PENELOPE STARED AT him, her face completely blank. A niggle of fear tightened Bishop’s throat.
“Jamaica.”
He nodded.
“A few days?” Her high-pitched voice cracked on the last word.
“And nights,” he answered, nodding again.
She grabbed his wine and gulped it, then leveled a glare at him. “You can go to Jamaica and fuck Bryce on the beach, Professor Cole, because I will not be going.”
“Pen…” God, he’d known this was a terrible idea, and it sounded even worse trying to explain it to her. “Listen, I—”
“Bishop, you listen. I know we have our issues.” She shook her head. “No,” she corrected, “you have your issues, but that doesn’t give you the right to pimp me out.”
“I’m not—”
She held up her hand, cutting him off. “Right for me, wrong for me, it doesn’t matter. You don’t get a say. I don’t care if you’re my guardian. I don’t care if you were my dad. Who I sleep with—unless it’s you—is none of your business.”
He sighed and nodded his head solemnly. “I know.”
She looked like she was going to say more, but he grabbed her hand and kissed it again.
“I know, honey.”
Squinting at him, she shook her head, a flabbergasted look on her face. “If you know, then why would you do shit like this?”
He let go of her hand and rubbed his forehead. “To try to keep what little of you I can have.”
She made a noise of frustration. “Seriously, what does that even mean?”
“Penelope.” He looked into her warm eyes, hoping she could see the truth in what he was about to say. “We can’t even be in the same room together, honey. It’s…” He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, trying to find the words. “We can’t stay away from each other, and I don’t see an end to that if things stay the way they are.”
“Only because you refuse to be with me.”
He nodded, acknowledging her clarification. “I don’t want to go over the reasons again.”
“Do you still think I have a crush on you because of ‘daddy issues’?” She picked through her salad, apparently not having much of an appetite either.
“That’s part of it, yes.”
“Well, maybe you’re right.”
He glanced up sharply, surprised at her comment.
“I’ve thought about this. Maybe my initial attraction to you was due to some unrequited love issues I had with my dad, or maybe it was rebellion, or both. Of course, your off-the-charts hotness didn’t hurt.”
Bishop lips curled in spite of himself.
“But Bishop, it changed. No matter how it started, it’s different now. It’s real.” Her eyes softened. “And I know this because it breaks my heart a little bit more every day.”
“I’m afraid we can’t live together anymore.”
“What?” she hissed. Her posture stiffened, panic evident in her voice.
“We can’t go on like this, Pen. You said yourself that I’m hurting you. God,” he put his hand on her knee under the table, “the last thing I ever want to do is hurt you.”
She stared down at her lap and didn’t answer.
“So, yes, planning that trip for you was a stupid and presumptuous thing to do, but I want to keep you in Sullivan Manor with me—”
“And I want to keep living there,” she pleaded.
“You and I will be stuck in this endless loop we’re in now unless we do something drastic. I thought about getting you an apartment.”
“What?” She looked horrified.
“One with a pool, where Cooper College students live and hang out, so you could be a regular student with a healthy social life.”
“Bishop, please. I don’t want that.” She squeezed his hand.
“But you’ve never tried it. As long as you stay in your father’s dusty old vault of a house, with me prowling the halls and hoping to run into you, you’re never going to have a chance to be young and experiment. Have a regular life. One where you will go on double dates with your friends, go to parties, get married, have kids. Those are the things your father would have wanted for you, and I want them for you too.”
She stared at him, her eyes so hurt.
“You can’t have that life with me, Pen. I’m a professor and I’m far older than all your friends would be. Anyone who knew our situation would be shocked and look down on us. I’m your guardian. They’d believe I took advantage of you, and that our relationship was one step removed from incest. I don’t want that for you.”
She looked staggered, as if she was having trouble processing all the obstacles he was bringing up.
