Why did she have to be Otto’s daughter? Or Silvio’s? Why couldn’t she simply be a woman Rocco wanted? One he could have?
As the weeks and months wore on, he met with the hoteliers and cut deals that brought more investors onboard. He quadrupled the value of GPS overnight, but kept waiting for the other shoe to drop in Berlin.
Vorstoben continued their typical underhanded tactics. GPS won and lost bids against them. It was business as usual. Nothing specific happened to indicate they were ramping up efforts against GPS.
Rocco had wondered if Axel would climb aboard the grudge train, but began to believe the acrimony really was confined to Otto’s desire to punish Silvio.
Then Mira’s engagement to Axel was announced.
Chapter Three
Present day…
OTTO WAS NOTher 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,whowas?
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 hisrealdaughter. Otto’s promise to Mira had been a lie. Her entirelifewas 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.
