Page 40 of The Mistakes I've Made
Neither was I.
“What are you doing?” a tiny voice asked, making me nearly jump out of my skin.
“Jesus!” I cursed, leaping back from the window.
I turned to find my niece, Lizzie, standing in the doorway of our office, looking at me with an inquisitive stare.
“Nothing,” I quickly said, feeling embarrassed. “Shouldn’t you be at school or something?”
She suspiciously eyed me. “It’s Saturday.”
“Right. Of course. Well, shouldn’t you be with your tutor or doing something other than lurking around my place of business?”
“I was looking for my daddy—I mean, Dean.”
I smiled. I liked hearing her call Dean her father. She’d had a rough go with her own dad over the past few years after he’d admitted himself into rehab for alcoholism and anger management. Since then, his visits had been spotty at best as he tried to work through his issues. Dean, however, had been there for her every step of the way.
“I’m pretty sure he’s okay with you calling him Daddy,” I said. “And I haven’t seen him this morning. Are you sure he isn’t at home?”
She nodded as I watched her take a cursory look around before she picked up a candy bar from the display at the front. She didn’t eye it like most children, the look of pure sugar lust taking over the second their hands made contact with the plastic wrapper.
No, Lizzie was different. She always had been.
She flipped over the chocolate bar and began reading. I could see her absorbing the information like a sponge.
“Did you know there are at least twenty different kinds of chemicals in here?”
“Uh, no.”
“And chocolate is actually known to trigger migraines in some people.”
“I did not know that either,” I said, always flabbergasted by the things this kid said.
Lizzie was beyond gifted and had already skipped several grades. She required additional classes and tutoring to challenge her accelerated pace of learning.
But, even knowing all of that, I still was taken aback by some of the things that came out of her mouth.
Like, how in the world did she know about migraines at eight years old?
But I guessed for a girl who was already doing high school math, a migraine was common knowledge. By the time she was my age, she’d probably have a cure for the damn thing.
“You never answered my question. What were you doing over there by the window? Were you spying on that lady everyone keeps talking about? Leilani Hart? Did you know her dad is one of the richest people in the world?”
My stomach tightened, the knot that had formed since the arrival of the woman in question growing stronger at the mere mention of her name.
“No,” I answered before adding, “And I wasn’t spying on her. Why would you think that?”
“Well,” she began, her voice sounding far too grown-up for her little body, “I overheard Mommy and Dean talking about you last night. Dean said he thinks you have a crush on her.”
“I do not!” I exclaimed, the sheer force of my denial making a mockery of my claim.
“And then there’s the fact that you were staring out the window that happens to face the hotel she owns.”
“So?” I said, not caring in the least that I was arguing like a child…with a child. “Doesn’t mean she was out there.”
“I saw her standing out in front on my way here.”
Busted.
