I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found(27)

My phone was ringing. I fumbled it out of my purse, staring dully at the number for few moments before I recognized it.

Oh, great. This was just what I needed.

"Hi, dad." I tucked the phone between my shoulder and my ear as I slipped out of my jacket. "How are you?"

"I was going to ask how you are," he said. "We've been watching the news. Your mother thought I should call."

I let out a long breath.

"Okay," I said.

"Are you feeling all right?" My dad cleared his throat. "You looked awfully disheveled in that picture."

"I was coming home from yoga, dad. I always look like that when I get out."

"Yoga?" My dad repeated, like he'd never heard the word before. "Well, all I know is, you didn't really look like you had yourself together. If you're going to have your picture in the paper, you really should clean yourself up a little bit."

"First of all, it wasn't in the paper, it was on a blog. And second of all, I shouldn't even have to point this out, but I had no idea they were taking my picture. You're familiar with the concept of paparazzi, yes?" I grabbed a cup out of the cabinet and slammed it down on the granite countertop so hard that it cracked a little.

"Sweetie, I'm just worried about you," he said. "You don't have to get defensive."

"Well, thanks. I appreciate it." I squeezed my eyes shut, tightly. "How's mom?"




"Worried about you."

I took a long, deep breath.

"Well, tell her not to worry. Daniel's got one of the best lawyers out there, we're going to be fine. It's just going to drag out for a while because these things do."

"Oh, well." My dad sighed. "I guess if he's going to find a way to weasel out of it, that's all right."

"He's not….weaseling out of anything," I said. "He didn't do it."

"Honey," he said, in the most condescending tone I could imagine. "You don't know the first thing about what rich people do."

"I actually think I might, dad. I've been married to one for two years."

"Insider trading is how people with a lot of money turn it into more money. Everybody does it, if they have the opportunity. Your Daniel was unlucky enough to get caught, but I promise you, that's the only thing that makes him different from most of the others."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," I snapped, grabbing my phone and switching it to my other ear. I felt like my head was going to explode. "You know, for once, it would be nice to just get some support from you. You know, just, hey, honey, we're rooting for you. A little less judgment disguised as advice and concern. That would be really fantastic. Just once."

"You know, I just called to be nice," my dad said, sternly. "I thought maybe there was something we could do to help. You don't have to be so hostile."

"Well, next time you want to be nice and help out, you could do that by not calling, if you don't have anything positive to say. Okay? Okay."

I hung up, throwing my phone down on the counter and sitting down heavily on one of the chairs.

"Your dad?" came Daniel's voice from behind me.

I turned around. "How long have you been standing there?"

He walked over and sat down beside me, letting his hand rest gently on my back, right between my shoulders. I let out a massive sigh and sagged, leaning on the counter with my elbows and letting my head hang between my arms.

"Yeah," I said, finally. "It was my dad."

I'd never talked much about my relationship with my parents. The truth of the matter was, there really wasn't much to say. From the way we talked to each other, anyone on the outside would assume that there had been a huge blowout at some point, from which none of us had ever fully recovered. But that wasn't really true. We simply didn't get along. We never really had.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You're sorry?" I scoffed. "This is still your cross to bear, not mine."

"Maddy," he said, taking a deep breath. "I know I've been…" he drifted off, then started again. "What I'm trying to say is, if you need to talk about it, you can."

I shook my head, finally lifting it back up to look at him.

"He's just…he's just being the way he is," I said. "He thinks he knows everything, and he thinks it's okay to be hurtful and judgmental as long as his intentions are good. He makes up his mind about something as soon as he sees even the first little hint of it, and no matter what you say about it afterwards, you can't change his mind. So I guess in a way he's like everybody else out there. He sees 'billionaire' and 'illegal insider trading' and he just assumes he knows the whole story. I tell him you're innocent and he thinks I'm na?ve. To him, I'm still a stupid little girl who doesn't know how the world works."

"You believe it, then?"

I frowned at him. "Believe what?"

"That I'm innocent?"

His face was soft and open in a way I hadn't seen…well, since our second honeymoon. I reached out and grabbed his hand, holding it tightly.

"Of course," I said. "Did you really think I didn't?"