Page 79 of Take It Offline
But he asked, and I feel compelled to tell him.
I let out a slow breath, hardly knowing where to begin. Dealing with the fallout has swallowed up my whole life (and most of my wages).
“The first thing you should know is that the profits Nana made from selling the company set her up for life. She did the smart thing. She bought a house—the one you’ve seen—and put the rest away as a nest egg. That money was meant to provide for our family for generations. But with a safety net that big, Dad never had to work, and then he didn’t want to. Our family money was always managed by a professional, and he trusted it would always be there.”
“Ah,” Charlie says, probably already a step ahead of me like he always is.
Maybe I should stop there, but I’ve never talked to anyone but Ivy about this before, and I trust Charlie. He’s remarkably easy to talk to now that we’ve stopped taking swipes at each other. So I let the rest spill out of me.
“The thing is, in those circles, all the material things you have? They’re never enough. Why have one house when youcould have five? Why stop at a million? Twenty? A hundred?” Endless cash seemed like fun when I was a kid, until I learned that there was no way to have that much without taking it from others. Nothing came without a price. “Between the bad investments and the reckless spending… well. It was bad enough that it necessitated the swift liquidation of almost everything.”
Including my post-college plans.
“Your parents didn’t seem the type to embrace the blank-on-blank lifestyle aesthetic.”
I offer him a sad smile. “No, they’re not. But in the same way it caused the problem, it also solved it, because they had so much to spare.”
“They weren’t the only ones to clean house, though.”
Why, oh, why did I ever think Charlie was ignorant?
“No,” I admit, swallowing thickly. “Harvey managed it all through various contacts, some auctions, some private sales. Everything I have left is in my apartment.”
Our plates get cleared away, the bill left between us with no urgency. There’s a low rumble of conversation around us, no one paying us any mind, but it doesn’t lessen how exposed I feel.
I couldn’t talk about this with Logan without his parents finding out. Charlie is safer, but I can’t stand the thought of him looking at me differently.
He shifts, leaning in, talking low.
“I’ve never told Reese this, but I keep two emergency funds, one for each of us. She hasn’t needed my help in years, especially now that she has the shelter and Mae, but I still put a little away each month. We lived so long with nothing. I never want to go through that again. I don’t think I’ll ever stop worrying about her or needing to know I have the means to help if she ever needs it.”
It’s another glimpse of the real Charlie under all that swagger, another clue to solving the mystery of him. And it makes my heart clench tightly in my chest.
When I met him, I was blinded by the clothes, the attitude. I assumed I knew him, his type, all the while hating when others made similar assumptions about me. I hate how wrong I was, but more than that, I hate how I treated him because of it.
“Charlie—”
“I already told you: don’t you dare apologize.”
“I guess that means I’m always going to be right,” I say dryly. He may not want to hear my apology, but he deserves to. “I shouldn’t have judged you before I knew you. I never thought I’d say it, but I’m really happy Roberts forced us together.”
“Me too,” he says, catching my hand in his and adding a soft wink. The plush curve of his mouth detonates a series of explosions in my chest, helped by the heat of my hand in his.
Today might just be the best day of my life.
“You know,” I say. “When I was nine, I decided I wanted to be the first woman to climb Everest.”
He looks surprised. “But you hate the cold.”
“Don’t interrupt,” I tease, and revel in Charlie’s laugh. “Of course, I was quickly informed I was much too young, and there was also the small fact that I was too late to be the first, or even the tenth. Do you know how many women have climbed it?”
“Not a clue.”
“Hundreds. Maybe thousands by now.”
“I bet you’d look cute in all that gear, though. Perfectly windswept at the peak, pink parka and everything.”
“Honestly,” I say, thinking back, “I only said it because Amy Lynne was bragging about visiting Versailles, and I wanted to one-up her. I picked it because it was the farthest place on the earth anyone could go.”
