Trials and Tiaras (Untouchable #7) - Heather Long Page 0,92

distanced yourselves.”

“Frankie is fine,” Eugene said in a firm voice, then glanced over at her as if making sure. “We had every intention of reaching out to you on your eighteenth birthday, when she couldn’t interfere. When you called…we were relieved.”

Relieved.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as Frankie withdrew her hand. “Okay.” Just that one word, two simple syllables, but her expression was so guarded, I had zero trouble seeing the walls going up. “Do you know who my father is?”

“No,” Patience said quietly. “We tried to find out, but it would seem she’d been very promiscuous in those last few months. Losing Eddie cost her something deeply, and I don’t think either of us realized how bad it was.”

“My grandfather said you cut her off,” I interjected. Because right now, I believed them, but I also believed Grandpa.

“It’s what you told people,” Frankie answered for them, and there was so much empty disdain in her voice. “To cover up her choices again. You erased her bad actions by shifting the blame of her departure to something you decided, not her. I guess appearances were very important.”

The fact Patience paled and Eugene couldn’t look at her pretty much confirmed it. “Well, good to know that you didn’t really care what happened to either of them as long as it happened far away.” Yeah that earned me a dark look from Eugene Grayson. Sorry Grandpa, he might’ve been your friend, but I wasn’t impressed. My parents sucked, but Grandpa hadn’t distanced himself from me, even when they fought.

At least I’d always known he was out there.

“There’s a trust for you,” Patience said, scooting forward as though those words were an olive branch to repair the breach between them.

“I don’t care,” Frankie told her. “Money can make things easier, but it definitely doesn’t make people happier. If there are some crazy terms to it, I don’t want it.”

“The terms are not…” Eugene paused, then gave me a grim look. I raised my brows, even as Frankie gripped my hand again. “They are not crazy. They do require you complete your education and avoid—”

“Avoid marriage? Children? Standishes?” I was spit-balling.

“Of course not,” Eugene said. “But we would prefer she focus on building a strong life for herself…”

The minute she started to rise, I was on my feet. My napkin hit the table alongside hers. “I don’t care about the money,” Frankie repeated. “And right now, I’m not sure about either of you.”

“Of course not,” Patience said in a sad voice. “We must seem like unfeeling monsters.”

“Maybe not quite that bad, but…I need some time to think. I’m sorry to just leave abruptly, but I really don’t want to be here anymore.”

We were almost to the door when Patience called out to us. “Please…”

I only paused when Frankie did. If she wanted out, we were out. We could discuss this between us somewhere else.

“I know you don’t know us, and maybe you don’t want to,” Patience said, and she seemed far more approachable than she had when we first met her. Though, I had to admit, her eyes were just like Frankie’s. If I’d seen her at all in the last four years, I’d have recognized the connection immediately. “And I’m truly sorry for my part in that,” she admitted. “I must have seemed so cold to you when I was there.”

Frankie didn’t answer her and Eugene didn’t join us, so I waited, giving the women a moment.

“Please don’t disappear from us. We may not have earned it, but we do want to know you. I’ll talk to the lawyers about the trust, the terms can be amended. We want you to have the money, even if you want nothing to do with us. I want to know you’re okay and that you can take care of yourself.”

“She can take care of herself with or without your money,” I said abruptly and focused on her. “What she wants is to understand you and have you understand her. This isn’t about money, Patience. It’s about family.”

And maybe I overstepped, but Frankie shot me a grateful look before she squared her shoulders. “I’m not saying never, I just can’t do it right now. I know you may not know everything that’s happened, but I’m trying to figure out my place in all of this. I didn’t want this whole piece of the past, but it keeps taking swipes at me…” She hesitated, and then said the words I’d known she would say, whether it was