Penny

I knock and I can hear him in the room, the tread of his footsteps and I wipe my sweaty hands on my pants. I can’t do anything about my heart, which feels like it’s going to pound out of my chest.

For the first time in years I’m operating without a script. Without the net of my lies to keep me safe. And I’m scared. I’m so scared.

The door opens and he’s standing there, tall and wide, dressed in dark jeans and a T-shirt.

I’m breathless at the sight of him.

His face is so utterly compelling. So beautifully carved. The hard jaw and the full lips. The eyes like dark pools. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t welcome me in. He’s intense and…angry.

Or is that my imagination? My old demons making me think something that’s not true.

Because if anyone should be angry right now, it’s me.

“I just need a minute,” I say, keenly aware of my ripped, black jeans and I’m With Her T-shirt. My tattoos visible over the V-neck and under the short sleeves.

I’m the most…me I’ve been. Except when we were in bed.

My smile, despite my best efforts, is shaky. And I don’t wait for him to invite me in, or say anything, I just step inside his room and he lets me.

The door closes behind us. And the room is so small I can barely breathe without touching him.

“You left last night, without saying anything and I —”

I catch sight of his bag on the bed. It’s open. But it’s packed. His running shoes sit on top of the Henley shirt he wore the other day.

I go still. Like a rabbit who knows there’s something behind me that wants to eat me. I can’t control the tears that fill my eyes as I finally look at him.

“You’re leaving?” He says nothing, simply stares at me like I’m someone he doesn’t recognize. “Answer me!”

“I’m leaving.”

“You were just…not going to say anything? Was it so bad?” My breath catches on a sob and I try to make it a laugh. “You know, you were warned, right? Jeff told you that first night I was an awful lay —”

“Penny.” His voice is thick and terrible with apology but I’m not having it.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything. Go —” I’m turning, fumbling for the door and he steps up behind me. His chest a wall of heat at my back. I open the door because I can’t let him touch me. I have just enough self-respect not to allow that.

But his hand smacks against the door keeping it closed. I struggle with the doorknob, using all my weight, but he’s too strong.

“Let me go. Let me leave.” I don’t want to beg. Not for anything. Not from him. I remember how I begged last night for his touch and I want to die.

“Who is your father?” he asks. And I don’t hear the words at first, distracted by his breath across my neck. His voice a low murmur in my ear. But then they sink in.

My father?

“I don’t…” I shake my head, struggling against him and the door and I feel so fucking small. And I don’t understand why he’s keeping me here. Why he wants to talk about my father. “I don’t have any contact with him. I barely —”

He’s not letting me out. My breath breaks and I put my head against the door.

“How are you paying for this place?” he asks.

Everything in my body goes still. The fight leaves me and I realize…I realize he knows. He knows far more than he should.

Which means he is not who he said he is.

I turn to face him. He’s not distant now. He’s not removed. He’s flushed and breathing hard. His pulse pounding in his neck. I put my hand up, as if to ward him off and my fingers brush his chest.

Both of us gasp.

“Where is the money coming from?”

“I told you,” I say with numb lips. “A private investor.”

This is a truth I’m not ready to tell. I’m not even able to look at it sometimes. Think about it.

“Stop lying!”

“Stop crowding me!”

I shove him and he steps back, giving me space.

“Since we’re asking questions, who the hell are you, Simon Malik? And don’t give me that bullshit about running a foundation funded by your grandmother’s money. You were in foster care!”

“I’m a journalist for the Los Angeles Times.”

“A journalist?” I step out of the way and come face-to-face with a laptop sitting on the dresser.

It’s an old Dell. Sitting on top of a black briefcase with gray corners that looks an awful lot like the briefcase in my trailer.

But even I don’t believe that lie.

The air conditioner kicks on in the room and it’s like a gun shot.

“Where did you get that?” I whisper, pointing at the laptop.

“You know where I got it.” He has the gall to sound angry.

“You stole it?” I grab the laptop, clutching it in my arms like a baby. But there’s only one reason someone would steal this old computer. “You know what this is? What’s on it?”

He nods and I realize none of this was an accident. That little speech about my porn name and Penny the dog. Totally unnecessary.

