Chapter Nineteen

Gabriel

The day before had been amazing on so many levels. I was able to get Penny to calm down and listen to me, we confessed our love for each other, and then we had the most passionate and erotic sex I may have ever had. The way our bodies moved over each other was uninhibited and without fear. I could feel our love for each other taking the sex to the next level and it was beyond anything I could have imagined. Afterward, Penny had come back to my apartment and spent the night with my arms wrapped tightly around her. It made my morning much better, waking up next to her and kissing her softly on the cheek before leaving for work.

Still, there was something nagging at me, making this whole thing not quite complete. Penny and her father were not on speaking terms, and that was really hard for me to swallow. I needed things to be okay between them, and I knew that Penny needed that too. No matter how happy I was to have her there with me, I couldn’t ignore the fact that things were not okay between her and her father. She had good reason to be angry with him, but that didn’t mean she should be forever.

Randall had made some very poor decisions throughout his career, ones that put his family’s future on the line. Still today, with Randall having invested in her software, she was running the risk of losing everything. There had to be something that I could do to make sure that she and her father’s relationship was okay, and that I was not somehow getting in the way of that. If I ended up being one of the reasons Penny didn’t forgive and make up with her father, it could really turn out bad for us in the long run. I was not willing to take the chance again by making the wrong decision. If Penny and I spent our relationship with the underlying fact that I was keeping her father from her life in the back of our minds, it would almost certainly result in resentment later on down the line. I never would want Penny resenting me or thinking that I would ever keep her from her family. Her mother was not coming back into her life anytime soon, so Randall was all she had. I knew that she was angry with him, but I also knew that she loved him very much.

I couldn’t let things continue in this way. I put down the files I was working on and made a couple of phone calls. When I was done, I pulled out my phone and texted Penny, asking her to meet me at the Lovehouse for dinner. She was more than happy to and replied almost immediately. As much as I would have loved to have this be a romantic dinner for the two of us to celebrate our relationship, the situation between she and her father needed to be taken care of first. I picked up the phone and dialed Randall’s number.

“Hello?”

“Randall, it’s Gabriel,” I said.

“What do you want?”

“Look, I think it’s time you and I hash this out, if not for us than for Penny,” I said.

“All right,” he replied. “Where would you like to meet?”

“Come to the Lovehouse tonight for dinner,” I said. “I’ll be there at six thirty.”

“Fine,” he replied. “I’ll see you then.

I hung up the phone and sat there thinking about what I just had done. Neither one of them knew that the other was going to be there, and I had Randall meeting me thirty minutes prior so they didn’t end up walking in together. This was going to turn out one of two ways: either Penny was going to be livid with me and storm out of the restaurant, or she was going to sit down and talk to him, finding whatever peace she could from the encounter. If it didn’t work, at least I would know that I’d tried.

When I got to the restaurant, Randall was there waiting. They showed us to my normal table and we sat there for several minutes in an awkward silence. I had to tell him that Penny was coming so I could at least give him a small head start to think about what he was going to say to her.

“I didn’t just bring you here to talk to me,” I said. “Penny is on the way.”

“Does she know?”

“No,” I said, looking down. “I knew she wouldn’t come if I told her. The two of you need to squash this and move forward.”

“I agree,” he said, looking tired.

As soon as I told him, Penny walked into the front doors and the hostess showed her to the table. Her smile quickly faded as she approached, and she refused to sit down. She glanced over at me angrily and then back at her father.

“Penny,” he said. “Sit down. There is no use in running away.”

“Fine,” she said, taking a seat but clutching her purse.

“Don’t be mad at Gabriel,” he said, smiling. “He just wanted to give you the chance to talk to me. When we are through, if you never want to see me again, I will respect that.”

“That’s fair,” she said, taking a deep breath. “What do you want to tell me?”

“That I love you,” he said. “I could sit here and try to defend my choices, but it would just be excuses and I owe you more than that. I made some stupid decisions and I am sorry for that. I would never have done it if I had only stopped and thought about the repercussions of my actions. I love you more than anything in this world, and I don’t want to lose you.”

“I love you too, dad,” she said, relaxing a bit. “I just don’t understand.”

“I know,” he said. “And you probably never will because my choices were not made with reason, they were made with emotion. Fear, primarily. Fear that I would lose your mother, which I ended up doing anyway. Fear that I wouldn’t be able to provide you the kind of life you deserved. And fear that I wouldn’t ever be good enough in the business world.”

“Are you going to stop?”

“Of course I am,” he said. “I already put in my resignation with the board. I was given a golden parachute to leave, so money won’t be an issue. From there I am going to figure out what else I’m good at.”

Penny put her coat on the back of the chair and turned around in her seat. She looked content with those answers and she took her father’s hand and smiled. She didn’t give him a response or an ultimatum, she just accepted his candor and believed him when he said he was done. We then spent the rest of dinner talking and laughing, me getting to know Randall on a level I didn’t, and Penny getting to feel the satisfaction of having us both together. That was all she wanted in the beginning, but everything else had gotten in the way. Now, we were finally able to be there like a family.

I could tell there was still some tension between them, but I also knew with the way they loved each other, that tension would eventually recede, and she and Randall would find themselves back in a loving father and daughter relationship. She reached over and took my hand under the table, squeezing it and smiling at me. My heart fluttered in my chest and I knew that she had calmed down enough to see that I had done this for her. I truly felt comfortable knowing that I could have a relationship, a real one, with Penny and not have to worry about lies, secrets, and drama tearing us apart. She was the woman of my dreams, someone I never thought I would find, and I wasn’t going to ever let her forget that.

Things may have started out rocky, and Randall and I may never have a great relationship, but all that mattered to me was that Penny was happy. She was the most important person in my life now, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. I could feel all the walls just wash away as I sat there thinking about my future with this beautiful woman.