Page 105 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

“So she’s selling to Skinner?”

“No idea.”

“You know that your mom and I don’t need you to bear that grudge for us, right?”

“Oh, I’m very aware that the grudge is all mine. I take full ownership of it.”

“We put it behind us a long time ago. And look at what you’ve given us since. This.” He puts down the coffee pot and spreads his arms wide, smiling, to indicate the large workshop. “And our home.”

I basically gave them a blank check to have a house built from the profits of my first small, mid-rise building and full access to one of my top architects. And, of course, I supplied the project manager and construction crew, whoall knew if there was one tiny slip they would have me to contend with.

We found a derelict old house in my parents’ favorite Dorchester neighborhood, demolished it and built what is now their dream home. I felt more pride giving them the keys to that place than I’ve felt in anything else I’ve ever built. And the atmosphere when we’re all gathered there for family occasions fills my heart and makes everything I’ve worked for worthwhile.

Then when a commercial developer I know was building this industrial area, I knew a unit here would make the perfect workshop just a short drive from the house, so I snapped it up.

Since then I’ve been able to rest easy at night knowing that the initial mission that sent me into the workforce—to give my parents a home and keep them safe—is accomplished.

“We have all of this because you gave up your vocation to help keep a rented roof over our heads when we had nothing,” Dad says. “If your mom and I can move on from the Skinner thing, maybe it’s time you let it go too.” He hands me a coffee.

I meet his eyes. “I will never forgive him.”

Not just for leaving a family of five in a desperate situation, but for the part of my life he stole from me. He stole my youth, my opportunity to develop woodworking skills I didn’t even know were there to be mastered, to go through that growing-up phase where you learn to get along with everyone you have to work alongside even if they’re not someone you’d ever choose to spend time with, the opportunity to find out what I wanted to do rather than what I had to do, the chance to discover who I wanted to be, notwho Ihadto be.

Instead, I worked my fingers to the bone picking up as many hours as I could and scrabbling to learn things from the internet at night because I was too afraid to ask anyone on the job to teach me, in case they thought I wasn’t qualified enough to be there.

“Maybe,” Dad says. “But you dug us all out of the hole a long time ago. There’s nothing left for you to fix. You could go live on a Caribbean beach and do nothing for the rest of your life if you wanted.”

“Hmm. It might look like that. But the company has so many employees, and I feel responsible for all of them. And for our buyers—the individuals, the couples, the families who buy our apartments just from looking at a plan, before we’ve even dug a hole in the ground, because our reputation gives them faith in the product that we’ll deliver. I couldn’t bear the thought of turning the reins over to someone who wouldn’t keep as close an eye on the details as I do, someone who’d let a whole bunch of mismatched toilets go into a building.”

“Toilets?”

“Oh, just one recent snag that sprang to mind.”

Dad turns to amble over to his lathe, his back to me. “Anyway, Frankie seemed nice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she was.” Very definitely past tense.

And what the hell else am I supposed to say? How would I explain that I fell for the woman I was lying to and now she, of course, won’t forgive me?

“Think you’ll stay in touch?” He wipes the sawdust off the knob he was turning.

“Doubt it.”

“Shame. You seemed to get along so well. If I hadn’t known why you were there, I’d have thought you were a couple.”

“Acouple?” I laugh a little too loudly and a little two falsely at the suggestion. “She works in Chicago. She’ll be going back there soon.”

“Like I say, you could spend the rest of your life anywhere you like. Doing whatever you like.”

“Could you really see me leaving Boston?” I do my best to make my tone jokey, light. The exact opposite to the heaviness that sits inside me and that I can’t ever see leaving.

He looks at me over his shoulder. “As long as I see you happy, I don’t care where you are.”

Silence hangs between us for a second before it’s broken by a bustling sound behind me.

“Thank goodness I ordered extra,” Mom says, blowing into the workshop like a whirlwind, holding up a brown paper bag stamped with the Chowder & Cheddar logo of the best soup and sub place in the neighborhood.

“Well, I knew lunch would be a good time to show up.” I rub my hands together.