Chapter 36
DANI
This week has been hard. I’ve been figuring out the course of my life, and now I’ve landed back in my beloved S?o Paulo.
It’s late in the evening and I’m going to surprise my parents. I’ve deliberately kept them in the dark until now, and showing up on their doorstep seems like the right way to break the news to them.
I feel happy to be back, though I’ve carried a dull ache with me on my journey, like extra baggage I didn’t need. It’s been with me ever since I left Dexter’s apartment.
I’ve kept my head down, figuring out my plan, with Raquel’s help. He’s been working long days. He’s out of the apartment before I’m up and he’s been coming home later than usual every day.
I don’t even bother asking him where he’s been or who he’s been with. I want to forget everything we shared, all our precious memories which will soon be replaced. While I still miss him with all my heart, Paul Knight’s betrayal cuts deep; as deep as the shock of Dexter’s exit strategy.
I knew it was never about helping me. He despised me as soon as he saw me. It wasn’t about him helping his father, a man he clearly hates. I should have dug deeper to find out why Dexter decided to marry me, maybe if I hadn’t been so deluded myself. What I shouldn’t have done was gone and fallen in love with him.
It all makes so much sense now that I know what truly motivated Dexter. Hate. Revenge. Spite.
And getting close to me? He did what most men who meet me want. He wanted my body. This was all about desire, about him getting his pleasure. I didn’t see the point of telling him about the latest bombshell, the one I found out about when my father sent me the original contract. The one Paul Knight never gave to me and Dexter. There, in the fine print, was a clause, buried in a ton of legalese, that I only managed to decipher with Raquel’s help.
It revealed the biggest shock of all.
Paul Knight had baked this into the contract from the start. He’d intended to take my father’s share of the company at the end of the year. The yearlong ruse gave him just enough time for his people to learn everything they could about the business, so that by the end of the one year, they were already in position to take over.
I would have returned to S?o Paulo, thinking I’d helped my father, only to discover that Paul Knight had wrestled control of the company from my father.
Obviously that happened sooner rather than later, when Paul Knight discovered the real state of AO Eletronica. The new change to the contract was to sign the shares over with immediate effect, instead of waiting the year.
My decision was cemented once I’d learned that, and now I’m home again, where I belong.
M?e opens the door, and her eyes wide and red-rimmed when she sees me. She doesn’t speak but wraps her arms around me, clinging to me like I’m her long-lost child. I cling to her, needing her strength, her guidance, her love.
“I had a feeling you might come back,” she whispers. “Papai told me about the contract.” She doesn’t know about the original contract. No one does, except for me, Raquel and Paul Knight. I’m not sure I want to tell my parents, just yet. I can see she’s already looking fearful and confused that I’m here.
Worry fills me when my father doesn’t come to the door, when I don’t hear or see him.
“He’s in the study,” M?e whispers, brushing my hair back with trembling fingers. “He’s not… well.”
Of course he’s not.
As soon as I step into the study, I see my father hunched over his desk, slumped in his old leather chair, the one he used to sit in when I was a little girl, lecturing me on business ethics while I pretended to listen and secretly doodled flowers on a notepad.
His posture is so bad, I’m tempted to go over and straighten him. He looks smaller, and fragile, and nothing like the giant of industry I used to look up to. Though he was starting to look better at our wedding.
Our wedding.
I brush the thought away, and focus on my father. It won’t do to think of Dexter. Not now. Not ever. If I’m to survive this, I need to erase that man from my mind and my heart.
My father looks up slowly, his eyes dull. He’s back to looking like a shell of his former self. “Daniela …”
I cross the room and kneel in front of him before I can stop myself. “I’m here.” He touches my cheek, and I see all too clearly how weak he’s become. It’s heartbreaking. “Why are you here, filha?” He looks surprised.
“I had to, Papai.” I take his hand and hold it between mine. “I’m back where I belong.”
“You belong with your husband.”
A silence stretches between us, heavy and sharp. I haven’t said a word to them about what I’ve done. That I took Raquel’s advice and flew to the Dominican Republic, before I came here.
“I wish I’d never gone to New York,” I say quietly. “If I hadn’t, I never would’ve met Paul Knight. I never would’ve married Dexter.”
My father flinches. “Daniela …”
“I loved him, Papai. I still love him.” I hate that my voice cracks. “But it doesn’t matter now. What matters is fixing this.”
He leans back, weary. “Fixing what? What’s done is done. Paul Knight has the majority, but … maybe we should just wait.”
“Wait?” I stare at my father in disbelief. “Wait for what, Papai?”
He doesn’t answer me.
“I’m not letting that man take this company from you. You spent your life building it up from nothing. How can you give up so easily?”
I’m disappointed in him.
“Leave it be, filha,” he says, wearily, like the problems of the world sit on his shoulders.
I blink at him, stunned. “I can’t leave it be. I can’t believe you want me to give up. I can’t believe you’re giving up.”
