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“I guess I owe my dad for something then,” I say, looking away.
“What?” Amelia asks, confused.
I nod to the plaque.
She half rises, leaning forward and squinting until she can read the writing. “On loan from the collection of Howard Ashford. Oh.Oh.”
She looks at me, guilt flashing across her face. “Is it bad if I still love it?”
I laugh. “Not at all.” I capture her hand and tug her toward me, so we’re sitting facing each other, legs tangled, faces close enough to kiss. I raise the back of her hand to my lips and kissher softly. “If this painting brought you to New York”—brought you to me—“I could even love it too.”
Something hesitant fills her brown eyes. “Cole. Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
Still, she hesitates. I wait.
“Why do you hate your dad,” Amelia asks.
I sigh. “It’s not one thing. It’s just him. Who he is.”
Now it’s Amelia’s turn to wait. I realize I owe her more.
“You know he’s got a gambling problem?”
“I heard rumors,” Amelia says. “No specifics.”
I nod. I feel like I’m dragging the words out of a deep pit inside me. “He gambled off and on my whole childhood. It was embarrassing, but we had enough money that it didn’t affect us...at least I thought it didn’t. My mom kept trying to get him help. But he refused. Then...” I break off.
There’s still some part of me that’s thinkingThis is family business. Don’t tell anything to outsiders.
But Amelia’s not an outsider. Right now, alone in this gallery together, she feels closer to me than my parents, than my ex-wife, than any of my society friends ever did.
Amelia reaches out and gently cups my jaw with one hand.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Amelia says. “If it’s too hard.”
“No.” I meet her eyes. “I want to.”
I take both of her hands in mine, grounding myself by touching her.
“Basically, he gambled all his own money away by the time I was in high school. Then he dipped into his discretionary fund from Ashford Marketing and lost that too. The final straw was when my mom caught him trying to take money from my trust fund.”
“Oh, Cole,” she says, voice full of sympathy.
“The fight was ugly. He was so desperate. No kid is supposed to hear their dad sound like that.” I force myself to breathe. “Finally I went in, to tell him he could have my money, I didn’t care. But it was already too late. He’d told my mom that if she didn’t lend him the money he needed, he’d walk out the door. She told him she’d only help him pay his debts if he went to rehab.”
I look down. Trying to forget the feeling of being a sad, desperate kid. Instead, I focus on the feel of Amelia’s hands, slim and strong in mine.
I never feel helpless when I’m with her. I never worry she’ll do something so risky, want something so addicting, I can’t keep her safe.
Not that she’s mine to keep safe.
But what if she is?I think.
Amelia gives my hands a quick, comforting squeeze. “I’m guessing he didn’t choose rehab.”
“No,” I say. “My mom repaid his debt to Ashford Marketing, then tipped off enough of the board members to make sure he could never get away with it again. She didn’t want him to ruin my inheritance.” I laugh bitterly. “He nearly did anyway. He was so distracted, he all but drove the company into the ground by the time I’d graduated college and could start fixing things.”
