On the other side, it was the same man, filled with rage, his mouth open in a way you knew he was shouting.

It was my dad when I was doing right.

And when he thought I was doing wrong.

“Hattie,” Axl called me gently.

I looked to him. “Do you want her?”

“Sorry?”

I tipped my head to “After.”

He looked to me and his face had changed.

He was stunned.

“Are you offering her to me?”

“She should be with you. You understand that art is pain that should never be forgotten.”

After I said that, his hand came out. He grazed the backs of his curled fingers along my cheek before he opened them, gliding them into my hair.

Then he repeated, “Are you offering her to me?”

That was a whisper with a vibration reminiscent of his purr, but deeper.

More meaningful.

Incredibly beautiful.

“Yes,” I said.

“I absolutely want her.”

I felt my eyes start to sting.

“Brett’s going to be disappointed,” I told him. “Sadie said she’d price her at fifteen thousand dollars. He told me he’d give me seventeen right on the spot and I wouldn’t have to pay Sadie’s commission. I thought she’d be mad, but she was really pleased for me and told me if I sold her privately, it would be of record and she could more easily price the other pieces.”

“I’ll give you eighteen for her.”

God, he was so sweet.

“Axl, honey, I’m giving her to you for free.”

He ignored that. “We’ll put her in the corner of the living room. After your show. She needs to be in your show.”

How cool were the words your show?

Don’t answer that.

They were seriously, super, freaking cool.

“Yes,” I agreed. “But we’ll move her there without money exchanging hands. She’s yours now.”

“She was mine before.”

Oh man.

That did it.

The tears spilled over.

“I like you very, very much,” I whispered.

“And I like you very, very much, baby,” he whispered back.

I stared into his amazing eyes and sniffled.

“Dad’ll come to the show, and it’ll hurt him,” I said so low, it was hard even for me to hear.

“He needs to see it, for more than one reason, baby.”

He was right.

Another tear spilled over.

Axl moved his hand out of my hair and engaged the other one so he could catch them with his thumbs.

“It’s you,” I said.

“What’s me?” he asked.

“It’s you that came into my life and good things started happening.”

“Coincidence.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hattie, even if that was the case, which it isn’t, you laid the groundwork.”

Okay.

I couldn’t argue that.

“In other words, it was always going to happen. It’s just that, now it is,” he concluded.

I love you, I thought.

But I did not say.