Chapter 2

'You have ruined your life just as your mother did,' Paul Eric Gracia condemned.

Angela studied her grandfather with hooded eyes the colour of blue black . She was sick with nerves but she had come on a begging mission. If venting his heart out put the older man into a better mood and made him look more sympathetically on her mother's plight, she could stand the heat of any attack.

Well-built and fit, for all his seventy-plus years, the white-haired older man paced the lounge of his luxurious Evante city hotel suite, his aged features forbidding.

'Look at you, still single at the age of twenty-six! No husband, no children,' he cited grimly. 'Eight years ago, I opened my home to you and I attempted to do my best for you...'

As he paused for a necessary breath, broad chest expanding, Angela knew what was coming next. Beneath the sable black hair she wore confined in a Fish tail, her pale skin turned red and became pronounced.

'And how was my generosity repaid?' Her Grandfather was working himself up into a rage at the memory.

'You brought dish­onour on the Gracia family name. You disgraced me, destroyed your own reputation and offered unforgivable insult to the Romero family—'

'Yes...' Angela was desperate enough to own up to mur­der itself if it calmed her grandfather down and gave her the chance to plead her mother's cause.

'Such a marriage as I arranged for you...and very grateful you were to have Nicolas Romero at the time!

You got emotional and teared upwhen he gave you your betrothal ring. I remember the occasion well!'

Angela clenched her teeth together: a necessary self-restraint. Hot, cringing humiliation and some anger was eating into her self-discipline.

'Then you threw it all away in a wanton moment of madness,' Paul Eric Gracia ground out with bitter anger.

''Shamed me, shamed yourself—''

Angela whispered tautly,

' 'Eight years is a very long time—''

'Not long enough to endow me with amnesia!' her grandfather countered harshly.

'I was curious to see you again. That's why I agreed to this meeting when you wrote me an email asking for the meeting. But let me tell you now without further waste of time that you will receive no financial assistance from me.'

Angela reddened. 'I want nothing for me...but my mother, your daughter—'

Paul Eric interrupted her before she could mention her mother's name. 'Had my foolish daughter raised you to be a decent young woman, according to our traditions, you would never have brought dishonour upon me!'

At that judgmental assurance, Angela's heart sank.

So her innocent parent was still to suffer for her daughter's sins. Squaring her slim shoulders, she lifted a chin every bit as determined as his own. 'Please let me speak freely—'

'No, I will not hear you!' Spyros stalked over to the win­dow. 'I want you to go home and think about what you have lost for you and your mother. Had you married Nick Romero —'

'I'd have castrated him! and then slowly killed him'

Angela's control over her tem­per slipped as the older man made it clear that their meeting was already at an end.

Her grandfather's questioning brows rose almost as high as his hairline.

Angela coloured. 'I'm sorry—'

'At least Nick would have taught you to keep a still tongue when a man is speaking to you!'

Angela sucked in a deep, steadying breath. He was as mad as fire now.

She had done nothing but add fuel to the flames. No doubt she ought to have arrived steeped in black mourning clothes and ashes and hung her head with anguished regret when he referred to her broken engagement.

Paul Eric moved his hand in a gesture of finality. 'You could only win my forgiveness by marrying Nick.'

Fierce disappointment filled Angela to overflowing. 'Why don't you just throw in climbing a mountain too?'

'I see you get the picture,' her grandfather said dryly.

" Look grandfather My mother is innocent and she’s really sick and if not for proper treatment she might die right now I'm not in position to pay for her treatment as I have lost my job and my company isn't giving me referrals for my new job just help me once. " She was breathing faster as she said that so fast like a bullet train.

But her plea was meant to silence as Her Grandfather didn't hear a thing just looking at the work in his hand like his Granddaughter hasn't just told him that his only daughter's terminal disease.

Maybe she also ran her thoughts wild and did some thinking .

But there was a dark devil reading about now inside Angela's head.

'If I could get him to marry me, would I still give him the dowry the Gracia business empire?'

The older man dealt her a thunderous appraisal look.

'What are you suggesting? Get him to marry you? Nicolas James Romero, whom you insulted beyond belief, who could have any young woman he wanted—'

'Few young women come with as large a dowry as you offered as a sweetener to the deal over me eight years ago.'

Paul Eric Gracia was digusted at her bluntness. 'Have you no shame?'

'When you tried to tell me off like one of your servents , I lost my illusions and my sensitivity,' his granddaughter as­serted curtly.

'You still haven't answered my question.'

'But what is the point of a question that crazy?' The older man flung both hands up in complete exasperation.

'I'd just like to know.'

'I would have signed control of Gracia Industries over to Nik on your wedding day...and I would still gladly do so, were it possible!' Weary now, his big shoulders slumping, Paul Eric Gracia vented an embittered laugh at what he saw as a total impossibility. 'My only desire was to pass on the business I spent a lifetime building into capable hands. Was that so much to ask?'

Angela's generous mouth compressed. The longevity of his name in the business world meant so much more to her grandfather than family ties. 

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***