My father looks away, defeated and resigned. It breaks my heart to see him like this. “Papai, what happened to you?” I whisper. “Where’s the man who used to tell me that integrity matters more than profit? That we build legacies, not just balance sheets? Where’s the fight in you?”
His lip trembles. “Don’t you see? I wasn’t upfront with you. I was desperate, that’s why I did the cowardly, weak thing and ordered my accounts department to mislead Paul Knight. God, forgive me.”
“Why would you do such a thing? That’s not who you are.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“By lying to Paul Knight?” I ask gently, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice.
He lowers his head. “I didn’t want you to marry Oscar Ramos. If Paul Knight saw the state of the business, he would never have agreed to an alliance.”
“You made the business look better than it was so he’d agree to the alliance?”
“I didn’t want you to marry Ramos. Not that man. He had an idea that we were struggling and he made me an offer, before Paul Knight came along. He told me he’d invest in us, help us to regain our power, but he wanted something in return. You.”
I remember Oscar Ramos. How he glanced at me, put his hand on my bare shoulder and gave me a wolfish smile that made my insides fall. This man would devour me the moment we closed the door to the bedroom on our wedding night. I shiver, just thinking about it.
It’s what made me go to New York to speak with Paul Knight. I swallow. The thought of that slimy snake of a man being anywhere near me, makes me want to retch but that’s something I’ll now have to overcome.
“I couldn’t do it, Daniela. I couldn’t sell you off like that, and I was trying to figure out our next move, but you flew to meet Paul Knight and when you told us you’d met Dexter, and that everything would be fine, I thought my prayers had been answered. I thought Paul Knight would protect the company, and I stupidly thought he’d do it from afar. Not only did he come into work with me, poring over the books and examining all our processes, but he also hired a top audit firm to go through everything. That’s how he discovered the truth.”
It explains why Dexter was so worried when his father stayed behind. He knew that old man was up to something. And now my heart is a mess of contradictions. Of rage and sorrow, love and betrayal. All of it tangled up in the hollow space that Dexter had once occupied.
“I walked into the deal blind,” I whisper. “I was walking into a fire pit, Papai. I wish you’d forewarned me, at least.”
“How could I? I was ashamed of myself, using you. But the Knights were young, good-looking, and everything about them looked perfect.”
I look away.
“Is it not perfect?” my father asks, his dark, baggy, saggy eyes on me.
“You should be careful of Paul Knight.”
“You shouldn’t do anything hasty, filha.”
I place a hand on my father’s arm. “I’m going to fix it.”
“How?” my mother asks from the doorway. Her face is pale. “What are you planning, filha?”
I stand slowly, meeting both of their eyes. “I am going to marry Oscar Ramos.”
They both go still, like I’ve caused their hearts to stop beating.
“No,” M?e breathes. “You cannot do this.”
“I’m already divorced,” I say softly. “It’s done.”
My father looks like I slapped him. “You… you divorced Dexter?”
I nod once. “In the Dominican Republic, before I came here. Divorces can be finalized quickly there than in the U.S or Brazil. I had to do it.”
I was able to file unilaterally, and without Dexter, Paul or media attention. I needed it to be quick, because I wrestled with the decision all the way there. Raquel kept telling me not to rush, to think things through. Even after I told her that Dexter and I had tricked her and everyone around us, she somehow seems to think I should talk things over with Dexter. Her advice shocks me. She’s supposed to be my wing woman. I can’t deny my love for Dexter, but everything I’ve learned about the Knights makes me sick to my stomach.
I will get over him.
She’s not as convinced. I’ve sworn her to secrecy, and made her promise not to say anything to Dexter, or Rio.
My mother looks stricken. “What did Dexter say?”
“He doesn’t know.”
My mother claps a hand to her mouth, in horror. “He doesn’t know?”
“You’ve divorced Dexter, and he doesn’t know, and now you’re going to marry Oscar Ramos? Daniela, what’s gotten into you?” my father cries, worried more about my future problem than the one I’ve left behind.
“He’s not Paul Knight,” I say. “And he wants the company. He wants control. I can use that. If I marry him, I can convince him to return the majority stake to you. Or at least to someone who won’t destroy it.”
“He’s … he’s not right for you,” my father replies.
“You think the Knights were?”
“Dexter is a good man,” my father insists.
“Dexter …” I want to tell them that he’s complicated, but they seem to think he’s the best son-in-law ever, and I don’t want to talk about him.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Papai whispers.
“I don’t care,” I snap, my voice breaking. “I loved Dexter. I gave him my whole heart. And now he’s just like the rest of them; silent, cold and gone. But you?” I turn to my father. “I still believe in you. I still remember the man who taught me how to fight. So let me fight for you now.”
“Don’t do this, filha. Wait. Have patience,” my father implores.
“Wait for what?” I try to keep my voice steady.
The air turns silent again, but this time, it feels different. My mother reaches for me. “And what about your heart, meu amor? Will it survive this?”
I look away, because I don’t know the answer. I’m not sure it will. But I nod anyway. “It has to.”