“And then on top of all that,” he continued, “there’s my past. I don’t deserve to live happily ever after, not after what I did. I can’t allow it. You know how I feel about that.” He took a long drink of cabernet. “So rather than take the ultimate step of finding you your own place, I thought we might as well try this first. Maybe if you become more involved with Bryce, I can slink off into the background, resume that father-figure role, and you can have a blast defying all my rules by staying out too late with your friends and boyfriend.” He tried to smile, but knew it must’ve looked hollow. “I know I’ll have work to do on my part. I’m mostly to blame for how far things have gone, but I think it’ll be a lot easier for me if my urges are the only ones I need to fight.”
The waiter brought their meals and hurried off without asking if they needed anything else. Pen looked at her plate, poking half-heartedly at her filet mignon with her fork. They ate in silence for a few minutes.
“I could try,” she whispered.
He stopped chewing. Had he heard her right? “Really?” He lowered his head, trying to catch her eye.
Her eyes flicked up to his, and then away. “I could try to…I don’t know,” she shrugged, “give Bryce a better shot? Try to love him, maybe.” Her eyes flew back to his. “I’m not saying I’ll love him. But maybe you have a point. Maybe if I opened to him a little, we could have more fun together. It might take my mind off you.”
Bishop sighed with relief. “Thank you, Pen. That’s all I want. I don’t want to lose you.”
She nodded and dropped her head, sniffing. He reached out and raised her chin. Tears welled in her beautiful eyes. His heart squeezed brutally. “What’s the matter?”
“Before I try to love someone else, I need you to know something.”
Bishop nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“The heart wants what the heart wants, Bishop. No one can control it. And mine wants you.”
“Pen…”
“No, listen. My heart hurts because you won’t love me, and it doesn’t change. You can deprive it, beat it up, torture it, or break it—and you’ve done all those things already—but you can’t change what it wants.” She paused, as if deciding whether to speak her next words. “What does your heart want, Bishop?”
His instinct was to hide the truth from her, but maybe if she knew his real feelings she could venture past him, secure in knowing she always had Bishop’s love, if nothing else.
He cleared his throat. “There’s never even been a question, Penelope. My heart wants you.” His words were clear and strong, because they were the fucking truth.
Her mouth popped open and her wary eyes searched his, perhaps for signs of deception, but she would find none.
“You,” he whispered. “Only you. Always you.”
“How can you say that?” Her voice was just an emotional squeak. “You want me to have sex with someone else.”
“That’s not true.” His voice boomed louder than he’d anticipated, and she jumped. Diners around them quieted. He filled his lungs, trying to control his emotions.
He placed his hand on her knee again. “I don’t want you to be with Bryce. I don’t want you to be with anyone. Ever.” His eyes bore into hers as he thought about how much to say, but then again, he was this far, so why not slide the whole way down that slippery slope? “Do you think this is easy for me, Pen? I never want another man near you. Even this—” he gestured around at the restaurant in general, “—makes me so fucking angry. I’m trying to enjoy it with you, but—” He broke off, shaking his head.
She glanced around. “But what?”
He could read in her face her desperation to understand and believe him. He lowered his head to hers, so it felt like they were the only two in the place. “Because this night with you is something I thought I’d never have. It’s something I will lay in bed at night—so many nights—and try to conjure up what it felt like to just sit at a table with you in public, like we were on a date. A real date, like a real couple. I’ll try to remember what it felt like to touch your knee under the table. Kiss you in the car.”
He paused, closing his eyes in a slow blink to gather himself before continuing. “I will struggle not to forget one moment of this one evening for the rest of my life, and all the while Bryce and men like him will be able to have this any time they want.”
She shook her head in disagreement, distress creasing her brow.
“How many dates have you been on with him?” he asked, to prove his point. He couldn’t hide the bitterness in his tone.
“None,” she answered firmly. “If this is a date, then I’ve never been on one. Nothing’s ever felt like this.”
He dropped his head, not able to bear looking in her eyes when she said things like that.
He forced himself to say the rest. “So just try to imagine how I feel giving you to him at all, let alone as a virgin.” Bishop could barely force the words through his clenched jaw. “Bryce may be a better partner for you, but you will never be the treasure to him that you are to me. No man could love you like I do. What man would love you enough to give you up?”
“Bishop.” His name on her lips sounded like a prayer, and she touched his face, cupping her palm to his cheek.
