Page 19 of The Billionaire's Bad News Baby

Elio concluded his speech and definitely still looked a little embarrassed at how passionately he’d spoken, but Kayla had loved to see him like that. Still waters ran deep, it seemed.

“He must be proud of you, your dad.”

Elio snorted. “He nearly disowned me when he found out how far I was taking the restructuring. But then I showed him the profit margins and sales reports, and that seemed to put an end to it.”

Kayla frowned. Billionaire or not, that would hurt, having a parent only stop their criticism once they saw the money coming in. From where she was sitting, and whether he wanted her to notice or not, Kayla definitely saw the hurt in Elio.

“You should be proud of yourself,” she said and meant it. Elio looked at her over the rim of his glass, the surprise evident on his face. Kayla shrugged, not willing to take back the statement. “It sounds like a lot of work, you know, to do all of that. And a big risk, and you pulled it off. If he’s not proud of you, then be proud of yourself.”

Elio didn’t say anything, but instead of drifting off into his own world, he was watching her with a laser-like focus. Had no one told him to be proud of himself before? Seriously? But the way he was looking at her, Kayla was worried that that seemed to be the truth of the matter.

“Anyways,” she said, clearing her throat and raising her glass in a mock toast. “Here’s to dads, am I right?”

“I’d wager that you still have a better relationship with your father than I do with mine.”

“Uh, you would be wrong, sir. I have no relationship with my father. He knocked up my mom and then disappeared like a thief in the night. Now, here I am drinking your wine and serving lawsuits for a living.”

Elio blinked at her. “That’s awful,” he said.

“Serving lawsuits? Yes, I agree it is awful.”

“You know what I mean.”

Kayla shrugged, his attention making her warm, and it was getting fiercer by the minute.

“I don’t know. I don’t really have strong feelings about him either way. My mom more than made up for it.”

“You two are close.”

“Yeah. I mean, she's my mom so she drives me up a wall, and I do the same to her, but we’re close. She worked her butt off my whole life to make sure I would have everything I needed. She still works her butt off.”

“You take after her, then?” Elio said with a sly smile.

“Why do you say that?”

“You can’t fly across the world to a foreign country, going to the lengths you did to serve me those darn papers and not be a hard worker.”

“If you’re trying to tease me, then you failed because I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“Then I didn’t fail because I meant it as a compliment.”

Kayla flicked her hair off her shoulder and drank from her glass, trying to hide the fact that she was flustered. It was just the wine; it had to be. She wasn’t going to consider any other possibility right now.

“I mean, I couldn’t really pass up an opportunity like that, could I?” she said. “Getting offered a job in Italy. And my mom would have skinned me alive if she found out I’d passed up an opportunity to come here. If it was Mexico or France or Russia, she wouldn’t have cared, but telling her I passed on a trip to Italy? I would never hear the end of it.”

“Is she particularly fond of Italy?” Elio asked, looking very confused, and Kayla realized that without context, it was kind of a bizarre statement to make, getting in trouble for not going to a very specific country.

“My dad is Italian,” she explained.

“I thought he was nonexistent?”

“That too, but he’s also Italian — or was, maybe. He might not even be alive anymore. I honestly have no idea.”

Elio still looked confused, and Kayla was once again reminded that the way her mother had raised her wasn’t exactly conventional.

“Ma thought it was important to be in touch with that side of my heritage, even if I wasn’t in touch with the actual man who gave me said heritage. She would cook Italian food at home, even if it didn’t turn out great, but it at least made me want to cook Italian food. She signed me up for language classes, all that jazz.”

“She sounds like a good mother,” Elio said after he’d taken a moment to think. He was so sincere as he said it that Kayla was surprised with how hard the words hit.

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