Adopted by the Billionaire✔️

[18]

Antonio's POV

Jenna's voice wavered as she finished speaking.
"I've lost too many people," she said quietly. "My boyfriend... that was on me. But he cheated first. I didn't come to you because of him. I came because I don't know where else to go."
I watched her drain the last of her wine. When she reached for the bottle, I stopped her hand.
"No," I said evenly. "You don't get to drink your way through this."
She looked at me then—really looked at me. "Then help me feel something else."
I hesitated.
Ellie was asleep. The penthouse was silent. And for the first time all evening, the past felt closer than the present.
"Jenna," I said, choosing my words carefully, "you don't need to become someone you're not. You were never materialistic. That was never you."
Her gaze dropped.
"I didn't know your father for long," I continued, "but when I met him—briefly—he was kind. Grounded. I wanted to be like him."
She looked up.
"In high school," I admitted, "I liked you. I asked you to prom because I meant it. Your father and I even spoke—about the future. About marriage." I exhaled. "When he died, everything changed. You changed. And I didn't know how to reach you anymore."
Silence stretched between us.
"I became someone else," I said quietly. "Someone I don't recognize. Someone more like my father than I ever wanted to be."
Her voice was barely a whisper. "You talked about marriage?"
"Yes. But the girl I wanted that future with... she disappeared. And I let the distance turn into something easier. Something emptier."
I met her eyes. "I can't love you the way I once thought I could. But now that I understand what you've been carrying—I won't abandon you."
She nodded, accepting the truth of it.
"I'm not asking for love," she said. "I just need... release. Something to quiet everything for a moment."
I should have stopped it there.
I didn't.
What followed wasn't love. It wasn't romance. It was history colliding with grief, familiarity filling the space where pain refused to go. It was two people reaching for something they used to be because the present felt unbearable.
Later, I stood alone in the bathroom, water running, staring at my reflection.
I felt no triumph. No relief.
Only the weight of knowing I had crossed a line—one I couldn't uncross.
When I returned, Jenna was quiet, gathering herself.
"Thank you," she said softly.
"It wasn't something to thank me for," I replied, already turning away. "Get some rest."
She nodded and left the room.
I remained standing there, listening to the silence of the penthouse.
Ellie slept down the hall.
And for the first time since she entered my life, I understood something with painful clarity:
The man I had been could not exist alongside the father I was becoming.
And tomorrow, I would have to choose

EDIT: September 29th, 2020
revision: 3.10.26