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She froze, staring at him almost as intently as she’d stared at the painting. “Why? Why would you make an exception for me?” She sounded genuinely puzzled.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“You…your work is dazzling. You are dazzling. Even your horse is dazzling. I’m…not. I’m just plain me.”

He ignored the compliments. They didn’t matter, not right now. “Someday, I want to meet your mother,” he said, his voice tinged with the anger he was feeling; now that he’d given in to roiling emotion, he couldn’t seem to control which one he let loose. “I want to tell her how much I loathe her for what she’s done to you.”

She looked away from him then. “You’d understand, if you did. She’s beautiful. Do you remember that ad campaign for that new perfume, ten years ago? The one with every ad near a swimming pool, where every guy who saw it drooled over the woman? That was her. She was the model.”

He did remember. For a while it seemed like the images of the admittedly gorgeous, sexy brunette had been everywhere. He also remembered she’d never been seen again.

“Why wasn’t she everywhere, after that?”

Kaitlyn didn’t answer, but he suspected he knew why. If she’d already been drinking, as Kaitlyn had said, she’d probably hit the tipping point where all her beauty wasn’t worth the problems that came with it.

But then something finally clicked in his mind.

“That’s it, isn’t it? It isn’t just that you don’t drink, you don’t want to be anything like her in any way, so you actually try to be the plain you keep calling yourself.” He could tell by the way she wouldn’t meet his gaze that he was right.

“I am plain. I don’t have her looks, or her charm.”

“I’d argue that, but more importantly, you have none of her weaknesses either.” Her head came up sharply. And as he looked into those eyes the next logical step hit him. “And that’s why you’re always behind the camera, so you never have to be in front of it.”

She sucked in an audible breath, and still avoided his gaze.

If you’re going to do it, do it right.Mom’s oft-given advice echoed in his head. And he took the next plunge.

“And I assume she managed to blow all the money she must have made from that? And didn’t make any provisions for her daughter?”

Kaitlyn shrugged, but still didn’t look at him. “I was eighteen then. An adult.”

“So is she, but you’re paying for her rehab.”

“That’s different.”

“She convince you of that?”

“No.”

“Then who? Your father?”

She winced, and he almost regretted saying it. Almost. “Yes,” she finally said, barely above a whisper and she never took her eyes off the painting. “He said she was…different. Fragile. Special. And needed to be looked after.”

“Is that why he stayed with her? Because he thought she needed looking after?”

“Probably.”

“And look what it cost him.”

That struck hard, because she finally turned on him. “You think I don’t know that?”

He found himself welcoming the snap in her voice. “He made the decision to stay with her, Kaitlyn. Just like you’ve made the decision to let her keep deciding who you are.”

She stared at him. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Mom had always said he was perceptive—You have an artist’s perception of people and things, she’d told him, and he’d countered with his usual protest that he wasn’t an artist—and right now he hoped she was right. Because he thought he might have found the key.

“She doesn’t deserve that,” he said softly. “She doesn’t deserve to control what you think you are, not when you’ve proven yourself worth so much more than she ever has.”

“But she—”