"That first night. After I took you home I looked you up on the internet."

"Oh," I say, looking away.

"There's not much about you online. Before you took this job at the gallery, anyway. There's plenty about you recently. But it's the stuff that came before that intrigued me."

"I'm not talking about it."

"Just listen to me, Chella. OK?"

I shrug and start playing with the thick, frothy white bubbles.

"When I found all the gaps in your childhood I was excited."

I give him a sidelong glance from the corner of my eye. "Why?"

"Because my childhood is the same way. Did you look me up, Chella? On the internet?"

I nod. "Yes."

"And what did you find?"

"Not much." I shrug.

"Don't you think that's kinda cool?"

When I glance up at him this time, he's smiling. "What's cool about it?"

"That we were both secrets."

Secrets.

"I don't know if that's true about you, but I was a secret. My parents couldn't have children. They tried for years and years. They considered a surrogate, adoption, all that IVF stuff. And just when they were about to give up, my mother got pregnant. She was forty-three years old."

I sit up in the tub, unable to curb my curiosity, and stare at him as he talks. He's still smiling, like all of this is a happy memory.

"And even though they did all the tests and they came back with good news-their child was normal. Perfect-I wasn't, Chella. I wasn't even close to perfect."

"What do you mean?" I ask, looking down at my bubbles again. "You look pretty perfect to me."

"Well, that's the thing," he replies softly. "Perfect on the outside is only half the story, right?"

I swallow hard and nod at him. "What happened? With your parents?"

He's frowning when I look up. Shoving his hands in his pockets as he leans against the doorjamb. "They sent me away. To special schools."

"But there's nothing wrong with you, Smith. Why did they send you away?"

He sighs, but it doesn't come out like regret. Or sadness. Maybe resignation. "I didn't talk until I was four. And then no one could understand me. Language was hard. It didn't make much sense. And even when it did start making sense and the words came out, I stuttered so bad, it didn't matter. They still couldn't understand me."

I draw my legs up and hug them to my chest. "How old were you? When they sent you away?"

"Five," he says. "As soon as they realized I was damaged. Too damaged to take out in public. Too damaged to show off at parties."

"That really sucks." I sigh.

"No," Smith says, shaking his head. "No. It was the perfect answer for me. I was raised by a speech pathologist named Claudia. Claudia Kramer. She was an amazing mother. Like, perfect, you know? She baked cookies and made costumes for Halloween. She didn't work, didn't have to. My parents paid her well over a hundred grand a year to take care of me. Help me talk, help me adjust. We lived in this amazing little house up in the mountains near Aspen. I didn't go to school, I had private tutors. I had the best fucking childhood, Chella. All because my parents threw me away."

I look away, sadder now than when I first got in this tub.

"My parents still pretended they were my parents, but by the time I was... maybe ten or eleven... I was Smith Kramer in my head. I was very smart, no matter how bad my language skills were. I took the GED at sixteen and my mom, Claudia, she helped me take courses at a local college. I didn't have much to do up there in the middle of nowhere, so I learned things. I got smarter. But my parents were old by that time. Mr. Baldwin was in his late sixties and Mrs. Baldwin wasn't far behind."

"How did you get so rich?" I ask. "If your parents didn't... bond with you?"

He shrugs. "They had one heir. Me. For better or worse, I was their biological child. So I got it all. Every fucking penny of it. Over sixty billion dollars, Chella."

"Fuck, Smith. I didn't know anybody had that kind of money."

"I lost some of it in taxes. Which was fine, even before I realized there's no way to lose that kind of money. It grows on its own, Chella. It's so big, it just grows. And the day it hit me that I'd never run out, no matter how much I spent or how much I lost through carelessness, it made feel sick inside."

"So," I whisper, "you decided to give it away."

He nods. "And like I told your father, it's not as easy as it sounds. That's what I do all day. I don't even think I've told this story to Bric or Quin. I don't think they even know what I do all day. They know I give everything away. They know I only take donations and refuse to buy myself things. That's why Bric lets me live at the Club."

"You want to know my secrets," I say in a low voice as I wiggle my toes under the water and stare at the bubbles. "You're telling me this so I'll tell you mine."

"I want you to know I'm OK."

I look up at him again.

"I'm fine. They hurt me. What they did, how they reacted, it hurt me, Chella. But I had love. I had everything I ever needed and more. I was lucky. I want you to know I realize that."

I press my lips together as the tears heat up my eyes.

"And I'd like to know if you were loved too. Whatever that secret is, Chella, I don't care about it. I just need to know if you were loved. If you feel lucky now that it's over."

I start sniffling as I shake my head. "I wasn't loved, Smith. I was used. And even though I understand that his rejection tonight, his repudiation, was for the best-for all of us-I don't feel lucky. At all."

I pull the plug and stand up. Smith hands me an oversized fluffy white towel and watches as I wrap it around my body. He hands me another one to put around my wet hair. And then he follows me out of the bathroom, retreats to stand in the bedroom doorway, and watches as I dry off and get dressed in a t-shirt and shorts.

