“My daughter walked away from my name when she was twenty because she wanted to prove she could build a life through her own merit,” he explained.
His voice was like iron, echoing with a strength that Christian could never hope to mimic.
“She refused my money and my connections because she wanted to be valued for her mind, not for my bank account,” Robert continued.
Kimberly looked down at the floor, unable to meet anyone’s eyes.
“When she met you, she genuinely believed she had found a man who could see her for who she was,” Robert said. “She asked me to never interfere and never reveal our identity so that if you ever did find out, it would be too late to exploit it.”
Geneva remained silent, letting her father’s words sink into Christian’s crumbling ego.
Suddenly, all the pieces of the last few years began to fit together in Christian’s mind.
The brilliant strategic ideas he had claimed as his own had actually come from her.
The lucky encounters with investors and the rent money that appeared just in time were all her doing.
He realized he was just a lucky man who had been standing on the foundation his wife had built in the dark.