He turned his head into her touch, placing a kiss in her curved fingers like an offering. “When he takes you to bed,” he choked, “he’d better fucking make you feel special.” He kissed into her fingers again, letting his lips linger and nibble. “Special and satisfied.”
Even after all that, her face still reflected uncertainty. “I want to believe you Bishop, but you think I’m a child, that I’m too young for you.”
He shook his head vehemently. “You are not a child, Pen. You’re the strongest woman I know. And you’re not too young for me. I’m just too old for you. It’s not the same thing. You’re perfect.”
Their dinners forgotten, he used her hand to pull her close. He touched his cheek to hers and then turned his head enough to press a kiss near her mouth. He could sense her stop breathing and it made him want to push her down and take her right there in the booth.
Reaching further, he touched his lips to hers. They sat there like that for a couple thudding heartbeats, breathing into each other’s mouths and trembling, lips moving in the barest of kisses.
He wanted to make her understand how desperately she was loved, at least by one person in this world, so he laid it all on the table. “I am madly, ridiculously, stupidly in love with you, Penelope,” he whispered against her lips. “I have been ever since that moment in the car at your father’s funeral when you looked at me like I could make a difference in your life. You asked if you could live with me, and the way you looked at me…it made me feel like someone like you—this gorgeous little thing full of rebellion and energy and intelligence—. And that was it. As soon as I had that one seed of hope, from something so magical as you, I was gone, Pen.”
She choked on a sob. “Then how can you just give me away?”
“Because I love you enough that I’d rather lose you than deny you the life a girl like you should have.”
She shook her head. “You’re wrong.”
He shook his head too. “But you’ve never tried it. Listen to me, I should not be anyone’s first choice. You need to see what’s out there. It’s what you deserve.”
She pulled back to stare into his eyes, and the sadness he in hers nearly destroyed him.
“I’ll try. You’re wrong, Bishop, but I’ll try.” She looked away. “I’ll try to be with someone else, if that’s what you want me to do, but you need to know that I can’t handle you being with another woman. It would kill me, Bishop. It would break me.” Her voice cracked, and she looked at his then, twisting her fingers into his shirt, one tear spilling down her cheek. Her syllables were emphatic. “I can’t do what you do.”
He kissed away the tear, the salt bitter on his tongue. “Don’t worry about that. You are the only one for me, and I can’t even be with you.” He took both of her hands. His thick voice reflected the torture inside him. “You can have anyone you want, always. I want you to live the biggest life possible. But I will remain alone. I won’t touch anyone else. I won’t love anyone else. That, at least, I can give you. I will love only you, forever.”
She raised troubled eyes to his. “How can you do that?”
“I had already vowed to be alone, before you even came along. That was my penance for my crime and for the unpleasant things I crave now. At least now it will be easier, because I’m not alone anymore. I have someone to love, if even from afar.”
“This is crazy, Bishop. The things you think are crazy. Your logic is crazy.” She swiped her hand at her wet cheek. “But I will do what you ask on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
Despite her pain, she raised her chin and leveled a look of strength in his direction, her jaw set with clear conviction. “The first time I make love to a man should be everything that I want. Exactly what I want.” She finished the last long drink of his wine and then laid her hands on the table nodding, as if it had been decided. “I want you to be my first.”
He was already shaking his head. “Pen, that’s not a good—”
She cut him off. “I get to decide, not you. I don’t agree with what you’re asking me to do, but I’ll do it if it’ll get me what I want. So, I will agree to have sex with Bryce. Maybe I’ll even try to fall for him during this vacation next week, but I’ll only do it if I have one night with you first.”
She looked at him as if she’d just said, “Checkmate.”
One night with you first…
The words echoed in his head. Wasn’t that the way it should be? He loved her. No one would make love to Penelope with the same devotion as he would. He would make it perfect for her. Didn’t that at least balance out some of the many reasons he shouldn’t do it?
He couldn’t believe the answer forming in his head. Yes. This one time. He would make sure she knew what it felt like to be truly loved by a man in every way.
Then…then he would give her up.