CHAPTER NINE – GABRIEL
I awoke Saturday morning to the sound of Alyssa and Penny’s chatter as they walked down the hallway in the direction of the kitchen. The smell of brewing coffee followed a few minutes later. I rolled over to gaze out the window at the slow drizzle of snow outside. No matter how hard I tried to comprehend the past few days, I couldn’t wrap my mind around any of it. I couldn’t get past why I felt this indescribable urge to kiss Penny Marshall all the time. Things had transformed between the two of us at a startling pace, visibly alarming Penny.
It wasn’t right. I knew that it wasn’t, but I kept thinking about how good it felt to touch her, and to kiss her. All of it had felt so sinfully good that it left my erection throbbing with excitement all over again.
“Fuck,” I groaned, rubbing a hand over my face. “What am I going to do?”
I had other things to concentrate on that needed my undivided attention. Like the Miller lawsuit lingering over my damn head like a dark storm cloud. I handed over the papers to my own legal team yesterday, and while they assured me much of it was ridiculous, I knew it was meant to do one thing—to rattle me. Throwing my worries over my daughter into the mix only rattled me more.
For years, anxiety plagued me constantly over Alyssa’s need to have a female presence in her life to help her through womanly things that cropped up as she grew. She never once complained, but I knew that she needed that feminine influence.
Oddly enough, I noticed having Penny around seemed to fill in those gaps. She had someone to go shopping with, to get her hair and nails done with, and take trips to the spa. She’d had none of that growing up with me. It added to the guilt coursing through me that morning as I slipped out of bed. I padded over to my private bathroom to take a shower.
Penny’s gorgeous face resurfaced in my thoughts, and I reminded myself it had been a one-time thing. It had to be a one-time thing. That much, Penny was right about. Nothing could happen between us anymore. I made a mental vow to myself when I stepped under the hot spray to keep my distance until the girls went back to college. I would have to keep my urges under control, no matter how difficult it might be.
Penny and I still needed to talk about it, though. I needed to make it clear that I had no intentions of pursuing anything further. Penny was young, on the cusp of graduating college and about to enter an adult world for the first time. She didn’t need to get tangled up with an older man like me, who had more than a few issues clinging to his back.
The hot water eased the headache pounding furiously in my temples. I finished washing up before I could concentrate on any lingering memories of touching and kissing Penny. I dressed quickly in the slightly chilly air of my room before heading down the hallway to find Alyssa and Penny both sitting in their sweat pants in the kitchen with cups of coffee in hand.
“Morning,” Alyssa said. “Want some coffee?”
Penny glanced over her shoulder at me. Our eyes clashed together, and it sent jolts through me. I nodded to Alyssa’s question, and she got up from her chair to grab a cup for me. I kept the kitchen island between Penny and myself while I waited patiently for Alyssa to pour me a cup.
“What are your plans today?” I asked casually. “Anything exciting?”
“I think we are just going to hang around here,” Alyssa replied, sitting back down. “Maybe brave the Christmas traffic again to explore Chicago a bit more. I don’t want to be cooped up here all the time.”
“There are some nice museums here,” I suggested with a small smile. “I believe Penny might enjoy them.”
“How’d you know that I like art and museums?” Penny asked.
She gave me a long sideways look, but it was Alyssa who spared me from answering. “Because you’re always reading those books about art. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”
“Oh.” Penny’s cheeks reddened as she looked back over at Alyssa. “A few museums would be nice. Something different than the chaos of downtown and the Christmas shoppers.”
“Dibs on the bathroom first,” Alyssa said. “I’ll get showered since it takes you longer to wash all that long blonde hair of yours.”
She reached forward to tug on an errant strand of hair framing Penny’s face before breezing by me. An awkward silence hung in the kitchen while I listened for the shower to turn on down the hallway. Once it did, I felt safe to try and talk to Penny.
“About yesterday—” I said.
“It’s fine, Gabriel,” Penny interrupted. “Please don’t make this more awkward than it already is.”
Penny slid off her chair, not willing to face me fully. I drummed my fingers anxiously on the counter top as I tried to figure out what to say that would lessen both of our nerves. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the week with this hanging over my head like everything else.
