“What happened to him? I’ve never heard you talk about him.”
I groaned. What perfect, sexy, date night talk this was turning out to be. “Honestly, Lucy, he’s the biggest dick I’ve ever met—and that includes those idiots who were donating to become famous.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “That’s…pretty intense.”
“It is, yeah.” I tugged him into my lap, glad when he just came instead of arguing.
He wrapped one arm around my neck and kept his grip on my hand with the other. I slid my arm around his waist, keeping him in my space as much as I possibly could.
“What did he do?”
“What didn't he do, more like. He ditched my mom and me before I was even born. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about us. He just wanted the pretty girl, and when that girl came with consequences, he didn’t want to pay them. He left, disappeared into the wind, and for some reason, she never went after him for child support. She lost her job, moved in with her mom, and did everything she could with limited capabilities. She died in an accident when I was a kid, and that left me with my Nana.”
Lucy nodded, now tracing lines over the back of my hand. “Did he ever reach out to you?”
“Once Nana was dead and he found out she had money and a house he could steal, he showed back up.”
Lucy gasped. “No!”
I nodded. “This house—my Nana’s house—was left to me in her will, along with everything else she owned. Her money, her photo albums, every legal document she’d ever signed. But she put a stipulation in the will.”
“Why would she do that? If she wanted all of it to go to you.”
I smiled sadly, lowering my head when Lucy brushed his fingers under my eye, coming back suspiciously wet. “I had plans to go to culinary school. We had savings set up by the time I was in my senior year. But then she got her diagnosis, and I had to stay here and take care of her. I would have never let her die alone, Lucy. I couldn’t.”
“I know,” he soothed, being unreasonably understanding about me spilling my guts to him after only a few weeks.
“She said I would get everything as long as I finished my culinary degree. As long as I went to that school in New York,and I finished my courses, I would get her house, her albums, everything. It was all mine, because she left it for me.”
“And your dad?”
“He’s here,” I admitted. “I don’t know if he’s gone far, even while I’ve been at school. He’s ringing lawyers’ doorbells, shaking any tree he can find to take everything she left for me. He’s looked for every loophole possible, and now I’m under a timer.”
“A timer?” Lucy asked, hesitant.
“They stayed the transfer of assets while I was at school, but now that I’m back here and I’ve graduated, I have this weekend to get a job in my field, or everything could go to my dad.”
“What!” Lucy jumped to his feet, anger blazing in his kind eyes. “How could they do that? It belongs to you!”
I laughed, stunned at the intensity of his reaction. “Lucy…”
“No, Knox! This is crap! What kind of lawyers are these?”
“Rich lawyers, because my dad is paying for them.”
Lucy scoffed, throwing his hands into the air. “Why is he doing this to you? You’re his son!”
I stood and tugged Lucy back into my chest. I wrapped my arms around him, even as he grumbled complaints and tucked himself into me. “I’m not his son. Not in all the ways that count. But that’s why I’ve been so focused on these interviews, why I’ve been disappearing when you get to painting.”
“I’ve hardly noticed,” Lucy grumbled.
“I know you’re lying, Lucy.”
Lucy huffed. Then he pulled back enough to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry about your Nana. And your ass of a dad. You deserve better than what he’s doing to you.”
“I know.” I smiled. “But thank you for saying that. For listening to me.”
Lucy softened, his cheeks still pink—whether from the cold or from his shyness, I wasn’t sure.
