Penny
“Magnus, I…” I start to say as I enter his office, but the words I had so carefully chosen seem to slip from my mind. Magnus raises his eyes to look at me, and I can tell that this is bad. Well, I knew it’d be bad, but the look in his eyes tells me exactly how bad. And it’s pretty fucking bad.
Joyce’s there too, and she turns around on her chair to look at me. There’s a disapproving look in her eyes, but it’s not like I can blame her: I’m at the center of this storm, and if it weren’t for me, none of this would've happened. And she’s loyal to Magnus, which I guess is something you couldn’t really say about me until a few months ago.
“Joyce, please leave us,” Magnus tells her, and she just gives him a slight nod and goes up to her feet. She starts walking out of the office, but then she stops a few feet away from me. I almost expect for her to scream out at me, but she just offers me a sad smile.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “no woman deserves this from her own mother.” With that, she reaches for my shoulder and lays her hand there, gently squeezing before she finally lowers her gaze and walks out of the office, closing the door behind her. Even though she never approved of my relationship with Magnus, I guess she somehow feels a bit of compassion toward me. And that’s saying something, when a woman that should hate your guts is more compassionate toward you than your own mother, I guess that’s saying a lot about the current state of affairs.
“Please, tell me you don’t have anything to do with this,” Magnus says with a defeated tone of voice, waving at the crumpled newspaper sitting on his desk. I open my mouth to respond, but he just waves me down and stands up. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that. I know you had nothing to do with it,” he continues, and I feel as if someone lifted a few hundreds tons off my shoulders.
“I had nothing to do with it… I swear,” I tell him all the same, hoping that my words help ease his troubled mind. I can’t even begin to imagine how he must feel right now, the future of his company hanging in the balance. And all because of me, just like an idiot I played my mother’s game, carefully setting up Magnus for a fall. In the end, my mother and Laurel really got what they were after.
Magnus walks around his desk and I walk toward him, closing the distance between the two of us. I wrap my arms around his torso and lay my head against his chest, feeling his heartbeat in silence.
“Are you okay?” he whispers, running his fingers through my hair. I just nod wordlessly, and then he holds me tight in his arms. I feel like crying now, a sob threatening to overtake me, but I just choke it out of me.
I never thought my mother would do something like this to me, but lo and behold, she did. She dragged my name through the mud, and only so that she could get her petty revenge on Magnus. Seriously, what kind of mother would do something like this to her own daughter? She chose to side with a woman like Laurel Trask, and all for what? A pat on the back from the mayor?
“And you, Magnus? What’s going to happen with the Equinox deal now?” I ask him, taking a step back and looking into his eyes.
“I don’t know, Penny. I really don’t have a clue,” he sighs, his lips a thin line of worry. “But at least you’re here,” he continues, forcing himself to smile. “At least you’re here.” He leans in, gently brushing his lips against my own, and then holds me tight. “I love you, Penny.”
His words are just a whisper, but it feels like someone punched me straight in the nose. I love you, Penny, his words echo inside my head, and I feel my heart racing faster than it ever did. I almost reach for my belly unconsciously, a sudden urge to lay my hand on top of the life growing within it, but I restrain myself. This is not the time for such a heavy revelation.
“I love you too,” I find myself saying though, the words coming out from between my lips before I can stop them. And I wouldn’t stop them even if I wanted to. A war has started, and if there was ever a time to tell him how I feel, it’s now.
“But maybe it isn’t enough, Penny. Maybe love isn’t enough,” Magnus whispers, sadness dripping out of his words. I stare into his eyes in silence, just hearing the rain bat against the floor-to-ceiling windows. “I’m your stepfather… You’re my stepdaughter. What are we even doing, Penny? Forget about my company. This is about you. You have nothing to gain from a man like me.”
“I have everything to gain,” I tell him, hushing him by placing my index finger over his lips. “I love you, Magnus, and I don’t care about the rest. I don’t care that you’re my stepfather, and I don’t care if the whole world hates us both. I can survive all that… as long as you’re with me.”
“I’ll always be with you. If you’ll have me, Penny, I’ll never leave. Never,” he tells me, and I believe each and every one of his words. Unlike my own mother, Magnus is a man who lives and dies by his words. And, God forgive me, I’ve really fallen in love with him. And if I can’t trust the man I love, I can’t trust anyone.
“I love you, Magnus,” I repeat, smiling at him and, just for a moment, forgetting about the storm raging around us both. My mother and Laurel Trask are just a whisper in the wind, political intrigue just a faint backdrop; right now, the only thing that’s real is the man in front of me.
“I love you too, Penny,” he tells me, and my fate is sealed just like that. Three words—I love you—and both our fates become intertwined for all existence.
Whatever comes, we’ll face it together.
As friends and lovers.
As a family.