Page 44 of What's Left of Us

“He’s a difficult man,” Georgia murmurs, staring at the bar top we ate dinner at.

I chuckle, picking up the pen the new bartender gives me with the receipt to sign. “That seems like it’s putting it mildly.”

We’re quiet as I calculate the tip amount before sliding the card back into my wallet.

“His job makes him stressed,” she defends. Why, I don’t know. If I were her, I wouldn’t speak too kindly of the person who tried pawning me off into a loveless marriage and then kicking me out when I refused to be part of it.

I guess that’s where me and the girl beside me differ.

McAdam’s be damned, I want to help her—I want to learn why her family was so quick to turn their backs on someone who seems so…fragile.

Kicking her out was feeding her to the wolves. Anybody could have gotten to her. So what was the purpose?

“How did your dad get into his business anyway?” I question. “You make him seem so regal. That’s hardly the kind of person I picture running a concrete company.”

She shifts in her seat, shaping her straw wrapper into an accordion. “It was because of his former partner, William Murphy. They went into business together down in Georgia. Uncle William—” She flinches at the name, and I make a mental note to ask her why. “Er, William did some contracting work in the Atlanta area. He’s my mother’s brother. My father and him decided to create their business, MDR Inc., that’s since been renamed The Del Rossi Group after William was arrested.”

“What made them move the business to New York?” I wonder aloud.

Georgia glances over at me from the busywork she makes with the wrapper. “I’m not entirely sure. Family, I guess. Maybe better business opportunities. I remember William telling my father that there was a real estate boom and they could make a lot more money if they targeted wealthier families near the city. My father had some distant family on Long Island, so it was enough to make them move the business north.”

The contracting boom in the nineties made a lot of people like her father wealthy. I’ve got family on the island who made a good profit on selling their homes, which had been worth afraction of what they are now because of the developing land around them.

“Where is William now?”

Georgia frowns. “Why so many questions?”

Is she uncomfortable? “I’m curious. You don’t have to answer. I’m just trying to figure out your family dynamic. It’s different than what I’m used to.”

Nibbling her lip, she sits up and drops her fidgeting hands into her lap. “He was arrested, like I said. I’m not entirely sure what the charges were or where he was sent. My father said it was none of my business when I asked why Uncle Will never saw us anymore. I assume he’s out. I mean, it’s not like he killed anybody. At least, I don’t think he did.” She winces at the doubt lingering in her tone.

“What did your father say about William?”

She frowns. “That Uncle William got in over his head and had to pay the consequences.”

How…ominous.

“My father took over the business, changed the name, and started expanding,” she continues, lifting a shoulder. “I don’t know much more than that other than he’s been stressed since William went away. I used to go in and help organize paperwork, but he stopped letting me do that a few years ago. He said that was no place for a girl like me.” Her lips twitch. “Whatever that means.”

Her father keeps her in the dark about a lot of things it seems. “You miss him,” I note, seeing the dull in her eyes. They’re not caked with makeup like they were before. I like her better this way, not wearing any type of mask or pretending to be somebody she’s not.

All she says is, “He’s my father.”

As someone who believes family is important, I understand. Maybe not very well, but blood is thick.

“Come on, Peaches,” I say. “Let’s go home.”

Her eyes turn to me.

Home.

I can tell that word does something to her.

A few hours later, I’m staring at the brunette who fell asleep on my couch watching some reality show she put on when we got back. She’d been quietly curled up on the couch, absorbing the mindless drama playing out on the screen.

Looking at her now, I can’t help but be glad she’s away from Nikolas Del Rossi. Her face is usually painted in carefully contoured makeup but is bare to me now, with frizzy hair resting over her shoulders and her guard down in the baggy clothes she stole from my room. She’s half tucked under the throw blanket my mother bought me when I moved in, cuddling with the ends looking…peaceful.

The facade she wore the night we met was just that—a girl playing make-believe in borrowed clothes that weren’t her own, drinking her problems away the way I’ve done one too many times to count. She hoped to find something to free her from the metaphoric shackles her family put on her. I guess it was ironic that she found somebody with handcuff keys.

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