Page 143 of Dex

It revealed the biggest shock of all.

Paul Knight had baked this into the contract from the start.He’d intended to take my father’s share of the company at the end of the year.The yearlong ruse gave him just enough time for his people to learn everything they could about the business, so that by the end of the one year, they were already in position to take over.

I would have returned to São Paulo, thinking I’d helped my father, only to discover that Paul Knight had wrestled control of the company from my father.

Obviously that happened sooner rather than later, when Paul Knight discovered the real state of AO Eletronica.The new change to the contract was to sign the shares over with immediate effect, instead of waiting the year.

My decision was cemented once I’d learned that, and now I’m home again, where I belong.

Mãe opens the door, and her eyes wide and red-rimmed when she sees me.She doesn’t speak but wraps her arms around me, clinging to me like I’m her long-lost child.I cling to her, needing her strength, her guidance, her love.

“I had a feeling you might come back,” she whispers.“Papai told me about the contract.”She doesn’t know about the original contract.No one does, except for me, Raquel and Paul Knight.I’m not sure I want to tell my parents, just yet.I can see she’s already looking fearful and confused that I’m here.

Worry fills me when my father doesn’t come to the door, when I don’t hear or see him.

“He’s in the study,” Mãe whispers, brushing my hair back with trembling fingers.“He’s not… well.”

Of course he’s not.

As soon as I step into the study, I see my father hunched over his desk, slumped in his old leather chair, the one he used to sit in when I was a little girl, lecturing me on business ethics while I pretended to listen and secretly doodled flowers on a notepad.

His posture is so bad, I’m tempted to go over and straighten him.He looks smaller, and fragile, and nothing like the giant of industry I used to look up to.Though he was starting to look better at our wedding.

Our wedding.

I brush the thought away, and focus on my father.It won’t do to think of Dexter.Not now.Not ever.If I’m to survive this, I need to erase that man from my mind and my heart.

My father looks up slowly, his eyes dull.He’s back to looking like a shell of his former self.“Daniela …”

I cross the room and kneel in front of him before I can stop myself.“I’m here.”He touches my cheek, and I see all too clearly how weak he’s become.It’s heartbreaking.“Why are you here, filha?”He looks surprised.

“I had to, Papai.”I take his hand and hold it between mine.“I’m back where I belong.”

“You belong with your husband.”

A silence stretches between us, heavy and sharp.I haven’t said a word to them about what I’ve done.That I took Raquel’s advice and flew to the Dominican Republic, before I came here.

“I wish I’d never gone to New York,” I say quietly.“If I hadn’t, I never would’ve met Paul Knight.I never would’ve married Dexter.”

My father flinches.“Daniela …”

“I loved him, Papai.I still love him.”I hate that my voice cracks.“But it doesn’t matter now.What matters is fixing this.”

He leans back, weary.“Fixing what?What’s done is done.Paul Knight has the majority, but … maybe we should just wait.”

“Wait?”I stare at my father in disbelief.“Wait for what, Papai?”

He doesn’t answer me.

“I’m not letting that man take this company from you.You spent your life building it up from nothing.How can you give up so easily?”

I’m disappointed in him.

“Leave it be, filha,” he says, wearily, like the problems of the world sit on his shoulders.

I blink at him, stunned.“I can’t leave it be.I can’t believe you want me to give up.I can’t believe you’re giving up.”

My father looks away, defeated and resigned.It breaks my heart to see him like this.“Papai, what happened to you?”I whisper.“Where’s the man who used to tell me that integrity matters more than profit?That we build legacies, not just balance sheets?Where’s the fight in you?”

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