Chapter 74

He knew the answer even as her eyes shot back up at him and her cheeks tightened in on themselves. "No! I wanted to help. Solace daycare center has no assets and no back-up capital. I thought I had enough money left to pay for it all. All I could think was, let’s get this done, but I had it in my head that once it was completed I would get some kind of charity established and hand it all over so the center would always be guaranteed a home.’

All along he’d made assumptions, but if his assumption that Charley was a gold-digger had been wrong—and today had only confirmed what his senses had been trying to tell him for weeks—what else was he wrong about?

He reflected on all the lengths he'd gone to throughout his childhood and adolescence to impress his father, working so hard on his studies, often studying until the early hours, regularly declining invitations that took him away from his books, determined to be the top-ranked student in his private school. He’d succeeded in that aim, le