Penniless And Secretly Pregnant - Jennie Lucas Page 0,62

head scornfully. “How else do you think Patrick was able to stay home and take care of you after your mother died? She brought in the income. His gallery barely made a penny.”

She said hoarsely, “I can’t believe it...”

“Patrick refused my offer for years. Then he suddenly had to take care of a little kid by himself. He came to me, desperate. We agreed that I would paint, and he’d use his connections to sell the art. We did very well. For years.” Franck’s reptilian eyes narrowed. “Until he wanted to go for the big score, selling a Picasso. We never should have tried it.”

“Why did you, then?” she said in a small voice.

He shrugged. “Your father was worried about you. You’d just flamed out as an artist. And he was sick of selling forgeries to the nouveaux riches. He wanted to leave New York. Move somewhere and start over.”

Memory flashed through her, of the night she’d been crying over her failure to sell a single painting.

We could start over, her father had told her suddenly. Move to Santa Barbara.

What about your gallery, Dad?

Maybe I’d like a change, too. Just one more deal to close, and then...

Could he have possibly taken such a risk—done something so criminal—just because he couldn’t bear to see his daughter cry? Guilt flashed through her.

She glared at Franck. “You sat through his trial every day and never admitted you were his accomplice. You let him go to prison alone!”

He rolled his eyes. “The Picasso was your father’s idea. I was happy selling cheap masterpieces to suckers. Selling a Picasso to a billionaire? I never liked the risk.” He scowled. “And then your husband ruined everything. I’d done a perfect copy of the Picasso. But I heard last week that Niarxos had chopped it up with a pair of scissors as a kid?” He glowered. “How was I supposed to know? Who does that?”

“Someone who’s hurting,” Daisy whispered over the lump in her throat. Her heart was pounding. The foundation of what she’d thought was true in her life was dissolving beneath her feet.

I didn’t do it, baby, her father had pleaded. I swear it on my life. On my love for you.

Her father had lied. He’d told her what she wanted to hear. What he’d desperately wanted her to believe.

But why had Daisy let herself believe it?

When her mother got so sick, her father had stopped spending time at the gallery, spending it instead at home with his beloved wife, and their young daughter. Yet somehow, his gallery had done better than ever. He’d hired more people. Instead of their family having less money, they’d had more.

Why hadn’t Daisy ever let herself see the truth?

Because she hadn’t wanted to see. Because she’d wanted to believe the best of her father. Because she’d loved him.

And she still loved him. She would have forgiven everything, if he’d just given her the chance...

“Why didn’t Dad tell me?” she said brokenly.

Franck shook his head. “He said you had to believe the best of him, or he was afraid that you wouldn’t survive.”

“That I wouldn’t survive?” she said slowly. She frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. It...”

She had a sudden memory of her father trying to talk to her, the day he’d been questioned by the police.

Daisy, I’ve been arrested... He’d paused. You should know I’m not perfect—

Of course you are, Dad, she’d rushed to say. You’re perfect. The best man in the world. Don’t try to tell me anything different.

Would he have told her then? If she hadn’t made it clear she didn’t want to know about his mistakes?

And Leonidas. It was true that she’d never totally forgiven him for what he’d done to her father. She’d tried to forget. She’d told him he was perfect. Because she loved him.

The men she loved had to be perfect.

I’m not wonderful. I’m not perfect. I’m a selfish, cold bastard, he’d told her. And she’d insisted he was wrong.

But he wasn’t. Leonidas could be selfish. He could be cold. Why couldn’t she admit that, and say she loved him anyway?

Rose-colored glasses were a double-edged sword. She’d believed in her father, believed in her husband. She’d boxed them in, pressuring them to live up to that image of perfection, an image no one could live up to for long.

No wonder Leonidas had fled.

She’d insisted on his perfection, as if he were a shining knight on a white charger. And when he’d finally shown his weaknesses, she’d betrayed him, by telling his secrets to some