“You thought money was all you had to give her.”

Naturally. He’d never met a woman who didn’t appreciate financial gifts, his mother setting that precedent early for his young mind. “Why would I believe anything else?”

“She was glad you were safe, though, wasn’t she? I bet she cried that first time you called her.”

That time and almost every one since. “You are right.” Not that he understood why.

If his disappearance was such a hardship on his mother, surely she would not have dumped him at the orphanage in the first place? Nevertheless, she had not abandoned him entirely.

“She paid the orphanage to care for me.” He had discovered that when he made his first donation to the home long before he amassed his first million.

It was the reason he had contacted her later. Without the knowledge she had attempted to provide for him in some way, he did not think he ever would have. But nothing could have altered the path he had taken with his father.

“Are we going to see her while we are here?” Piper’s voice dripped with the emotion clouding her expression.

“No.”

“Of course, I’m sorry.” From looking on the verge of tears, Piper went to embarrassment in a single breath. “There’s no reason to take your friend to visit your mother.”

“It’s not that. She would like you.” How could she not? Piper was a very likable woman. “However, I have no intention of seeing my mother.”

“What? Why not? Surely we have time. Even if she lives on one of the islands. We can skip the sightseeing.”

that district and the one he

furrowed. “According to the guidebook in our suite, that’s the

what

“Well, as good as.”

wealthy

bought your mother

say? He had wanted

you are not going

“No,” he confirmed.

“But…”

seen her in more than twenty

last month.” The

passionately, but he could not resist the innocent incomprehension

was her birthday. So, I spoke

once a year, on

had made the mistake of asking what she would like for

and the man she had married that Zephyr wasn’t such a dead loss after

new television. She’d only wanted one thing. For Zephyr to call her once a year on her birthday, so she could know he was doing all right. She could follow his success in the papers now, but he

Once a year.

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