They Mocked My Curves, So I Married the Billionaire Bartender novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Not Enough

On Tuesday my father climbed the stairs to my studio.

I heard him on the third landing, breathing hard.

Gerald Abbott had not walked up four flights in thirty years.

My cat watched him from the windowsill with total contempt.

He stood in my doorway with his hat in his hands.

"May I come in?"

"It's your right. You paid for the lock."

He winced.

He came in and looked at the workbench, the jars of stones, the lamp, the half-finished brooch under the magnifier.

"I have never seen where you work," he said.

"You never asked."

"No."

He did not sit.

"Spencer's father called his loan on Monday morning."

"I heard."

"I sold the Connecticut house to cover it. The board has called a vote on my chairmanship." He turned the hat. "I wanted to tell you in person that I was wrong."

I waited.

"About Camille. About the contract. About what I said at her table." He drew a breath. "I treated you like a bill I could pay off. I'm sorry, Rosalind."

I had waited twenty-seven years for that sentence.

It sounded smaller than I had imagined.

"Thank you," I said.

His shoulders came down an inch.

"Does that mean..."

"It means I heard it."

"I want to make it right. I've written to the board. I'm transferring my shares in Abbott Holdings to you. Eleven percent. Enough for a seat."

He put a folder on my workbench.

"You'd be back in the family," he said. "In the company. In the house."

I looked at the folder.

I did not open it.

"Dad. At the gala, you went gray when you saw Jasper."

"Yes."

"Because you knew the debt was his."

"Yes."

"And you let me stand in front of three hundred people and say yes to a stranger, and you didn't say a word."

His mouth worked.

"I thought if you married him, he'd forgive the loan."

"You were going to let me do it, because it saved you."

"Rosalind..."

"I don't want your shares," I said. "I don't want the seat. I'm not coming home."

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