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I shrugged. “Dad doesn’t like chivalry unless it suits him.”
She snickered. “So I’m figuring out.”
“I’d really like to see the version of my father you’ve seen all these years.”
“You know, I’m not so sure it was ever different. Just… masked. By presents, and clothes, and jewelry.”
I nodded slowly. “You think?”
She sniffled. “Guess it’s easy to get me to shut up with money.”
“Don’t say that about yourself.”
“No, no. I’m serious. I mean, I grew up with nothing. I grew up with no voice. No things that were my own. No dreams or hopes of having a life I could live of my own volition. When I met your father, he promised me the world. Trips around the globe and nights spent in penthouses and fashion beyond my wildest imagination. I was so taken by all the things he could provide that I never saw the similarities between him and my father.”
“You still can’t blame yourself.”
“I’m an adult, Clint. I can blame myself all I want. I can’t control how I was raised. But I can control how I act as a result of it now. You’d do best to keep that in mind.”
I nodded slowly. “I will.”
“I guess I saw all the freedom of traveling with him and the freedom to eat whatever I wanted, and mistook it for actual freedom. An actual life. When really, I was still underneath someone’s thumb. Unable to move or speak or think unless it was demanded of me a certain way.”
“Sounds like Dad.”
She wiped at her eyes, though her voice never cracked. “Anyway, this isn’t about me.”
“It’s about us. You can talk about whatever you want to.”
“I don’t know how the fuck your father sold this house so quickly, but he did. We’ve got six to eight weeks until they close, then…”
I felt anger surging through me. “It’s only been, like, two days. How the hell did he orchestrate all of this from the hospital?”
“He wasn’t in the hospital when he called me.”
“That makes more sense.”
“Yeah. He’s in a hotel on the other side of town somewhere. Said he got out that next morning and he’s been there ever since.”
I snickered. “Fucking bastard.”
Everything was changing too quickly. Six to eight weeks? Where the hell did that man expect us to go? What did he expect us to do? I tried to figure out where I could start listing some of our things. We needed money, and quickly. I closed my eyes and tried figuring out all the jewelry I’d seen Cecilia in over the years. How much of it did she have in the house? She’d have to give up her luxury, but we could make this work. Even if we only sold—
“He wants me to go with him, Clint.”
My eyes slowly opened. “What?”
Her eyes lined with tears. “He says he wants me to come with him.”
“Go with him where?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He said I’m his wife. And wherever we end up, I need to be there.”
“Need to be? Or that he wants you there?”
“Do you really have to ask that question?”
“So he wants you to uproot, but you don’t even know where you’re going? Did he ask you to pack? Or anything like that?”
