I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found (Contemporary Romance) (11 page)

"I think it stands out plenty as it is," I said, looking around the room. "Are you sure they wouldn't look better somewhere a little less…conspicuous?"

"Absolutely not," he said, firmly. "I want these to be the first things people see when they walk in. Do you think you'll be able to make the show? It's, uh, the twenty-sixth - starts at five pm. I'm not sure how late it'll run, but if there's any possible way you can make it, I'd really appreciate having you here."

I swallowed. I hadn't even really thought of that. I when I used to dream of having my art shown in galleries, of course I always pictured myself standing beside it and talking about my inspiration to all the interested parties. But now - if I showed, I'd be inundated by reporters and hassled by everyone who recognized my name...

"I can keep it quiet, if it helps," he said. "Not publish your name in any of the announcements. You can be a surprise guest." He smiled. "I'll give you some time to think about it. I'll understand if you can't, but I really hope that you can."

"Thanks, Curtis." I shook his hand warmly. "I really…I really appreciate everything."

"Of course," he said. "I couldn't be happier to have you." He hesitated. "Oh, and - one other thing - I know you're probably not used to people acting like human beings around you anymore, but I promise everything we talked about here today will stay between us. Okay? So no worries on that front."

I let out a breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "Thank you," I said. "That's very nice of you to say."

"And I mean it." He was still holding my hand in his, and after a moment, he finally seemed to realize what he was doing. He shook his head and let me go, abruptly. "Hang in there, Maddy. I hope I'll see you soon."

"Yeah, me too."

I walked away, with my drawing tucked under my arm. I was going to have some prints made and have it framed in something simple before I handed it over to him for the actual show. If he wanted to change it that was his prerogative, but I just wanted to feel like it was protected. There weren't many things in my life that I felt I was in complete control of, but my art was one of them, and I wanted it to stay that way.

***

I knew Daniel would still be out when I got home, and the silence of the apartment as I shut the door attested to that. I thumbed through the mail on the hallway table, then suddenly heard faint noise issuing from somewhere nearby.

My phone was ringing. I fumbled it out of my purse, staring dully at the number for few moments before I recognized it.
 

Oh, great. This was just what I needed.

"Hi, dad." I tucked the phone between my shoulder and my ear as I slipped out of my jacket. "How are you?"

"I was going to ask how you are," he said. "We've been watching the news. Your mother thought I should call."

I let out a long breath.

"Okay," I said.

"Are you feeling all right?" My dad cleared his throat. "You looked awfully disheveled in that picture."

"I was coming home from yoga, dad. I always look like that when I get out."

"
Yoga
?" My dad repeated, like he'd never heard the word before. "Well, all I know is, you didn't really look like you had yourself together. If you're going to have your picture in the paper, you really should clean yourself up a little bit."

"First of all, it wasn't in the paper, it was on a blog. And second of all, I shouldn't even have to point this out, but I had no idea they were taking my picture. You're familiar with the concept of paparazzi, yes?" I grabbed a cup out of the cabinet and slammed it down on the granite countertop so hard that it cracked a little.

"Sweetie, I'm just worried about you," he said. "You don't have to get defensive."

"Well, thanks. I appreciate it." I squeezed my eyes shut, tightly. "How's mom?"

"Worried about you."

I took a long, deep breath.

"Well, tell her not to worry. Daniel's got one of the best lawyers out there, we're going to be fine. It's just going to drag out for a while because these things do."

"Oh, well." My dad sighed. "I guess if he's going to find a way to weasel out of it, that's all right."

"He's not….weaseling out of anything," I said. "He didn't do it."

"Honey," he said, in the most condescending tone I could imagine. "You don't know the first thing about what rich people do."

"I actually think I might, dad. I've been married to one for two years."

