The Billionaire Froze When He Found His Missing Daughter Cleaning Floors in His Own Company
Chapter 5
The next weeks were difficult.
Lena moved into a guest apartment owned by Daniel.
Not his mansion.
She wasn’t ready.
She needed space.
Daniel understood.
He had waited twenty-two years.
He could wait a little longer.
They met for dinner.
Coffee.
Walks.
Short conversations.
He learned what music she liked.
She learned what his company did.
They discovered similarities.
Both hated crowded restaurants.
Both liked old movies.
Both doodled when nervous.
Both hummed when thinking.
Daniel discovered Lena loved painting portraits.
She had never had formal training.
She drew people from memory.
One portrait caught his attention.
A little boy.
“What is that?”
“My brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“No.”
Daniel was confused.
“I mean, the person I imagined.”
“You imagined a brother?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because growing up, I thought it would be easier if I had someone.”
Daniel smiled sadly.
“I wish you’d had me.”
Lena looked down.
“Me too.”
The words hurt.
But they were progress.
Daniel eventually told her everything about Lily.
Her first birthday.
Her favorite toy.
The bicycle accident.
The way she used to sleep holding a stuffed rabbit.
He showed Lena photographs.
She laughed.
Then cried.
Sometimes memories returned.
Not complete.
Fragments.
A red door.
A yellow cup.
A man’s watch.
A song.
A smell.
A garden.
One night, Lena suddenly said:
“There was a tree.”
Daniel looked up.
“What kind?”
“Cherry.”
“Yes.”
“We had one.”
“Lily loved it.”
Lena stared at him.
“I remember climbing it.”
Daniel’s breath stopped.
“You were six.”
“I fell.”
“You broke your arm.”
She looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“You told me.”
Lena began crying.
She had remembered.
Daniel hugged her.
This time she let him.
They stayed like that for a long time.
Father and daughter.
Finally.
But they both knew the hardest part remained.
Lena still had another family history.
The years with Margaret were real too.
Daniel didn’t want her to feel guilty for loving the woman who raised her.
One evening, he said:
“You don’t have to hate her to love me.”
Lena looked at him.
“I don’t know how to feel.”
“You don’t have to know.”
“What if I still love her?”
“You can.”
“Would you hate me?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Never.”
She cried.
“How are you so calm?”
He laughed.
“I’m not.”
That made her smile.
The truth was beginning to settle.
Lena wasn’t a stolen child anymore.
She was a daughter coming home.
But she still had to decide what home meant.
