Page 99 of My Bossy Billionaire Attorney

He looks in my direction, but I sharply glance away, taking a deep breath.

Michael kisses my hand. “Do you want to leave? If so, just say the word. You don’t owe anybody anything.”

I have to do this. I shake my head.

“I will be okay. I mean,” I smile, even though my heart is pounding, “I’ve got you and Peter. If I disown my father after today, you’ll adopt me, won’t you?”

He nods. “Yup. Will a ring do?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I’m sure I heard him right. But my mind is too focused on something else to deal with Michael’s slip-up now.

Peter returns. “Okay, this way. They’ll take us to their table. I asked the waitstaff to come by in five minutes with a bottle of something strong because I sense we will all be needing a stiff drink.”

I, for one, will be needing more than one.

My father gets up as soon as we reach his table, and his wife does the same.

“Savannah.”

For the first time since I’ve known the man, his voice is subdued. He sounds like a beaten man, weak and repentant. It doesn’t make me let my guard down.

“Dad.” I force out the single syllable.

“Savannah,” his wife says.

I acknowledge her with a nod.

We sit down.

“I-I don’t know what to say or where to start, or even if I have the right to,” he begins. “I’m sorry. For everything. I have been terrible to you, disregarding your accomplishments, comparing you to Peter when I should have been celebrating each of you independently, and…for everything else.”

His words neatly summarize everything he’s done to me, but it doesn’t even begin to make up for the pain I’ve endured.

“And Brandon. I should never have pushed you to marry him. I knew he wasn’t the best—that you deserved more, and yet,” he shakes his head, “I was adamant.”

The waiter comes with a bottle of bourbon and pours it into three glasses, adding ice. I pick one and take a good sip, letting the liquid slide down and then burn the back of my throat. It chases the tears that gather in my eyes away, leaving me clear-eyed.

“I have done you wrong, too,” his wife says. “I never spoke up for you, even when I knew what you were feeling—as any mother would. I regretted it when you went away to college, and now still.”

Fuck it.

No matter how hard I try to hide the tears, I find them trailing down my cheeks. Michael’s hand squeezes tightly around mine, and I swallow thickly.

A cacophony of emotions swirls in me so fast I don’t know where one starts and the other ends. I only know that they make it hard to breathe or see.

“I don’t have the right to ask for forgiveness,” my father goes on. “But if you give me a chance to make things right, I’ll spend the rest of my life doing so.”

“How?” I bite, unable to keep anger from my voice. “And why? Why the sudden change of heart? Was it because Peter threatened to disown you? That your perfect son was going to leave?”

They are quiet for a minute.

But the minute is enough to tell me the truth.

I grab my glass, and the rest of the bourbon goes down my throat.

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