"Insider trading is how people with a lot of money turn it into more money. Everybody does it, if they have the opportunity. Your Daniel was unlucky enough to get caught, but I promise you, that's the only thing that makes him different from most of the others."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," I snapped, grabbing my phone and switching it to my other ear. I felt like my head was going to explode. "You know, for once, it would be nice to just get some support from you. You know, just,
hey, honey, we're rooting for you
. A little less judgment disguised as advice and concern. That would be really fantastic. Just once."

"You know, I just called to be nice," my dad said, sternly. "I thought maybe there was something we could do to help. You don't have to be so hostile."

"Well, next time you want to be nice and help out, you could do that by not calling, if you don't have anything positive to say. Okay? Okay."

I hung up, throwing my phone down on the counter and sitting down heavily on one of the chairs.
 

"Your dad?" came Daniel's voice from behind me.

I turned around. "How long have you been standing there?"

He walked over and sat down beside me, letting his hand rest gently on my back, right between my shoulders. I let out a massive sigh and sagged, leaning on the counter with my elbows and letting my head hang between my arms.

"Yeah," I said, finally. "It was my dad."

I'd never talked much about my relationship with my parents. The truth of the matter was, there really wasn't much to say. From the way we talked to each other, anyone on the outside would assume that there had been a huge blowout at some point, from which none of us had ever fully recovered. But that wasn't really true. We simply didn't get along. We never really had.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"
You're
sorry?" I scoffed. "This is still your cross to bear, not mine."

"Maddy," he said, taking a deep breath. "I know I've been…" he drifted off, then started again. "What I'm trying to say is, if you need to talk about it, you can."

I shook my head, finally lifting it back up to look at him.

"He's just…he's just being the way he is," I said. "He thinks he knows everything, and he thinks it's okay to be hurtful and judgmental as long as his intentions are good. He makes up his mind about something as soon as he sees even the first little hint of it, and no matter what you say about it afterwards, you can't change his mind. So I guess in a way he's like everybody else out there. He sees 'billionaire' and 'illegal insider trading' and he just assumes he knows the whole story. I tell him you're innocent and he thinks I'm naïve. To him, I'm still a stupid little girl who doesn't know how the world works."

"You believe it, then?"

I frowned at him. "Believe what?"

"That I'm innocent?"

His face was soft and open in a way I hadn't seen…well, since our second honeymoon. I reached out and grabbed his hand, holding it tightly.

"Of course," I said. "Did you really think I didn't?"

He shrugged, smiling a little. "I wouldn't necessarily expect you to," he said. "But thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

"Well, I'm glad you appreciate it, at least." I sighed again, twisting my neck a little until I heard a pop. I rubbed my shoulder, feeling the muscles stiff and tightly knotted underneath my fingers. "I just…I really could have done without hearing from him today."

"He probably does want to help you," Daniel said, quietly. "I know that's not necessarily what you want to hear, but…he loves you, I'm sure he does, even if he doesn't understand. He doesn't want to show empathy because he's afraid you're going to get hurt if he doesn't point you on the right path. Or what he thinks is the right path, at any rate."

"I know," I said. "Really, I do, it's just…you'd think, after all these years, he'd have some kind of faith in my ability to manage my own life. Make my own decisions, from time to time. You know?"

"I'm sure it's very hard for him," said Daniel. He was looking out the window, at the birds sitting on the windowsill. "He doesn't ever want to feel like he's failed you, but he doesn't understand what you need from him."

"I try to tell him. He doesn't want to hear it."

"I know." Daniel took a deep breath, stretching his arms out in front of him. "My father was from the same generation as yours. They have a different perspective on raising children, I think. They wanted to mold us to their idea of what a person should be, rather than taking any kind of cues from who we might seem to want to be. They want to control our lives because they feel we're not capable. My dad…I mean, before he went on that fishing trip that he never came back from, my dad was always giving me unsolicited advice.
 

