. But I thought you might…” she sighed. “I don’t know what I thought, exactly. It could just as easily be a horrible prank or a ploy or something, but he hasn’t actually made any claims about his identity. I’m just putting the pieces together, as improbable as the outcome is.”

  “Is it even possible?” I said, without thinking. I had no idea how Daniel’s father had actually died. The conversation simply hadn’t come up.

  “It is,” said Gen. “It’s possible. Mr. Thorne was supposed to have drowned, on a fishing trip. In the ocean, no less. It’s almost too convenient. They never found a body.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”

  “I couldn’t either,” said Gen. “But I just can’t shake this feeling that it’s important. I had to tell someone. And something told me you’d be a little more receptive to it, and could maybe pass it along if you think it’s worthwhile.”

  “Sure,” I said, faintly. “Thanks for…all of that.”

  I spent a long time sitting there after Gen left, just lost in thought. There was so much about this scenario that I didn’t know, or understand. Daniel’s father had died, or rather disappeared, just a few years after Daniel graduated college. At that point Daniel had already sold a few patents, and he and Lindsey were essentially supporting Mr. Thorne. He’d won the jackpot at a local casino during a fit of depression after his wife passed away, but he spent all of the money on college tuition for his kids.

  What little I knew about old Mr. Thorne’s personality indicated he was a misanthrope, intensely difficult to be around, but completely without malice. He only ever wanted the best for Daniel and Lindsey; the problem was that he wanted to define their “best” for them. Once he became what he saw as “a burden” to them, maybe he just couldn’t take it anymore - maybe all he could think to do was quietly fade away, and become a ghost.

  But now - maybe - he was back.

  I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do.

  ***

  I had the perfect opportunity, of course, to bring up the subject without it seeming out of place. I almost didn’t, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Describe your father in three words.”

  Daniel looked up at me, slowly. We’d just sat down to another biography-note-taking session, and I don’t think he expected me to be so direct.

  “Right down to business,” he said, at last, quietly.

  “Take your time.” I smiled, encouragingly. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t letting any of the craziness swirling inside my head show.

  He tapped his index finger against his upper lip for a while, in silence.

  “Sad,” he said, at last. “Sad. Arrogant. Stubborn.”

  “Why do you say ‘sad?’” I was writing gibberish on the paper.

  He exhaled. “Even before my mother…got so sick, before she passed away, he was never happy. You could see it in his eyes. He wasn’t faithful to her either, and that tore him up after she was dead - she never found out, as far as I know. But he hated himself for doing it, and I think part of the reason why he hated himself so much was that he had no real reason for doing it. She wasn’t cruel, or neglectful, or withholding. But he couldn’t make himself love her. And he went everywhere he could, to find something that would make him feel all right.”

  “Why do you say he didn’t love her?”

  Daniel shrugged. “He might have said something along those lines once. I don’t remember.”

  I could feel my brows knitting of their own accord. “Your father told you that he didn’t love your mother?”

  “You make it sound so horrible.” He shifted in his chair. “I think one night he drank too much and he might have said something. About how he only stayed around for us kids. Something along those lines. Not that he particularly liked us, I don’t think, but he was legally obligated to love us.”

  He smiled, but there wasn’t any humor behind it.

  I considered my next move carefully. “Do you think he regretted it?”

  Daniel ran his fingers through his hair. “If he did, he never made any attempt to apologize to us. He never tried to make it right.”

  I hesitated for a moment. “Would you say that you and your father have different personalities?”

  He smiled faintly. “I see what you’re driving at.”

  Well, I seriously doubt that.

  “Subtlety is a fine art,” he went on. “But not one you’ve ever quite mastered.”

  “I don’t really think I’d describe you as ‘arrogant,’ I said. “Well - maybe. Sometimes. But sad? Stubborn? It was like you were looking in a mirror.”

  “I don’t pretend that my father’s attitude and personality didn’t shape who I am today,” he said. “But we’re not the same. For one, I’m capable of understanding that people might have divergent points of view, and the ones who see things differently than I do aren’t automatically ‘wrong.’ And more than that, I think in larger terms than he was ever capable of.”

  “Sometimes people get in a rut,” I said.

  “I won’t argue that,” he replied. “But a twenty-year rut is at least worth examining, don’t you think? He never seemed to even think about the possibility of…” He stopped, looking at me. “You’re making a face.”

  I shrugged, shaking my head.

  “Look” he said, taking a distinctly patronizing tone that I didn’t like at all. “I know he stayed because he cared. I know he spent all that money on college for me and Lindsey so we’d have a better life. But if I sat you down and tried to tell you about what a saint your father was despite the way he treats you, you’d get defensive. It’s a natural reaction. I don’t know what you want me to do, or say. I love my father, and I miss him, but he was nothing but a source of stress and anxiety for me. I won’t say I’m glad he’s gone. But every time I make a decision, I hear his voice in my head telling me I’m going to fail. I know I don’t have to tell you what that feels like.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to…” I was inwardly kicking myself. This whole conversation had gone way off track.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Really. Don’t worry about it.”

  Perhaps it was better to just be honest with him. But how on earth would I broach the subject? Gen was right - he’d reject the idea out of hand if it was presented to him as “some guy who might be your dad is trying to get in touch with you.” After all, his father was dead. Whether he was really dead or not didn’t seem to matter. He was dead to Daniel.

  I couldn’t blame him, really. I did know what it was like, and I understood the strange paradox of both loving your parents, and wishing they’d never speak to you again. Daniel’s father being gone - permanently - was simply the best thing for his mental health.

  Then again, was it?

  Every time I make a decision, I hear his voice in my head telling me I’m going to fail.

  If this man was indeed his father, and if they could somehow reconcile…

  These were awfully lofty thoughts, considering I didn’t even know the reality of the situation yet. I forced myself to come back down to earth.

  “I understand you just want to get something interesting for the book,” Daniel was saying. “And you don’t want me to come across as a cold-hearted psychopath who doesn’t appreciate his own father
. You can make something up, if it suits. Say I looked misty-eyed when I was talking about him.” He was smiling again.

  “I’m sure people will understand,” I said. “I could also just avoid the topic entirely, if you want.”

  “That might look odd.”

  “Well, yeah.” I tucked the pen behind my ear. “It might.”

  ***

  Excerpted from Daniel Thorne: A Life.

  Christmas in the Thorne household was, in Daniel’s words, “surprisingly lavish.” Although it seemed the monthly bills would just keep piling up during the rest of the year, the holiday season always seemed like a small respite from all of it. There were fresh-baked gingerbread and sugar cookies, spiced cider, and even a tiny tree crammed into the corner of the their seven-foot-wide living room. Daniel remembers, with a smile on his face, sitting on his dad’s shoulders to pull the box of decorations down from the loft storage, and spending a whole day with his sister, decking out every corner of their home in tinsel and snowflakes.

  One year, which Daniel places in time solely by “before my mother got sick,” all he wanted was a remote control car. His father grumbled, insisting they didn’t even have enough floor space for him to drive it around, insisting again and again that it was a silly, useless gift and that he wouldn’t waste his money on it. Rather than begging or crying, he diplomatically offered to forfeit his next few birthdays and Christmases if he could have what he wanted. But his father was firm, and his mother just shook her head while she pressed her palm down on the cookie cutters.

  “I’m sorry, Danny. If Dad says no, the answer is no.”

  Daniel recalls this being a common refrain. But his father’s whims were capricious; if he was caught in a good mood he might just as easily relent. At such a young age, he hadn’t yet learned to read his father’s moods and pick the best times to approach him with requests. Or, as Mr. Thorne would be more likely to describe them, “demands.”