“I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable here,” I said.
“I’m not uncomfortable here,” she replied, sweeping up her mug of coffee. “It’s much better here than it would be going home to visit my mom for Christmas. Let’s put it that way.”
“I get the sense that is supposed to make me feel better, but I don’t know what I’m comparing it to.”
“You don’t need to know,” Penny said. “I have to get ready for the day. Thanks for trying to clear the air, but I’m an adult. I’m not necessarily an innocent when it comes sex.”
She left the kitchen with the last part of that sentence lingering in the back of my mind. Fuck me. Somehow, it turned me on even more. I ran a hand through my damp hair in aggravation as I left the kitchen to sit down at my desk to do a couple hours’ worth of work. I needed to do something to keep Penny off my brain. It was an hour later that Alyssa stopped in the living room to kiss me goodbye.
“Do you want to come with us?” she asked, squeezing my shoulder and smiling. “It’d be fun to have you around. It’s a Saturday too, Dad. I don’t know why you’re insisting on working right now.”
I offered a forced smile because I could see Penny visibly stiffen in the foyer at Alyssa’s invitation. “You two go on. I have to keep working on this presentation. Have fun, the both of you.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yes, go on. Have fun.”
I let out a pent-up breath the second that I heard Alyssa and Penny shut the front door. I listened to their retreating steps and voices as they walked in the direction of the elevator before rising out of my chair. Nothing would ever make any sort of a relationship with Penny right. I sat down on the edge of the couch to flip through a few channels in an attempt to find something good to watch. Nothing caught my attention.
The buzz of my cellphone on my desk broke through the silence. I rose from the couch, tossed the remote carelessly on the coffee table, and looked down at the caller ID. This would be a good distraction, at least.
“Hello, Neil,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“Michelle and the kids have gone away for the weekend,” Neil said. “I thought enjoying the silence in the house would be nice, but I’m going fucking crazy over here.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose with a sigh. “I know that feeling very well.”
“I have a proposition for you,” Neil continued on. “Since Michelle is out of the house this weekend, I have no one to answer to.”
I rolled my eyes at his excited tone. “Good for you. Make sure to throw a big house party, drink all her alcohol, and then get the house cleaned up before she comes back home at the end of the weekend.”
“Very funny. I was going to ask if you wanted to go back to that club we were at the other night.”
I grimaced at the thought of alcohol after that nasty hangover the following two days, and the prospect of going back there didn’t sound appealing at all. It had landed me into some solid trouble.
“I’m not sure,” I replied, crossing the living room to gaze out the windows. “I have some issues going on here at the moment that started with that night.”
“Do any of those issues have to deal with Penny Marshall?”
I went rigid as a board at his suggestion. Swallowing thickly, I tried to think of a way around the question. I had no idea how Neil knew who Penny was, or that something had happened between her and I. It set me on edge, thinking that anyone had seen something that night. If they did, it was only a matter of time before something was said.
“How do you know about Penny?” I asked stiffly.
“Her name was brought up to me when I came back into the club to pay for my tab,” Neil said, and I could hear the frown in his voice. “I went back to the booth, but the curtains were closed. That’s when the security guard told me that you were talking in private with a woman named Penny Marshall.”
“That doesn’t make sense. The security details in there don’t even know her name.”
“Well, this security guard seemed to know her name,” Neil said. “It doesn’t matter though, Gabriel. I’m your best friend. Do you think I’m honestly going to say something to you about it?”
“You’re the one bringing it up,” I muttered tersely. Silence stretched on the other end. “I’m sorry, Neil. I’m just nervous with this clusterfuck of a lawsuit going on around me. I don’t know who I can trust anymore these days.”
“You can trust me,” Neil said firmly. “Whatever you do in your personal life is your business. I don’t want to know any details of it, but you’re right about one thing, though. You need to be careful about who you trust these days. That sort of thing could destroy your reputation in the public eye.”
I returned my gaze to the city full of people below my feet. The public eye had become very important to my career the moment I had gained the government’s trust. Scandalous reports about any impropriety with Penny going public could destroy my credibility.