“It didn't matter that I was obviously doing just fine on my own. It didn't matter how successful I was being. It was always just pure dumb luck. There was always some better way I could be doing it, if only I put a little more thought into it. If only I could be more like him. Never mind that he was an intermittently employed heating and air conditioning specialist, and I'm….well, who I am. He always thought it was all just ridiculous nonsense that didn't mean anything. He was convinced it would come falling down around my ears at any moment, if I didn't follow his advice."

"Well," I said. "I guess I'm glad mine's not the only one. But I wish he'd been easier to get along with."

Daniel shrugged. "It was what it was," he said. "I've done just fine without him. But if you expect me to tell you that because my father's gone now you should make more of an effort to get along with yours, don't worry. I know how impossible it is. Looking back, of course I wish things could have been different, but I also realize there's absolutely nothing I could have done to change the way he was. Nobody wants to listen to their own kid tell them how they should conduct themselves, no matter who that kid might be in the grand scheme of things."

I smiled. "You were always still the baby in diapers who used to spit up all over him."

"Exactly."

"I guess it makes sense," I said, "but would it be so hard for him to just say something nice?"

"He doesn't want to be too soft on you," said Daniel. "As ridiculous as that sounds."

"It does," I said. "It does sound pretty ridiculous."

"Are you all right?" He reached over and pushed my hair back from my forehead, letting his fingers drift through my hair. I smiled at him.

"I am now," I said. "Thanks."

"I'm sorry about the other day," he said. "I was mad at the blog, not at you."

"I know." I looked down at the counter. What was I supposed to say?
It's okay?
It wasn't okay. Nothing was okay, but that wasn't necessarily his fault.

He started talking again after a few moments of silence. "It just…it's infuriating, how little control you have over your image. I was just starting to learn - I was just starting to get a handle on it. I thought I'd figured it out, you know - and then something like this happens and suddenly they're saying things about me - about
you
- and it has absolutely nothing to do with you. This is exactly the kind of thing I didn't want happening to someone like you."

"Someone like me?" I shifted in my seat. I was almost afraid to say too much, like I'd somehow break whatever spell had suddenly inspired him to actually start talking to me.

"You know." He gestured vaguely. "Just…separate from all of this, somebody who never would have found themselves stalked by paparazzi if it hadn't been for me."

I laughed. "You don't know that," I said, feigning offense. "I'll have you know I could have been a famous socialite someday without your help, if I wanted to."

"Sure," said Daniel. "And who
wouldn't
want all that?"

"I won't be happy until I'm featured on the cover of a Celebrities Without Their Makeup exposé, I'll have you know."

He chuckled, standing up and pulling me against him in a tight hug.

"I've missed talking to you," I said, muffled against his chest.

"I know," he said.
 

I wanted to say:
if you know, why don't you just make more of an effort to talk to me?

But instead I just sat there in silence, with Daniel's arms around me, trying to pretend that it made everything better. And after a while, it almost did - I almost felt like things were okay between us. That we were a real couple. A normal couple. That we ever had been.

The morning of the hearing was a flurry of activity. Daniel changed his suit three times, each time asking me which one looked the most "responsible." They all looked identical to me. Lindsey suggested the middle one. I didn't really know what to expect, but I wasn't really nervous. I knew I was only making an appearance to sit next to him and look young and innocent, so it wasn't exactly a high-pressure situation. I wore a pastel skirt suit and my hair down, putting on just enough makeup to make it seem like I wasn't trying.

"The water bill is due," said Daniel at one point, out of the blue.
 

I stopped in the middle of the living room. "All right?" I said.

"I can't pay it from my bank account. I have the cash, but…what do I do with it? Can I wire them the money?"

"You just take it to the office. Have you seriously never paid a bill in person before?"

"No. Why would I?"

I sighed. "Give me the money, I'll do it tomorrow."

He looked at me for a moment. "All right," he said. "Later on, I'll give it to you."

"What do you mean, 'later on?' You're going to forget. There's too much going on. Just get it now. Or tell me where it is, I'll get it." I'd never before concerned myself with the location of his emergency cash reserves, but now that he was acting cagey about it, I was suddenly very curious.