Page 39 of Catch Me (Townsend Legacy #4)

I vy

“Um, exactly how much money does your family have?” I ask as I look up at the massive five-story library that also just so happens to be named ‘The Patience Townsend Library of Williamsport.’

I had no idea this is what Mrs. Townsend and Andreas meant when they referred to ‘the library’.

“You told me your mother was a librarian. You didn’t tell me she owns the actual library.”

My gaze roams over the sleek red brick interspersed with the spacious windows.

Andreas grins as he runs his hand over the back of his head.

“My dad gifted it to her for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,” he explains.

I narrow my eyes on him. “Your father bought and named an entire library after your mother as an anniversary gift?”

He grins. “Technically, my father wasn’t the sole investor. There were other investors that contributed.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“Okay, yes, they all invested less than half of what my father did, giving him majority ownership and naming rights. Thus …” He gestures toward the building.

It’s stunning.

“Let’s go check out those books my mom put on hold for you, huh?” He takes my hand and starts for the entrance.

The inside is just as beautiful and stunning as the outside. It’s evident Andreas knows his way around well as he leads me to the third floor. The librarian working there pulls a stack of books from behind the counter with a paper with his name on it.

“We had to use Andreas’ card for the hold,” she says almost apologetically. “But these are all about fashion in the northeast part of the U.S. during the nineteenth century. This one, in particular, focuses on the mid-nineteenth century.”

She’s even printed out a couple of articles in color so that I can see the images clearly.

“This is amazing.” I thumb through the articles and books. “I can already see how to incorporate some of these designs into the series we’re working on,” I tell Andreas as we sit at a table in one of the private rooms.

He gives me some time to read through the books and take pictures and highlight parts of the articles, while he reads another book that his bookclub has picked out for this month.

After an hour, I tell him I think I have what I need for the day. I’ll have the rest of the week to look through the books and gather more research.

“Perfect, I want to show you the view from the rooftop,” Andreas says, once I’ve packed up.

We take the glass elevator up to the rooftop level.

“Last year this branch became the most visited library in the city. Outside of the main branch, though.” He shrugs.

“But we hosted the most children’s events last year. My mom partnered with our family’s community center to increase the number of reading events, online safety classes, and other activities for children of all ages.”

He sounds so proud as he explains the inner workings of the library and how it works to give back to the city of Williamsport.

I love his love for reading and books. Obviously, now I see, up close, where he gets it from.

“You brought a piece of your home library to L.A.,” I say about the library he has in his condo.

He tuts. “You haven’t seen anything yet. When we buy a home, it’s going to have a library double the size of what I have at the condo.”

I stop. “We?”

“What can I get for you today?” the man behind the drink stand we’ve just come to asks. The young guy’s eyes bulge when he sees us. “Andreas, how are you?”

“How’s it going, Danny?” Then Andreas looks at me. “Danny’s been working at the library since it opened almost two years ago.”

“Before that, the community center helped my family out a lot,” Danny tells me. “Don’t know where we’d be without the assistance we were given. So now, during summers, I work here for a little extra cash while in grad school.”

“That’s wonderful,” I tell him. “You must enjoy it.”

He nods. “I do. Plus, all of the free coffee I want to help me stay up late on study nights.” He shakes an empty coffee cup for emphasis. “What can I get for you?”

Andreas orders an unsweetened iced tea while I get strawberry lemonade.

“The view on this side is the best.” Andreas points toward the far corner of the library’s roof.

His excitement to show me around has made me completely overlook his comment before we ordered our drinks.

Andreas is right, though. From this angle we can see much of the city’s skyline, and in the distance a bridge that crosses over one of the rivers that runs throughout the city.

“I bet the sunset from this view is beautiful,” I say while staring off into the distance.

“We can come back tomorrow to watch it.” Andreas squeezes my hand. “I already checked. The weather’s supposed to be clear tomorrow, too.”

Later this afternoon is the party for Andreas’ mother. He took this morning to show me around the city a little before coming to the library.

He told me before that he came from a wealthy family, but it’s not until seeing up close that I’m starting to comprehend the scope of his family’s influence.

The money, however, isn’t the most impressive thing about Andreas’ family.

There’s a warmth among them that I’ve never experienced with my own family.

Even though I haven’t met all of Andreas’ siblings or the rest of his extended family yet, I know from the way he talks about them, that warmth extends to the rest of his family.

