by Hart, Rye
“I understand,” I said, quietly. “I can tell you everything I know, all the background. When and where do you want to meet?”
“Right now,” she said. “Meet me at the Lovehouse. And don’t bring my father.”
“All right,” I said nodding. “Penny, I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you. This was not something I wanted to affect our relationship. You are extremely important to me. I was put in a hard position and I made the wrong choice.”
“Whatever,” she said. “We can talk about all that when I see you. I just want the truth, Gabriel. I’m not a child. I am fully aware that my father is not a perfect man, but if there is something I need to know, something big, then I should be told. This is not a game and you are not protecting me by keeping me in the dark. You are hurting me more than you are helping.”
“Understood,” I replied. “I’ll leave here in ten.”
I hung up the phone and looked around the office, realizing that I might just be walking into the lion’s den. It didn’t matter, though. Penny was right: she deserved the complete truth. I asked my secretary to hold all my calls and reschedule my meetings for the rest of the day, not knowing how long this would take, and not wanting to rush Penny. I headed out of the office and to the limo waiting out front. We weren’t far from Central Park and I wasn’t sure whether I would make it there before her or not. When I arrived and walked in the door, I spotted Penny sitting at the bar. She stood up and started walking toward me.
“Mr. Matthews,” the hostess said, walking up beside me. “We weren’t expecting you.”
“Yeah,” I said shaking my head, “It was an unexpected meeting that just came up.”
“I’ll get your normal table set up then?”
“Uh, no,” I replied. “I’ll need something more secluded. Like maybe in the meeting room if it’s free?”
“Oh, of course,” she said, smiling at Penny as she approached, “Right this way.”
We sat down at the table in the meeting room and I ordered several things, then asked that they keep the door shut. We needed complete privacy. The hostess agreed and left the room, pulling a cart inside so we could get our own drinks. I walked over and poured two glasses of water, nervous as I sat back down in front of her.
“This isn’t a date,” she said angrily. “Please start talking.”
“Okay. I’ve known your father for about seven or eight years,” I said. “I met him before my company was worth billions, and I was looking for a way to push it over that threshold. Your father went right to work, trying to help me achieve my goals. He came to me with an offer, an offer that would make my company untouchable. It seemed too good to be true and I wanted to know what the catch was, so I took it to Jay, who is also my financial advisor. He picked up on it right away, without even five minutes with the contract.”
“Picked up on what?”
“The scam,” I said, looking up at her eyes. “Your father, if he had succeeded, would have stolen millions of dollars from me, and left my company in shambles. By the time I would have figured out what was going on, it would have been too late. Everyone would have assumed I was lying because my business was failing. Afterwards, I found out that I wasn’t the first person he had done that to.”
Penny’s face froze in shock. She shook her head back and forth, running things over in her mind. She was having trouble making sense of it, and I didn’t blame her at all.
“Why didn’t you just tell me about this? Why keep it a secret?”
“Honestly? I didn’t want to be the bad guy,” I said, looking down at my water. “I cared about you almost immediately, and I didn’t want to be the guy responsible for destroying your relationship with your father. I knew how close you were to him and there was nothing that could be done to change his past. All it could do was hurt you.”
She sat there for several moments, her hands folded in her lap, and tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. Slowly she lifted her head and stared at me, her blue eyes now gray. She took in a deep breath and shook her head, emotions taking hold. She stood up and looked down at me.
“You don’t get to make decisions for me,” she whispered.
She turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. I looked around the room, not sure what to say or do. I was completely beside myself, realizing that I had just ruined one of the best things to ever come into my life, and all because I was afraid of telling her the truth about her father. I knew I should have told her from the start, but it didn’t seem like the right thing at the time I may have just lost an amazing woman, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
Chapter Sixteen
Penny
I sat there in the living room, wrapped in a blanket, staring out the window. After I left the Lovehouse the day before, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to go back to the apartment and face my father, I was too taken back by what he had done. I also knew that if I was in the Avalon there was a good chance that I would run into Gabriel, and I had nothing to say to him at that point. I didn’t want to see either one of them. So, I went to Gabby’s and told her what my father had done. She got me a glass of whiskey, let me cry, and put me to bed, telling me it would be better if I talked about everything after a good night’s sleep.
So, there I was on Saturday morning just sitting there staring at the trees outside Gabby’s window. I wanted to be okay, to take it all in stride and process it, but my brain just wasn’t having it. I was extremely upset and didn’t even know where to start. It wasn’t just the fact that my father had done all these things, or that he had lied to me, it was the fact that Gabriel had lied to me as well. Though we hadn’t been dating long, I had been starting to feel like Gabriel and I had something real. He should have told me the truth.
