The Mogul's Intense Adoration

chapter 19

Chapter 19

Arianna

On the night we couldn't blink an eye. Dad was admitted in the hospital no sooner his condition went stable after the injection. We drove home in a hurry to collect some important last minute essentials but an hour later I received a call from the hospital that dad wanted to meet us immediately. Allen stared a look at me, the meaning I did not want to decipher but regretfully knew what it meant.

Barely that we reached the hospital the announcement from the cardiologist was like a thwack on my face. Dad was no more. Though I knew this was going to happen, my heart wouldn't by any means agree to accept the message. It was too early for him to leave. The pain felt like piercing needles into my soul. Allen stood besides watching the resting form of dad, his hands on my shoulders holding me.

The moment that he went outside to talk to the doctor my knees gave up. I fell on the bed bursting into tears while hugging dad. His eyes were closed and his frame composed as though he was having an afternoon nap. I wanted to imagine all this was a dream, a dreadful dream. Dad was just sleeping and he was going to wake up after some time but the straight line on the monitor sitting besides punched me of the veracity every time that I looked at it. Dad was gone, he is not going to return and it is the biting truth I should learn to assimilate.

I circled my arms around his resting form putting my head on his chest just like I used to do when I was a child and cried out feeling him for the last time. "Dad please don't give away." But he wouldn't move, not even flick his finger and a paper fell to the ground from under the pillow of his bed. With shaking hands I picked the letter from the floor and started reading it with watering eyes.

My beautiful Princess,

If you are reading this letter then it is understood I have already left this world. Yesterday when you came to the house, I wanted to ask you if you were happy with the marriage, but after seeing the love in Allen's eyes for you all my fears vanished and my happiness was beyond boundaries learning I am soon going to be a grandfather. No doubt the first thing I would tell reaching your mother is share this gleeful news.

I tried to stay to express my last words to you but my weak heart couldn't cooperate. Even so no regrets. I have left you in best hands. Allen is an affectionate man with good family values. He loves you and will stay with you in your happiness and sorrows. Do not ask me how I know all these things? I simply know because I raised him up just like I did you. I have seen him the closest, realized him at deeper levels and cognized he is the best eligible bachelor to be marrying you.

Allen cares for you not only because you are his wife but also because you are my daughter. He has great respect for me and will never go disloyal to me. I know about your relationship with Robert. I am a mafia don, I keep a record of even the last gang member of my family. If my daughter would sneak under my nose, wouldn't I know about it? But I was confident about the principles I imbibed in you. You would never do anything that would bring a black mark to my name and I was happy to register you went upon the right path of being a virgin though you didn't know you were followed every where you went to keep you safe.

Robert is a bad news in your life. I wish you would have never met him but you are too innocent to conceive the precision. I am a dark man and watch my back more than my front. I did a background check on him and wouldn't hold back myself to tell you - I know the most brutal, dirty secrets of that guy that your virgin ears would better not hear. What you must know is he is already married, to an Alaskan girl and has two kids.

Getting you to love him is his crude plot to marry you and acquire all your property. Robert is only after your wealth. If money was only the issue I would have surely given it to him but he decides to kill you after acquiring your wealth and that got me in my nerves. I wanted to make you discover things, teach him a lesson he could never forget but unfortunately time was the precious issue in my life that I did not have. I needed to hurry, set my prorities and my primacy was to marry you off at the earliest to drive the scum away from your life. Stay away from him even in the future though you are married now.

Princess, I love you so much but regretfully I couldn't succeed in expressing it to you. I planned every step of your life very thoughtful and with care right since the day I held your tiny form covered in yellow blanket. I still remember the day like it was yesterday. You were so beautiful with big black eyes half opening and closing gazing at me in wonder.

I sit beside your mother holding you and after that you know what you did? You did the wonder of wonders. You yawn in a size not more than a wallnut and stretch your little form. I felt I was the luckiest man on the earth holding you and thanked God for his showers of blessing upon me. You were so beautiful, a cute nose and lips the size of a groundnut in the shape of an 'o'. That was the day I promised your mother I will protect you and keep you happy to the best in my power.

I knew the days you wailed for your mother when she left us, the times that you suffered high temperatures sobbing for her and the nights you cried lonely asking God on why she left us. I knew all of them, all of your innermost secrets because when you slept I was there laying besides holding you to my chest so that your dreams were beautiful.

I love your mother just the same as you do and that is why I didn't believe in a meaningless physical gratification. I did not want you to build up wrong notions about sex. It would affect you in ways you can't imagine in your already vulnerable state. So I stayed celebate since the day. I knew your worries because you talked when you slept and I understood remarrying was not an option. It may get me a wife but not a mother to you.

"Daddy I am so sorry, I thought of leaving you for my boyfriend when you sacrificed all your joys just to see me happy." I cry putting my head on his shielding chest and hugging his unmoving form.

Allen is like a son to me. He fulfilled the void need of a heir in my family, gave me the happiness a father aspires from his scion. I love him just like the way I do to you and that is why I transferred all my properties and businesses to him. To have it in both ways, I protected you from rogues like Robert who were only interested in your money and at the same time bestowed both my children with riches of power and wealth.

Do not grieve for me my princess for a part of me will always stay with you as long as you are alive. Whenever you are unhappy just look inside of you and I will be waiting right there to solve all your worries just like I always did when I was alive.

With lots of love and kisses,
Yours ever loving dad

I kiss the cheek of dad and cried till oblivion holding him when my body gave up to unconsciousness.

Two days later

Like dad assured Allen was there for me in most rueful moment of life. He was my shoulder to cry and my backbone to hold upon. Giving me a pep talk, his hands were all the time around me holding me from submitting to the challenges of destiny. The funeral and wake were performed. Many people, dad's friends, business partners and relatives visited from all over the world to convey their last respects to him.

We were about to have our lunch when the doorbell rang. One of our maids open the door and in walks my friend Nancy.