“What’s it like?” I turn to him and ask.

He wrinkles his forehead.

“Growing up in a family like this.”

He looks toward the sky. “I don’t know. Money wasn’t something that was an issue in my family. It’s difficult to describe.”

“Not that,” I reply. “I know what it’s like to be raised around money.”

Admittedly nothing close to buy an entire library and name it after your wife type of wealth.

I squeeze his arm. “What was it like growing up in a family where you knew you were loved?”

A sigh passes through my lips.

He squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Honestly, tell me what it was like. What’s the first thing your mother said to you when you told her you wanted to be an actor?”

“She told me I’d be an exceptional actor.”

“And your dad?”

He chuckles. “He called the owner of the top acting school in Williamsport on the spot. The next day my mom took me to my first acting class.”

I laugh. “Your dad wasn’t disappointed because you didn’t want to go into the family business?”

Andreas’ father has been the CEO of Townsend Industries, one of the country’s largest corporations, for more than two decades.

He chuckles. “No. It was pretty much a given that Kyle would be the one to follow in my father’s footsteps into the family business.”

“That must’ve been a lot of pressure.”

“Honestly, Kyle was the one who pushed for it the most. While my other siblings and I spent time enjoying our days off from school, Kyle would beg my dad to take him into the office.

When we did our family around-the-world trip, Kyle was at every business meeting my father took during that time. Even though there weren't many.”

“Around-the-world? Tell me that’s not a thing your family did?”

He wrinkles his forehead. “Thiers and I were eleven, I think,” he recalls before explaining that the trip came about as their mother was recovering from breast cancer treatment and wanted more time with the family before the oldest children went away to college.

“My dad took a year long sabbatical. I think most people doubted he would even return given that most business pundits said it was so out of the ordinary and a fatal blow to his career.”

“He’s still CEO today,” I say.

Andreas nods, pride shining in his eyes. “He says that trip helped give him clarification on the direction he wanted the company to go. He retook the reins and hasn’t let go since. Doubt he will until Kyle’s ready for the role.”

I take all of this in. Andreas’ family is impressive, obviously, but the most beautiful part is how family truly is their foundation.

“You want to know what my mom did when I told her that I wanted to work in fashion?”

He runs his hand up and down my back. “What?”

I shake my head, tutting. “It was a year after my aunt died. My mom found my magazine collection and told me I was wasting my time on that trash. She snatched the magazine I was holding out of my hands and ripped it up.

“Then she tore them all up, made me collect the scraps, and march down to the living room to stand in front of our fireplace.”

“No,” Andreas says as if he’s guessed the rest of the story.

“My father lit a fire, and they both stood over me, forcing me to toss the scraps of my magazine collection into the flames.”

I blink away the unshed tears.

“It felt like all of my hopes and dreams went up in smoke that day.”

It was more than a decade ago, but the sting of that day remains with me.

I turn away from Andreas to lean against the metal railing and stare off into the distance. The sounds of the city float up to my ears. When Andreas moves behind me, extending his hands on the railing, wrapping me up in the feel of his warmth, a hum releases from my throat.

“I understand why you don’t share them with the public,” I say, still staring into the distance.

He moves his hands to my waist, turning me to face him.

“You were raised with the assurance that family is too precious to use and exploit by the public. You’re all successful, yes, but that’s not what sustains you.”

My lips spread into a smile, but the expression on Andreas’ face tells me he sees the sadness behind the expression.

“When you’re raised to believe that image matters more than anything else, you start to believe it. What other people think, how they treat you, the respect you get is all conditional. That’s what it was like for me.

“If I performed the right way, got the good grades, smiled at the right time, studied in the perfect major in college, and got the right career or family, then everything was acceptable.”

I shake my head.

“It wasn’t okay to go after what I really wanted,” I confess. “It’s only now that I’m starting to realize how painful that’s been.”

Andreas takes my hands into his and kisses my knuckles.

“Conditional love isn’t love,” he says.

“No, it isn’t.”

A few beats of silence pass between us, staring into one another’s eyes.

His shine so damn bright it almost hurts looking into them.

But it’s the unabashed, unhidden love that lights them up that keeps me from looking away.

It reaches deep down inside of me, silently whispering the answer to the question I’ve asked myself since I was a young girl.

Am I worthy?