“It’s crazy,” I said, sipping my coffee and staring out the window. “I was falling in love with Gabriel. In the blink of an eye, it was all destroyed. He lied to me from the very beginning. This is all my stupid father’s fault. He made terrible choices in his career. I don’t know what he was thinking. He could have completely destroyed—both my mother and I had he been caught by the FBI and SEC. Money was the only thing he thought about. It doesn’t even matter that he has been so sweet to me over the years, he just felt guilty for making choices that were less than admirable and knew I’d find out someday.”
“I know you’re upset,” Gabby said. “But maybe it’s time that you went and sat down in front of your father, get all the facts from his perspective, and give him the chance to explain himself. Maybe it isn’t as bad as it seems here in this moment. You love your father, and you will continue to do so even if he messed up, but you can at least give him the opportunity to tell his side of the story. I’ve known your dad awhile, and he loves you more than anyone else in this world. Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.”
“Yeah, they are,” I said, shaking my head. “In fact, I won’t be surprised to find out that they are even worse. My father is an investor in my software company. He has invested in everything through our entire lives. His choices are now going to affect everyone and everything around him. I would say that this is way worse than what it sounds like.”
I got up from the couch and walked into the spare bedroom, taking off my pajamas and getting dressed. In the bathroom, I brushed my teeth and stared up at my reflection. My eyes were puffy from crying, and the bags made me look ten years older than I was. Grabbing the brush, I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, smoothing the flyaway hair with some gel. There was no way in hell that I was going to look good, but that didn’t matter in the least. I didn’t want to go to my father, I didn’t want to hear any more of his lies, but Gabby was right, I needed to sit down and let him share his side of the story with me. I owed him that, he was my father and had taken care of my mother and me our entire lives. I took a deep breath, grabbed my keys, kissed Gabby on the cheek and headed out of the apartment. I grabbed a cab about three blocks down and took it to the Avalon.
I let myself into the apartment and tossed my stuff on the table inside the door. I walked through to the living room and stood in the doorway, staring at my father. He was sitting in the chair by the window and looked completely distraught. His eyes were heavy, and his shoulders were slumped, so I could only assume he hadn’t slept at all the night before. He looked up and saw me standing there. His eyes widened, and he leaned forward as I walked over and sat down in front of him.
“Penny,” he said, with relief. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
He had reached out for my hand, but I pulled it away, not allowing myself to feel bad for doing so. I crossed my legs and leaned back in the chair, looking out the window and taking a deep breath. My eyes shifted over to his.
“Why?” I shook my head. “Why would you do something like that?”
“It’s not that simple of an answer,” he said.
“Make it simple,” I snapped.
“I was getting to the point where I was running out of money,” he said, sweat collecting on his forehead. “I had no way out and I owed a lot of people a lot of money. My only choice was to start scamming people.”
“That’s bullshit,” I scoffed, standing up and pacing. “There is never only one way out. You were just too absorbed in your job to realize that there were other options. You didn’t care about morality or that you were destroying other people’s lives. And for what? This? All this stuff, this place in the Avalon, and these disgusting assholes around you all the time.”
“I did it for you, and for your mother too,” he said.
“No,” I gritted my teeth. “What you did was put me and my mother in a position where our entire lives could be ruined by your choices. I am going to make this very clear to you. If you don’t stop, if you scam one more company or one more person, I will contact the chief of police myself. You will go to prison for the rest of your life.”
“Penny,” he said, panicked.
“Until you have gotten that under control, I won’t be living with you,” I said, walking toward the door. “And you can sure as hell believe that I will not entertain your false narrative, so don’t bother telling me how much you love me. You fix this, or I will.”
I walked out of the apartment, slamming the door behind me and going straight to the elevator. When the doors opened I ran inside, turning to make sure my father wasn’t following behind me. I was done with all of it, everything that had anything to do with the Avalon or my father’s dirty business. As the elevator doors opened to the lobby, I pushed through the crowds of people, making my way toward the street.
“Penny,” Gabriel's voice echoed behind me.
I glanced to the side and saw Gabriel near the café, waving his hands in the air. I turned back toward the doors and ignored him, not wanting to see him or my father. I was completely beside myself with anger and grief, and I didn’t know what to do. I jumped in a cab out front and headed back to Gabby’s house. At least there she would listen to me, calm my nerves, and not offer me up any bullshit excuses or lies. There was nothing anyone could have said at that moment to make me go back into the Avalon.
Chapter Seventeen
Gabriel
I was beside myself, unable to even begin to comprehend how to fix all of this. I couldn’t just let Penny walk out of my life. I cared about her way too much. When I saw her storming across the lobby on Saturday, I knew she had spoken with her father. When she refused to stop and talk to me, I was immediately terrified that she thought I was somehow involved in his schemes and lies. I didn’t know what he had told her. The only thing I knew to do was reach out to Gabby, so when she was down at the café working, I arranged it so the owner would allow me to speak to her in private.
