Chapter Three
Present day…
OTTO WAS NOT her father.
Mira lurched out of his office and into the ladies’ room, aware at a distance that she was operating the way she had after getting the news about her mother’s death—in a sort of removed panic. Each minute felt urgent even though the world had effectively stopped. Everything ceased to have meaning.
The past half hour had been a traumatizing roller coaster of resigning herself to a marriage she didn’t want, taking yet another dismissive insult from Otto, then seeing the paternity report that revealed she was not Otto’s daughter.
In fact, he had a daughter with someone else!
She stood at the sink, breathing through the nausea that made her cup of espresso feel like acid in her stomach.
Who is he? Who is my father? she had asked. If Otto wasn’t her father, who was?
Otto’s answer had been as scathing as every other interaction they’d had. How the hell would I know? Your mother was a whore. It could be anyone.
That wasn’t true. She refused to believe her mother had slept around, but why hadn’t her mother told her there’d been at least one other man?
Mira pressed a tissue beneath her eyes, surprised to find she wasn’t leaking tears when her eyeballs were on fire and her heart was throbbing with agitation.
She was in shock. Her mind was whirling, unable to fully grasp all of this. Part of her wanted to run home, run to ground, so she could process it all, but there was another part that had been freed of weighted shackles. She was hurt and wanted to fight back.
She strode back into the corridor and nearly slammed into Axel.
“Mira.” He caught her arm.
They had been engaged for two years. Two years. Otto had agreed to gift them Vorstoben if they married and she had gone along with it because she had thought that doing as Otto asked would earn a tiny shred of approval from him.
But no. It had all been a trick. Otto wanted Axel to marry his real daughter. Otto’s promise to Mira had been a lie. Her entire life was a lie.
“You’re shaking. Sit down.” Axel tried to guide her toward a chair in the reception area outside Otto’s office.
“No.” She brushed off Axel’s touch, incandescent with rage, torn open with hurt, but beneath her devastation and fury, there was relief. I don’t have to marry him. I don’t have to try anymore.
She had worked so hard for so long to earn Otto’s regard.
His respect, at least, if he couldn’t love her, but Otto would never love her.
She finally understood why. It didn’t make the lifetime of rejection any less painful.
In fact, it compounded the hurt. It piled falsehoods atop the insults and verbal injuries he’d thrown at her throughout her life.
All of that fueled her desire to strike back.
“I have to go.” She hugged her clutch and walked toward the elevator.
“Where? What are you going to do?” Axel kept pace, sounding as wound with tension as she was. He had been as taken aback by Otto’s scheming as she was.
She bore no ill will toward Axel, but he had the option to marry Otto’s “real” daughter if he could find her, and take possession of Vorstoben, as he wanted to.
This stupid company meant everything to Otto. That’s why he had remained married to Trude despite knowing she’d passed off another man’s child as his own. Otto had wanted access to Trude’s money. The fortune had come to Mira and she had continued to let him use those assets to grow Vorstoben.
Again and again, she had bowed to Otto’s dictates, convinced she only needed to be more cooperative, more obedient, and he would finally value her. She had let him convince her there was a fault within her that made her unlovable, but the fault was in him. He was incapable of that emotion.
“I’m going to do exactly what I said I would do.” Her resolve hardened as she jabbed the button for the elevator. “I’m taking Mama’s money out of this place.”
“Mira—”
“Do whatever you have to, Axel.” She threw the words at him in a voice scraped ragged. “I know you want Vorstoben. I won’t blame you for trying to get it.”
He deserved to take over the company. He had put more effort and years of loyalty into its success than she had. It wasn’t fair to punish him for Otto’s machinations, but I want to hurt him the way he has hurt me.
“All of this came at a cost to me.” She whirled her hand in the air to indicate the company’s standing as a top global enterprise.
“Not just my money, but me.” Otto had been unrelentingly awful toward her.
“I don’t care what happens to it. Not anymore.
In fact, I will do everything I can to destroy it. ”
She ignored the way Axel’s mouth tightened and then she stepped into the elevator.
She went straight to the trustee who still administered her mother’s estate. He saw her immediately, despite his full calendar. That’s how much her mother’s fortune was worth.
“I want to cut all ties with Vorstoben,” she said as she sat down. “Pull it all. I don’t care what it costs.”
“That seems rash. Shall I call your father?” He reached for his phone.
It was another slap in the face, but something that she should have seen ages ago. All these years she had believed her trustee was in her corner, but, of course, he was in Otto’s pocket.
“No. And I see I must move my holdings out of your care as well.”
He blustered as she rose, but she left, driven by outrage and a need to avenge herself.
The next morning, she sat down with her new advisor at a competing firm. They were very happy to take custody of her fortune and promised to pull the supports her mother’s assets had provided to Vorstoben.
“It will take time. Bureaucracy.” Her new advisor shrugged with apology. “I will cancel all the bookings in Praiano, though. The villa will be fully available to you within a day or so, if you wish to take a few days to absorb all of this.”
There were costs to canceling the reservations for this coming season, but Mira didn’t care about penalties.
She was taking financial hits across the board and viewed it as the cost of a divorce her mother should have sought.
No price was too high to sever ties with the man who had never been a father to her.
She flew to Italy, not realizing that the action of going to the trustee’s competitor had planted a seed in her brain, one that sprouted when she arrived at the villa.
After being used as a short-stay rental for years, the house was run-down and showing its age.
It looked the way Mira felt—neglected and abused.
She couldn’t stay in it, but when she asked a property agent to recommend a contractor to refurbish it, he pointed her to the local office of the Salerno Projects Group.
“Gruppo Progetti Salerno,” he said in Italian. “It’s the best.”
GPS. Owned by Rocco DeStefano.
Mira’s hatred for one man collided with her hatred of another.
She was still furious with Rocco for London.
She still felt a fool for believing he had been attracted to her.
For allowing him to touch her so intimately.
For the last three years, she had existed in a state of dread, convinced he would use her behavior to humiliate her.
The entire episode had kept her encased in ice.
That’s why she’d agreed to marry Axel. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with men after Rocco had toyed with her so heartlessly. Axel had been clear that their engagement was a business arrangement. He had been as aloof and disinterested in intimacy as she was.
Mira had seen Rocco exactly four times since that day in London. Each time, it had been at a gala or other high-profile event. Her only consolation had been the fact that she had looked her best, always in a gown with full hair and makeup. Always on Axel’s arm, wearing Axel’s ring.
Infuriatingly, Rocco could still make her skin to prickle with awareness. Each time, she had felt that sensation and glanced up to find him staring at her.
Each time, a jolt of awareness had stricken her chest, quickly followed by a curdle of mortification in her stomach.
“Can we go?” she had always asked Axel.
She and Axel had never talked about London. They had never been in love. They had been friendly more than friends, respectful of each other and only engaged for the promises Otto had made them.
With a flick of his glance at Rocco, Axel had always accommodated her with a murmured of course, before he spirited her away.
She hated Rocco DeStephano.
But if she wanted vengeance, she might as well go to someone who was good at it.