My Father Gambled Away Our Home To A Ruthless Billionaire — So I Told Him Exactly What He Was
Part 1
The house was freezing in November, mostly because my father refused to turn on the heating until the frost killed the hydrangeas.
Tonight, every fireplace was blazing because Greg was coming to dinner.
“Pull your shoulders back, Megan,” my mother Heather hissed, adjusting the centerpieces.
“If he leaves unappeased, we are ruined.”
I pressed my lips together, knowing we were already ruined.
My father, Dan, had wagered our shrinking fortune on catastrophic real estate investments.
He borrowed heavily, and Greg bought those promissory notes with casual indifference.
A black luxury SUV pulled up the gravel drive, heavy and commanding.
My mother froze, the color draining from her face.
I simply listened as the heavy oak front door groaned open.
My father’s voice boomed too loud, dripping with frantic sycophancy.
“Greg, welcome, truly, the roads must be dreadful.”
“The roads were perfectly adequate, Dan,” a low baritone voice replied.
It was sharp, efficient, and profoundly bored.
I walked slowly into the foyer.
Greg was handing his wet overcoat to our housekeeper.
He was a tall man, dressed in an immaculate charcoal suit.
His wealth was evident in the impossible cut of the fabric.
He had dark hair and eyes the color of a winter sky before a storm.
Cold, gray, and entirely unforgiving.
He turned, catching sight of me on the periphery.
I didn’t drop my eyes or offer a polite greeting.
I just looked at him.
He saw the slight tightening of my jaw, the arrogant tilt of my chin.
He didn’t sneer, because the microscopic arch of his eyebrow did the work of a thousand insults.
“Ah, my middle daughter, Megan,” my father said, sweating visibly.
I finally gave a brief nod.
“Greg.”
“Megan,” he replied, his voice giving absolutely nothing away.
The first course was served, a thin potato soup.
Greg picked up his spoon, took exactly one sip, and never touched the bowl again.
I gripped my linen napkin under the table until my knuckles turned white.
“We were thrilled to hear you acquired the neighboring properties,” Kelly began, her voice pitched high.
Greg looked at her as if she were a moderately interesting beetle.
“I acquired the lands for their timber, Kelly, not for recreation.”
My father choked on his wine, blustering about industry being the future.
“Is it?”
Greg cut in, shifting his gaze to my father.
“Because my analysts tell me you’ve spent the last six months trying to breed racing hounds.”
The silence in the room was absolute, thick and heavy like wet wool.
“An expensive hobby for a man who hasn’t paid his butchers in a year,” Greg added.
“The hounds were an investment,” my father stammered, his face a mottled purple.
“You were swindled again, Dan,” Greg said smoothly.
He didn’t say it with malice, which was the absolute worst part.
He spoke with the detached boredom of a physician diagnosing a terminal illness.
“The notes are due on the thirtieth,” Greg continued, setting his glass down.
“You will pay the sum, or you will forfeit the deed to this house.”
“We are doing our best,” my father whispered, thoroughly broken.
I felt something snap inside my chest.
I was angry at my father’s gambling and my mother’s toxic pride.
But right now, I was absolutely furious at the man sitting across from me.
He didn’t just want his money, he wanted to humiliate us.
“It must be exhausting,” I said.
My voice wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t hysterical.
Everyone at the table completely froze, five heads snapping toward me.
Greg’s eyes dragged lazily from my father to me.
“I beg your pardon?”
I picked up my fork and stabbed a piece of the gray mutton.
“I said it must be exhausting being you.”
“Megan, stop it,” my mother hissed under her breath.
I ignored her, keeping my eyes firmly locked on the billionaire.
“I cannot imagine the sheer amount of energy it takes to walk into a room and actively choose to be the most unpleasant person in it.”
My father shouted, half rising from his chair to demand an apology.
“No.”
Greg raised one hand a fraction of an inch, and my father immediately fell back into his seat.
Greg leaned forward, the boredom vanishing from his eyes.
“You mistake pragmatism for cruelty, Megan,” Greg said, his voice dangerously low.
“There is nothing pragmatic about insulting a man at his own dining table,” I shot back.
“You have the law, the money, and the deed, but that wasn’t enough.”
“You could have sent lawyers, but you came in person because you wanted to watch my father sweat.”
Kelly whimpered, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“Shut up, Kelly,” I said, never breaking eye contact with Greg.
“He’s not going to marry you to cancel the debt, he despises us.”
Greg’s face was a mask of carved granite, but a muscle feathered along his jawline.
“You speak very boldly for a woman whose roof belongs to me,” he said softly.
“It doesn’t belong to you until the thirtieth,” I replied.
“Until then, you are a guest in this house, and you are shockingly ill-mannered.”
I stood up, my chair scraping loudly against the floorboards.
“My father is a fool who gambled away our future, and he deserves ruin.”
“But we are human beings, and we are bleeding out in front of you.”
“Take the house, Greg, take everything.”
“But don’t you dare pretend you are simply a man of business.”
I tossed my napkin onto the table.
“You are a bully with a bank account, and I have lost my appetite.”
I turned on my heel and walked out of the dining room without running.
I kept my spine entirely straight as the room behind me fell completely silent.
I had just insulted the most powerful man in the city, and now he was demanding I come to his estate alone.