"Where did you go, Chella?" he finally asks when I'm pulling back the covers of my bed, ready for sleep. "Just tell me that. Where did you go when they made you disappear?"

I turn the lights out and climb in bed. Smith is backlit from the light filtering in from downstairs. Just a black shadow surrounded by white.

"I was with my mother," I say. "She was crazy. Mentally ill in a way I still don't understand. She was consumed by religion. We lived in... church places. Where the faithful meet for spiritual retreats."

"Like a cult?" Smith asks, confused.

And yeah, I guess if I had to put a word on it, I'd call it that. But I say, "No, not really. It was all legitimate. They were all affiliated with real organizations."

"Hmmm," is all he has to say about that. "Where was your father for all this?"

"DC," I say. "He let her do whatever she wanted. He doesn't believe in divorce. And he wasn't willing to risk his career to make things right. He felt it was... a good compromise. For me."

"What's that mean? I don't understand that last part," Smith says.

"No," I say. "Me either." I turn over in bed, my back to him now. "Goodnight, Smith. Thanks for playing along tonight. I appreciate it."

"Goodnight, Chella," he says, after about a minute of silence. And then he pulls my door closed, blocking out the light. Leaving me alone with the dark with my shame.

That's all I have left now, right?

It's just me and my shame.

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Smith.

Chella leaves early for work the next morning. She's cheerful and upbeat, like last night never happened.

I don't know if that's good or bad. Maybe both.

I spend the day putting together the last batch of charitable donations for the year and then have the Club car take me over to my foundation headquarters to drop everything off.

When I'm done, it's barely noon. So I go where I always go. The Club.

It's very busy today, even though the White Room isn't open to the public. Members are here for lunch and drinks, since Christmas is on Sunday and just about everyone is off work already.

I head upstairs where Quin is sitting in my bar sipping a beer.

"Hey," he says, when I sit down. "Bric said there was drama last night?"

"Shit," I say, shaking my head and motioning for the bartender to bring me a Scotch. "Her fucking father is an asshole."

Quin nods his head. "I can only imagine."

"Why?" I ask. "Did she tell you about him?" I'm instantly jealous picturing all the intimate conversations Chella might be having with Quin.

He shrugs me off though. "He's on the news all the time. I can't stand that asshole. So smug and full of himself."

"Hmm. Did Chella ever mention her childhood to you?"

Quin shoots me a look I can only assume is suspicious. "If she did, I wouldn't tell you what she said. It's one thing for Bric to tell me you called her in the middle of their date, it's another to ask me to spill about our time together."

He's right. I know he's right. We don't talk about it for a reason. We keep the jealousy at bay by living three completely separate lives with the woman we choose to share.

"Sorry," I say, backing down. "I'm just trying to understand her better. And she's going to be alone on Christmas. Did you get her a gift?"

"Of course." Quin laughs. "You didn't?"

The bartender comes with my drink so I use that time to think. "I'm trying to think of something she'd like."

"She's a woman, Smith. She likes attention. Real attention. So give her that and you'll make her happy."

"Is that what you got her?" I ask.

"We're on a different level these days. You don't need to worry about what I got her."

"I wonder if she's getting us something?"

"Why do you think she went shopping alone the other day, dumbass?"

"Where's Bric?" I ask, changing the subject. "What's going on with the Club this weekend?"

"Parties, brother. All weekend long. You gonna attend any?"

I almost snort my drink. "No. I'm with Chella until Saturday night. Why would I?"

Quin shrugs. "I'm going."

He always does. That's not news.

"So next week?" Quin asks. "You think she's ready?"

"I'm ready," I say, then regret it. "But yeah, I think she is. I'll know more tonight."

"You don't sound very excited," Quin says, eyeing me. More suspicion. "You have something to say about it?"

"No." I don't. "And I am excited. It's been a long fucking time since we had someone together like that."

"I'm really looking forward to it," Quin says. "I can't fucking wait. What night should we aim for?"

"Monday?" I say. "Why not start the week out right?"

"So my night." Quin ponders this. "I'll think of something special and let you know." He stands up, downs the rest of his beer, grabs one last French fry from his almost empty plate, and says, "I gotta wrap some shit up at work. See ya later."

I wave him off and stare down at the bar. Lucinda is here again, and when I look around, I don't see her husband.

"Hey," Bric says, coming up the steps into the bar and walking over to my table. "How'd it go last night? With the father?" He takes a seat across from me.

"Shit," I say, before taking a long sip of my drink. "That man is a complete asshole."

Bric laughs. "I figured that. But no trouble?"

"No," I say, thinking about how amicable Chella was last night. She didn't stand up to him. Not even a little bit. And I can't figure out if she's just not interested and possibly happy he's leaving her behind to start a new life, or... she's so sad she's locking it up inside. I just don't know her well enough to figure that out. "He came to tell her he was getting remarried and she's not going to be a part of his new life."