Haze

He lowers himself back to the bed so he's facing me directly. He pulls a corner of the sheet over his lap, shielding his body. I'm grateful. Telling him about my life while staring at his cock, would be a welcome, but awkward, distraction.

"We can talk about anything you'd like. Tell me what it is."

His phone rings. The sound startles me enough that I pull the sheet tighter around me. Maybe it's a sign. Maybe I'm not supposed to feel so comfortable with him that I'm sharing my innermost secrets.

He doesn't move. He doesn't even flinch as it continues to ring.

"It might be about your mother," I say quietly.

"My mother is in the very capable hands of a private nurse she hired." He taps his finger on his knee. "I believe they went to the theater tonight and then they likely went to dinner. She's fine."

I scratch my neck. "A private nurse? She's okay, isn't she?"

"She's one of the healthiest people I know." He brushes his fingers across my cheek. "She had an anxiety attack that night, nothing more. I'm not concerned about her. I want to focus on you. What did you want to talk about?"

Maybe that's actually the sign that I've been waiting for. He'll understand. He has issues with his own mother. I clasp my hands together in front of me. I take a deep breath and I look right into his eyes. "My mother is suing me. She's trying to take away everything my grandmother left me."

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Gabriel

It takes a moment for the words to sink in. Her mother is suing her. Suing.

"My grandmother is Ella Amherst. She was Ella Amherst." She wrings her small hands together. "I know you probably don't know who that is, but she was very well known. She was very successful."

"Your grandmother was Lady Amherst?"

She laughs loudly, her hand bolting to her mouth. "She started calling herself that and it stuck. She liked the way it sounded."

"Isla." I move forward on the bed. "My mother loved Lady Amherst. She had recordings, actual records, of her music. Your grandmother was gifted. I had no idea."

"We don't share the same last name." She pulls on the dainty earring in her left ear. "She never took my grandfather's name. She told me that she liked her own too much."

"You have a beautiful name," I say it because it's obviously the truth. "You inherited your grandmother's talent though. That's why you play the way you do."

"I will never be as good as her." She smooths her hand over her hair. "She was one in a million."

"As are you, Isla."

"You're too kind." She looks up at me. "We were very close. I lived with her before she died. There were some issues with my mother so my grandmother was given custody of me."

"Issues?" I ask because I suspect it's much more serious than a disobedient teenage girl rebelling against her mother.

Her gaze follows my movements as I lean forward onto my right hand. She looks so angelic in this light, so fair and innocent. I've been tempted, for weeks now, to have someone delve into her background. I've craved the details of her life before she worked at the boutique but it's her story to tell, not mine to discover. If her grandmother is gone and her mother is suing her, what the fuck is her father doing?

"I toured when I was a child." She closes her eyes and shakes her head abruptly. "That sounds pompous. My mother was my manager. She booked me to perform at different places."

"Perform where?"

"Anywhere we could make a dollar or two." She taps her fingers one-by-one. "Weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, graduation parties, birthday parties, you name it."

"In Chicago?" I study her face. "This happened in Chicago?"

She shrugs. "It began there but she saw opportunity everywhere. We started traveling all over the world. She pulled me out of school. She married a man from Chicago just so he'd take care of my sisters I think."

"When did this end?"

"I had to repeat seventh grade." She covers her face with her hands. "I failed because I didn't know anything when I took the final exam. My grandmother stepped in then."

"Stepped in how?" I ask the question softly. "Is that when she took custody of you?"

She hesitates before she answers, her hands pulling at the blanket covering her lap. "My mother spent everything I'd earned. My grandmother came to get me one day and my mother didn't stop her."

She didn't stop her because Isla was no longer providing her with what she needed. "Where was your father in all of this?"

Her head pops up quickly, her bottom lip trembling. "I don't know him. My mother met him at a bar. She never knew his last name."

Fuck. Fuck all of these people who let this happen.