I walked into the conference room where she was sitting, and she stood up, anger clouding her face. It was obvious she had no idea why she had been called into the room. I stepped in front of the closed door and put my hands up.
“Please,” I said. “Just hear me out.”
“Fine,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I am desperate,” I said. “I am desperate to get ahold of Penny.”
“Why? So, you can tell her more bullshit?”
“You don’t understand,” I pleaded. “I never was part of any of those schemes. I turned her father down as soon as I found out what he was doing. I didn’t do any business with him, and that was years ago. When I found out he was her father, I was surprised, but what am I going do when I’d first met her, teller he father is a crook? She kept wanting me to meet him, and I just tried to put it off. Once I realized how special she was and that I had serious feelings for her, I’d already been lying to her by not acknowledging that I knew him, and what I knew about him. I didn’t want to see her get hurt, and I didn’t want to be the guy that destroyed her relationship with her father.”
“You should have been honest with her,” she said, relaxing a bit.
“I know, but it is all too late for that now,” I said, putting my hands in my pocket. “I just want a chance to explain everything to her myself. I want to make this up to her however I can. I just want to talk to her, nothing else. Gabby, please help me. I…I love her.”
Her entire demeanor changed as those words flew out of my mouth. I hadn’t even said them to myself, but there they were, and I knew in my heart that they were the truth. Gabby sighed and walked over to the tables, pulling out a chair and sitting down. She looked up at me and shook her head.
“If you really love her,” she said.
“I do,” I replied, walking over and sitting across from her.
“Then I will set something up for you,” she said. “But if I find out that all you have done is hurt her more or lied about loving her just to get to her, I will come here and kill you with my bare hands. Penny is a good person, she should never have been drug into all of this. You should have protected her!”
“I know,” I said hanging my head.
“Go to Central Park where the first trailhead for runners begins,” she said, pulling out her phone. “Wait there.”
“Thank you,” I said, hugging Gabby and running from the room.
I crossed the street into the park and made my way to the spot Gabby described. I sat down on the retaining wall behind some cover so that when Penny arrived she didn’t spot me and immediately bolt. Then I waited, thinking about everything that we had been through, thinking about the reality that I just admitted I loved her. My heart was beating out of my chest and I wanted to be happy about it, but the fear of losing her was taking over and I couldn’t enjoy the love for even a second.
After about twenty minutes I looked through the branches of the brush and saw Penny walking toward the spot, looking around for Gabby. She looked so beautiful in her jeans, boots, sweater, and long overcoat. Her hair was cascading around her shoulders and her cheeks were rosy from the cold wind. She walked past me at first, turning back as she sensed someone there. As soon as she saw me her face changed, and she turned, trying to walk away. I reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her.
“Wait,” I said pleadingly. “Please Penny, just let me talk to you. Do you think Gabby would have sent you here if she thought what I had to say wasn’t important? She trusted me enough to have you come here.”
“Just more lies,” she said, shaking her head. “Go ahead, talk. You have five minutes.”
“I’m sorry, Penny,” I said. “I should have told you
what your father did as soon as I realized who he was. But I got scared. I didn’t want to hurt you, especially right after that guy Troy had hurt you, and I definitely didn’t want me to be the cause of your pain.”
“You don’t care about me,” she scoffed. “You didn’t want your company to be associated with anything to do with my father and his shady dealings.”
“That’s not true,” I said, stepping forward.
“I don’t even know why I am standing here,” she said, throwing up her arms and starting to walk away.
“Penny,” I yelled, causing her to stop with her back to me. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you see it at all? I love you.”
She whirled around and stared at me. I watched as her angry expression began to ease and the realization of what I said began to take over. Her shoulders relaxed a bit and she walked over, sitting down on the wall and staring down at the ground. It was the first time I had actually used the words “I love you” with Penny, and I could tell it had an effect on her. I let her sit there and take it in. I wanted her to fully realize how strong my feelings for her were. She was extremely important to me and she needed to know that. Maybe if she understood, she would know that I would never do anything to put her in danger or hurt her.
It wasn’t just a set of words that I spouted out to get her attention, I really did love her, in a way that I had never felt before. She had become everything important in my life, and my mind was completely twisted around at the prospect of losing her. She took in a deep breath and looked up at me.
“Do you mean that?”
“With everything in my, my body, my heart, and my soul,” I said.
She stood up and let out a deep breath, putting her hands in her pockets and walking forward, waiting for me to join her. She finally was calm enough to talk to about all of this, and that was exactly what we did. She asked a lot of questions, some I had answers for and others only her father could answer. I told her the truth about everything, even though it may have made me look bad since before her I was completely career-obsessed and didn’t give a shit about anyone else. Still, that didn’t change the fact that this woman changed my life. We walked and talked all the way back to the Avalon.
