Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(40)

Even if I did decide to battle her in court for the rest of my life, she’d been right. One day, Rosalee was going to want to know her mother, and I wanted to know exactly who that woman was before that day came.

Standing in her living room and grilling her about her financial history probably wasn’t going to win me any points, but accepting Hadley after everything we’d been through was going to come with a steep learning curve.

“You’re right,” I said.

“I am?”

“Yeah. You are. I assume a lot about you. But you have to understand—that’s all I can do. We share a daughter and a dumpster-fire history, but I know absolutely nothing about you.”

“So talk to me. I have nothing to hide.” She paused, swaying her head from side to side. “Well, except for the fact that I’m R.K. Banks. I’ll need you to sign a nondisclosure agreement about that.”

I smirked. “See, I don’t even know if you’re kidding right now.”

“I am. And I’m also not. There are only about five people in the world who know my identity. I can’t risk word getting out. I have a reputation to uphold.” She grinned.

I forced a grin in return. Suddenly, the reasons she wanted to keep a custody battle between the two of us and out of the press were a lot clearer.

“Are you a big deal in the art world or something?”

“I guess that depends on who you ask. R.K. is far from Picasso. I seriously doubt we’ll end up in any museums, but rich people seem to have a real fascination with our work.”

I looked at one of the pieces on an easel. It was a close-up of white flowers. If memory served me correctly, they were Silver Bells. The picture itself was beautiful, but the thick strokes of white and pink paint added highlights and dimension until the photo almost became abstract. I could see why they were popular. The flowers weren’t my style, but leaning against the wall was a gray-and-white mountain scene that was incredible.

“How much do your picture-painting things go for?”

She rolled her eyes. “My art sells for anywhere from two hundred thousand to over a million. It just depends on the size and demand of the piece.”

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

She let out a laugh. “Trust me—no one was more shocked than I was when it first took off. It wasn’t a career I planned. I just needed an outlet to keep my mind quiet while I was working on myself.”

I glanced around the room full of canvases two to three layers deep leaning up against the walls. “Why haven’t you sold these?”

“Ah, well, I guess you could say I’m going through a…phase. I haven’t sold anything in over a year, and since my sister died four months ago, working without her hasn’t felt right.”

Christ. First, her parents. Now, she’d lost a sister too. “I’m sorry to hear about your sister.”

Her head came up, a sad smile pulling at her pink lips. “I appreciate it. It was a car accident, so I wasn’t in any way prepared for it. But I’m learning to cope.”

“How’d you handle it when you heard the news?” It was a dick question no one should ever ask. But, for people like us, sometimes all it took was one tragedy to set us back years.

She looked me right in the eyes when she replied. “I hit my knees. But I managed to get back up.” She swept her arms out, indicating the dozens of pictures surrounding her. “And here I am, moving on. One manageable second at a time.”

I nodded, unexpected pride hitting me. My chest got tight as I stared at her staring at me, her eyes shimmering with vulnerability.

She wasn’t as close anymore, but nothing about the way she was looking at me had changed.

And nothing about the way I felt it, deep in places Hadley Banks had no business being, had changed either.

I cleared my throat. “We need to talk about Rosalee.”

“Yeah. We do. You sure I can’t get you a drink?”

I laughed. “You got any Scotch?”

“It’s eleven thirty.”

“Is that a no?”

Her lips twisted. “Depends. Are you trying to get me tipsy to soften the blow, or are you trying to get tipsy to work up the courage to tell me that you’ve finished the thinking part of your process and you’re here to deliver good news?”

“I’m not actually sure yet.”

She smiled, radiant and genuine. “In that case, I have mimosas.”

“Better than nothing, I guess.”

She giggled, brushing my shoulder as she passed, and I silently cursed the fact that my body responded to such insignificant contact with her.

She went straight to the fridge and pulled out orange juice and a bottle of champagne as I settled on the barstool overlooking her galley kitchen.

“Your place is nice,” I told her.

A quiet pop sounded as she removed the cork with a dishtowel. “Thanks. That means a lot coming from Social Worker Hunt. I’m assuming this is my surprise home visit?”

“I’ve heard assuming is bad, ya know? But yeah, something like that.”

She poured the bubbly into two flutes, topping them with a splash of orange juice before sliding one my way. “Well, if you’d like to take a look around, go for it. There’s not much to see upstairs. The rooms are furnished but sparse since I decided to decorate from the bottom up. I can assure you, though, everything is by the book. I have alarms on all the doors and windows, a child-proof latch on both the medicine cabinets, cleaning supplies are out of reach, and just in case”—she bent down and pulled a red fire extinguisher out from under her sink, plopping it down on the marble counter with a loud thud—“I’m a rock star in the kitchen, so I don’t expect this baby to get any use. But you can never be too safe.”