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Callum rubbed his mouth, his head shaking. When he lifted it, he sighed once more. “You know about what happened with Mayberry, but what my grandson has obviously failed to tell you is my part in it all. Dorian couldn’t find her at first. The woman went off the grid, and I used my resources to find her.”
My mouth parted. “And he came to you last summer?”
“He did, and I was so desperate for a relationship with him that I didn’t care that was all he wanted. In fact, I was probably willing to do anything he asked me. Anything just to connect with him.” He frowned. “It clouded my judgment, made me agree to help him find her, and ultimately, ended up fracturing things so badly between us. I’m sure you saw that when he pretended not to know me.”
I did see that, but why wouldn’t he tell me all this?
“My grandson has a lot of demons and ones I’ve unfortunately contributed to. I’m sure I’m the reason they’re there in the first place. He carries the weight of what I’ve done in my past. Has to. How couldn’t he?” His lips moved. “He’s in a lot of pain, my grandson, and I know I only stoked it more. He never would have done what he had to me had I not pushed for our relationship to extend once he got what he wanted.”
“What did he do to you?” I heard myself ask the question. In fact, it radiated in my ears, but I still felt outside myself when I asked it. This whole conversation I felt like a fly on the wall, a part of it while not actually being a part of it.
Callum settled both hands on his cane. “He made a mistake, and I told him I forgive him for it. He’s not a bad person. He’s just troubled, and he never would have done it had he not felt threatened. He was obviously keeping our meetings a secret from his parents, my son. This was apparent while we were meeting, but again, I was very desperate to connect with him. I hadn’t known him his whole life and…” His jaw moved. “Like I said, he made a mistake, and I did too. I put his back up against the wall. I wanted to keep seeing him and held the secrecy of our visits over his head. I manipulated the situation and ultimately, attempted to blackmail him so he wouldn’t discontinue our meetings. I was just so desperate and wanted to know him.”
His head lowered, and I swallowed.
“But there’s no excuse for that.” His head rose. “What I did made my grandson act out of character. I didn’t know him well, but I knew him well enough to know he made a mistake. He did the wrong thing, and he did because his back was up against the wall, and he felt like he had to.”
He was still dancing around the question, what I’d asked. I squeezed the canvas in my hand. “What did he do?”
But most importantly, what was Dorian keeping from me? What was he still keeping from me even after everything? I recalled him saying he had to tell me something in the past, but with all his secrets, who knew if this was even it? He couldn’t, for some reason, just be straightforward with me. Honest.
That question hung there between Callum and me, and I wondered if he’d actually tell me. He’d been adamant about Dorian telling me all this himself.
“He tried to poison me,” he admitted, my stomach turning, knotting. A wave of sickness hit me, and so much bile filled my throat, I had to force it back. Callum nodded. “I obviously survived, and I have talked to him about it. At least, I tried to.”
I didn’t know what to say to any of this, let alone what he said Dorian had actually ended up doing.
He didn’t. He couldn’t.
“Promise me you’ll always see me as this… I’m only this for you.”
Dorian’s words played in my head on loop, those moments between us in his car. The nausea rose, and it took me a second to realize Callum said he’d give me a moment. He walked away, and I was still in the middle of a nearly bare living room. He said Dorian had made a mistake, but a mistake was something someone could work through and possibly come back from. With some work, it might not hang over that person’s head for the rest of their lives. A mistake wasn’t just what Callum said.
It wasn’t attempted murder.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sloane
Ramses introduced me to Bocelli as his daughter that night, his daughter who thought she’d finally been starting to get her shit together.
Instead, I got to meet one of the most prolific artists in the world with a tight smile and a churn in my stomach. Both of which I tried to play off and did so poorly enough I excused myself from the conversation. I told Ramses nerves when he came to check on me, and the rest of the greetings I had with his colleagues were the same. Eventually, I just asked to get some air, and Ramses was nice about it. Especially when I said I had nerves. He let me hang out on the balcony, checking on me whenever he could. Since his gallery was featuring Bocelli, he had to mingle, and I was glad because I hated lying to him about how I was actually doing.
Dorian: How’s everything going? Having fun?
Dorian had asked this hours ago, a text I stared at more than once. Currently, my thumb hovered over it, at a loss for what to say. He gratefully hadn’t been there at Ramses and Brielle’s after I’d finally arrived to get dressed.
The nausea swirled again.
Closing out the text, I hung my head over the balcony but lifted it when someone joined me out there.
Ramses brought a lidded paper cup, two actually. I knew them to be serving hot chocolate inside, and he handed me one when he got beside me.
I took it, pretending to be happy about it. I obviously wouldn’t be drinking it since my stomach was still so messed up.
“Surprised to find you still out here,” he said, bundled up just like me. He wore a dark suit under his wool coat, and I had one of Brielle’s black dresses beneath mine. I’d been afraid any dresses I had wouldn’t be fancy enough for tonight, and we were surprisingly close in size. Ramses smiled. “Still nerves? I promise you. All my colleagues just love you in there, and Bocelli was seriously eyeing that piece you gave me.”
Ramses had insisted on hanging it in the gallery’s foyer when I gave it to him earlier tonight, and it was the first thing spectators saw on their way in to see tonight’s featured artist.
