Page 86 of Twisted Truth

“And now she doesn’t trust me. She’s avoiding me and will barely speak to me. I need to fix it, quickly.”

“Trust is not something that’s fixed quickly.”

I close my eyes and grit my teeth. “Then what do I do?”

“What have you done so far?” my father asks.

“I had flowers delivered to my penthouse, but I don’t think she even saw them; she rushed right to her room when we got home from work. And then I felt like an idiot bringing them up to her, so I didn’t. But I’m having a large arrangement sent to her at work tomorrow morning.”

Neither of them say anything. They both just look at me, expectantly.

“That’s it?” my mother finally asks when I don’t say anything else.

My father chuckles snidely into his tea.

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“My god, you really never have been in a proper relationship, have you, darling?”

“I’ve been in relationships. But not for a long time.”

“I didn’t say you hadn’t been in any relationships. I said you’ve never been in arealrelationship.”

“What does that even mean?”

My father scoffs, sipping his tea again, looking at me like I’m the biggest moron he’s ever seen.

“You’ve cared for the women you’ve been in relationships with,” my mother says, setting her teacup down. “But you’ve never feltmorethan care for them.”

“That’s not true.”

She raises her brow. “Have you ever loved any of them? Have you ever let yourself get close enough to love them?”

“No,” I bite out.

“And so, in the past when your relationships soured, you let them go without much effort. But you can’t do that with Ella because too much is at stake, and since you’ve never tried to fight for a woman before, it’s clear that you don’t know how.”

“That sums it up nicely, Mom.”

“Look at it from a business perspective, since this is a bit out of your depth,” my father says. I bite my tongue. My parents are on a fucking role with the thinly-veiled insults tonight. “Let’s say Ella is a company you acquired. You agreed and signed on the terms, then you immediately defaulted on some of them. What do you expect that company would do?”

“They would try to find a way to back out of the deal or sue.”

“And what would you do to prevent that?”

“I would negotiate. I would fix the terms and give themwhat they wanted. But the problem is, I don’t know what Ella wants. This isn’t a real relationship.”

My mother sighs. “Asher, you just said it a moment ago. She wants to be able to trust you. She wants to know that when she’s putting herself out into the world for you, that you’ll be there with her. That you’ll protect her and stand by her. She already has to deal with the uncertainty of the press, she can’t also be asked to cope with more uncertainty when it comes to you. This is your world, and you should have known better. You should have navigated her through it, and you didn’t. If you’re going to ask this of her, you have to be her rock. Her safe place. Otherwise this isn’t going to work.”

“So, how do I show her that without it taking weeks, which we don’t have?”

“I have just the thing. Give me a moment.”

My mother leaves the living room, and my father and I sit in an uncomfortable silence for a moment.

“Would it be such a terrible thing if it was a real relationship?” he finally asks me, his blue eyes,myeyes—grandpa’seyes—boring into me.

“I don’t want to get into it.”