Simon knew who I was all along.

And when he says he was dreaming of me, he meant that he was dreaming of revenge. Against my family.

“You’re writing a story, aren’t you? That’s why you’re here.” I pull in a huge lungful of air but there just isn’t enough oxygen. “That’s why you slept with me?”

He doesn’t deny it.

“Oh, my God,” I gasp. The world rearranges itself and I nearly fall to my knees as the shame and the hurt and humiliation crush me.

Somehow I stay on my feet. Somehow I stiffen my back. Square my shoulders.

“How did you find me?” I ask. My Penny McConnell story was a fantasy I’d created, but it also, to some extent, kept me hidden.

From the press.

From my father.

“The Garden and Gun story. The photograph —”

I put my hand to my neck, the birthmark there. I remember his fingers on my jacket that first night in the lavender behind the kitchen. How determined he’d been to get my jacket open.

It was because he was looking for the birthmark.

He was looking for proof.

Bile fills my throat. I close my eyes, for a second, against the pain. Even when I don’t know it, I ruin everything.

“You read the files?” I ask.

“Have you?” he asks.

“Why does that matter?”

“Because I’d like to think that if you’d read the files, you would have done the right thing.”

I blink wildly, my mouth hanging open for a second. “What’s the right thing?”

And it’s not sarcastic. Since this laptop came to me, I’ve been fighting to answer this question every damn day. What is the right thing?

“Giving the information to the authorities.”

“And then my mom will be killed.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. You can have her moved —”

Oh, the fucking arrogance.

“You think I didn’t try that? You think I haven’t begged to have her moved? To have her put in some kind of protective custody?”

“With this information, she can strike a bargain. We can keep her safe. I don’t know why she didn’t do it when she got arrested. She could have stayed out of jail and put Simpson away for life.”

“Because this is the only bargaining chip she has. Once she uses it, it’s gone. And she has nothing. He brought us to the States from Greece planning this. He’s ahead of us every step of the way, Simon! She wasn’t safe no matter where she was. This information was all she had. And I’m just…I’m supposed to risk it?”

“Thousands of people could be saved.”

“And my mother could be killed. You’re asking me a question I can’t answer! I can’t decide who is more important!”

“Tell me,” he says, leaning forward, stepping up to me. I step back but there’s nowhere to go in this hotel room. “Why did you change your name? Your life? It was because of your mom, wasn’t it? I read the letter on the laptop —”

“She was a shitty mom, so she deserves to die? Listen to what you’re saying. Would it be so easy to choose between your parents —”

“We’re not talking about my parents.”

“No. We’re not. So you can take your fucking moral superiority and shove it —”

“Then tell me about the money.”

“Oh, the fucking money.” I laugh bitterly. Tears finally spilling over my cheeks. “I’ve had this trust my whole life and I’ve spent nothing. I didn’t use it for college. For apartments. I didn’t use it when I get fired, or dumped by boyfriends. I didn’t use it when I was sick. When I broke my hand. I didn’t buy anything with it. It sat in an account and I was ready to let it rot.”

“But you didn’t.” His words are such an accusation.

“No, I didn’t. Because Megan came to me with this amazing idea. This dream she’s always had. This wish of a place where we could start something from scratch and it could be beautiful and important. We could host fundraisers like the one we did last week without worry. We could pay our employees a real living wage with a benefits package that makes sure they don’t have to worry about anything. And so I used the money, Simon. And it wasn’t easy. But I wanted to make something beautiful out of something awful.”

“That’s very noble,” he says and his voice is caught somewhere between sarcastic and earnest.

“You sure you’re in a place to judge me?” I laugh. “Do I need to remind you that you lied to me. You slept with me. All to get a laptop. You’re no hero.”

It stings how wrong I was about him. It aches in my bones.

“It wasn’t…it wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.”

“No? You weren’t going to fuck me. Sorry, you had to take one for the team there, Simon.” I laugh, hysterically.

I want to storm out of here. Kick him out of my inn. But I’m not done swallowing my pride.

Not yet.

“How do I convince you not to use these files?” I ask, hugging the computer closer, wondering what’s left of me to bargain with. The answer is nothing.

