Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
“I miss sitting for you,” I confessed, wondering if he missed it, too. “Mom lets me draw her sometimes, but she fidgets.”
“She always did.” He studied me for a long while. “She doesn’t know you’re here, does she?”
I stiffened. “She knows I’m in New York.”
“But she doesn’t know you’re here to see me.”
Busted. I took a long drink of water to buy myself a moment. “She thinks I’m staying with a friend, which is true enough. Anyway, I shouldn’t need her permission to see you.” I picked up my fork but didn’t feel like eating. “I haven’t told her about the texts or the emails. I don’t know why, exactly. It just feels…private.”
He speared a bite of my gnocchi and chewed slowly, his gaze never leaving me, not even when he lifted his Coke to drink.
“Paige, I want you to know how sorry I am for disappearing on you. I understand if you don’t want to hear this, but I need you to know that I never stopped loving you.”
My stomach dropped into my Doc Martens. I didn’t want to believe him. At the same time, I wasn’t sure how it was possible to still love this man after all the broken promises and missed birthdays and Christmases and graduations—but I did.
And if I could love him after everything he’d missed, then maybe it was possible that a part of him still loved me, too.
I had planned on saving my interrogation for another day, but with his assertions of love clouding the air between us and the question burning a hole inside me, I couldn’t hold back. “Dad, where did you go after you left?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I did some traveling after The Family series took off, but for the most part I’ve been here, working.”
“Working so hard that you couldn’t find one free weekend to come see me? Or five spare minutes to make a call?”
“It was complicated.”
“How? Explain it to me. Because I’m having a hard time understanding why you’d suddenly give a shit.”
“I’ve always given a shit, Paige. My leaving didn’t change that.” He rubbed his forehead. “I wish I could give you answers because you deserve them. I have no right to ask for your forgiveness, but if you could somehow find a way to make peace with my silence, I promise I’ll make this summer worth your while. And, for what it’s worth, I promise to never leave you again. Not unless you ask me to.”
My chair creaked as I slumped against it. The small, sad, hurt child inside me wanted to keep pushing, keep arguing, but the sincerity in his voice made me bite my tongue. Whatever his reasons for leaving, he clearly wasn’t ready to share them. I was used to this kind of withholding from my mother. I’d hoped my father would be more forthcoming.
No such luck.
Either way, I had a choice to make. I could hold tight to my anger and buy myself a bus ticket back to Keene, closing the door on this man and his role in my life forever. Or I could accept his apology now in the hopes that he’d open up eventually.
I was determined to get answers one way or another, and I suspected I could learn a lot about this man just from living with him and working in his studio.
“I’ll stay with you,” I said. “But forgiving you is going to take some time.”
His mouth curved into another pulse-fluttering smile. “I understand. I’m willing to wait as long as it takes.”
Chapter Three
My father owned two adjacent lofts on the top floor of a building in Midtown. We took the elevator up and then stepped out into a white-walled corridor with adjacent double doors. He unlocked one of the doors and motioned for me to enter.
“My studio is across the hall,” he said. “I have some work to do in there later today. Think you can keep yourself busy for a few hours?”
I twirled in a circle, face turned up toward the exposed beams and copper piping. The space was massive. “I’m sure I’ll manage,” I said, squinting against the natural light streaming in through the wall of windows. “So, this is how the other half lives.”
“This is how you live now.” He took my bag from me and slung it over his shoulder. “Come check out your room.”
I followed him upstairs to a nice-sized bedroom with brick walls and more natural light. He set my bag on the bed and then showed me how to operate the electronic curtains in case I didn’t want to wake up with the dawn.
“Bathroom’s down the hall,” he said, “first door on your left. My room’s just past that. Towels are in the closet at the end of the hall. Help yourself to anything in the fridge.”