There’s nothing he wants from me.

I gave him everything.

“I will do everything I can to make sure your mom is safe.”

“Oh, I wish I could trust you, but you’re a liar. Just like me.” My laughter is bitter and poisonous. And there’s no point in fighting. I have nothing with which to convince him.

And the truth… Oh, the awful truth is that this is a relief. The laptop and the secrets and the power of this information is no longer in my hands. And that makes me a coward, I know. I should be able to stand up either for my mother or for what was right and I did neither of those things. I shoved this laptop in a drawer and pretended like it didn’t exist.

Desperate to get out of this room, I step past him for the door and he reaches out and touches me. His fingers around my wrist like a bracelet.

And I want to feel nothing.

But I feel everything.

Everything I had. Everything I want. Everything I’ve lost.

“This isn’t a lie,” he says. “This chemistry. We both feel it.”

I turn my face away, but even that’s not enough. I close my eyes.

“You don’t have to lie to me anymore. You don’t have to pretend.”

He steps up against me and I’m stiff and protesting. But I’m also…not. I’m aware.

“I didn’t pretend.” His hips are against mine and I can feel his erection. And I want him. Despite everything that has happened, I still want him. “Nothing about last night was lie.”

“Why are you doing this?” I whisper. “You want to prove I still want you even after you ruin my life. Fine. Fine, you asshole, I still want you. Does that make you happy?”

“Nothing about this makes me happy. Except you.”

“Stop!” I lie. “Stop lying.”

“If I had told you the truth, you never would have let me close,” he says. “I never would have gotten to know you. You are amazing.” I pull away but he pulls me back. “You’re beautiful and fierce. You’re funny —”

“Stop.”

“No,” he says. “No. We’re being honest and I need to tell you these things.”

“I don’t want to hear them.”

“But you need to, baby.’ The endearment cracks me open and I can’t believe I’m not bleeding. I can’t believe I’m not dying.

“You’re larger than life, Penny. You fucking glow and I can’t resist you. I can’t stand that I’ve hurt you. And I want…I want us not to be us.”

I think I’m going to laugh, but it comes out like a sob. “I’ve done that,” I say. “It doesn’t work.”

He turns me, his hands on my shoulders. The computer between us.

“Let me go,” I breathe.

“I can’t.”

“Simon —” I struggle, but it’s not real. We both know it.

And he kisses me. He kisses me like he’s dying and I want to resist. I want to fight him.

But I’m dying, too, and his kiss is all I want.

The computer slides from my arms to the floor and we’re in each other’s arms.

This isn’t real, I tell myself. He’s lying to you. Again. Using you. Again.

You are a tool. And you’re so damn easy.

So damn needy.

That pushes me away. The shock and shame of realizing what a willing part of his lie I was.

“Stop,” I say. “Please.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t! Don’t take the files,” I cry.

His jaw hardens. His hands squeeze my shoulders. But he doesn’t say anything.

I tear myself away.

I reach for the computer, but realize it’s useless. Meaningless.

“Please,” I beg. “At least give me some time to try to make sure my mother is safe.”

As safe as I can make her.

My father’s reach is wide and long and all-encompassing. He is the boogie man in the night. And he is going to come after her.

And maybe me.

“I will,” he says. “And I’ll help, too —”

I laugh. I laugh right in his face. “Get your shit and get out,” I tell him. “You’re not welcome here anymore.”

There’s a knock at the door and we both jump.

“Penny?” It’s Megan on the other side. “Are you in there?”

I wipe my eyes, take a deep breath then open the door to reveal Megan in the hallway. She looks…nervous. But she gets one look at me and her face melts in sympathy.

“I’m fine,” I say, pre-emptively.

“You look —”

“I’m fine. What’s up?”

“Well, remember that asshole guy who tried to rent out the whole inn tonight?”

Oh, I think rather stupidly. That’s right. It’s opening night of the inn and restaurant I own. I have to make a beautiful meal for people paying a lot of money for the privilege of eating it.

I can’t imagine how I’m going to do it.

“Yes,” I say, pulling myself together. “What about him?”

“He’s here. And he says he’s your father.”