Page 15 of Insatiable Bachelor (Bachelor Tower 1)
Quietly calling her name, I make my way through the apartment with her purse still clutched in my hand.
“Dalton?” Penny calls from the bedroom in a sleepy, far-off sounding voice.
“Yeah,” I reply not wanting her to be scared. Leaning against the doorjamb of her bedroom, I take in the masterpiece that is her small body curled on her bed. She’s half covered by her blanket, and I cross the room to fix that. There’s room for two under the plush pink covers, but I know better. There’s no way in hell I can get that close to her silky skin and not nibble my way up and down her body. My self-control is at an all-time low, and it’s fucking with my head.
Instead I lay her purse down by her side as her breathing falls to a steady rhythm that tells me she’s out cold. Slipping out of her room I close the door and then I’m . . . alone. Pictures of her and her sister when they were kids already line the fireplace mantel.
Reluctantly I move in closer, curious to know if Penny’s bright, magnetic smile has always been the same. My eyes run across the images, and her stories ring true. Even as a little girl, her sister, Kylie, looks like she’s all business. Penny is a mess of tangled hair and ripped jeans in most of the photographs. She’s the quintessential image of a fun, carefree childhood. Kylie is only in pictures with her mother and Penny only with her father. There is a clear and distinct line that divides them, and it’s painfully apparent just as Penny said.
I shake my head, pushing out the psycho-babble bullshit that has nothing to do with me. Her drama is not mine to care about. I have ten voicemails from my own father I’ve put off listening to for the last couple weeks.
Turning away from the mantel, I nearly topple over the small table she’s moved next to couch. Stacked on it are a couple magazines and some documents. Listening to see if she’s stirring, I rifle through the papers. Now I’m officially prying. Soon I’m holding her lease in my hand.
Before she came here I would’ve known exactly what to do with it. In the hands of a powerhouse New York attorney, this lengthy lease agreement could be manipulated to evict Penny easily and quickly.
The document is still in my hands as I let myself out of Penny’s apartment and lock the door behind me. She’s too trusting for her own good. Too sweet. My impulse to protect is taking over my rational thinking. Something in my brain is going haywire.
That becomes even more apparent the next morning when I meet with a few of the best men and women on my legal team. I slide the copies of the lease over to them and lay out my expectations. I want it gone over with a fine-tooth comb. I want to know every weakness, every loophole, anything that could be exploited.
A battle is coming, and I can only plan my counterattack by knowing every single weakness we have.
We? I’ve never aligned myself with anyone.
The word strikes me hard.
One of my lawyers wants to know what steps I want them to take if they find a loophole. I tell them to tell me immediately then just sit on the information.
I don’t have a plan for what to do next. I’m still stumbling over the we.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dalton
“Do you need another ride?” I ask as Penny crosses the lobby to catch up to me. I don’t bother looking like her request would bother me. She’ll see right through me, as she seems to be able to do, and I’ll admit it—I’m beginning to look forward to the time we spend together. I live on a razor’s edge of adrenaline in order to push myself toward success, but when I’m with Penny after work, as we have been the last three nights, I feel calmer. Whatever we’re doing together feels important—that’s the only way I can describe it.
“I’ve got to go back to my dad’s.” Penny sighs, and I can tell something is on her mind. Of course she’s still smiling, but I read into the little crinkle she gets between her brows.
“Is he sick?” I ask, gesturing to the waiting car ready to take me to the office. She doesn’t specifically ask me for a lift and I don’t directly offer one, yet she hops in and my heart races. She has her reservations about me, but when push comes to shove—she chooses me, just as I choose her.
“He’s losing his business,” she says, gulping back emotion. “He’s been losing it for the last twenty years, but this time I think it’s really beyond his grasp. He can’t fix it now.”
“What business is he in?”
“He owns an employment agency,” Penny says as we settle into the back of the sleek black car. “I have a hard time calling it a business. He basically runs a charity, which is wonderful, but acts of kindness don’t pay the bills.”
“Has he tried—?”
“Don’t bother.” She sighs. “I’m convinced he doesn’t want to fix the business. I’m not saying he wants to lose it, but he is dead set against being a sellout.”
“He doesn’t want to make money? I’m not sure I’ve heard that before.”
“My father is what you would call a free spirit. And do you know who doesn’t appreciate a free spirit? The IRS. Or the bank.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“I’m a lot like him. We’re simple creatures who try to live our passions and be happy. But he’s never been able to keep the business running on his own. My sister normally swoops in and fixes everything when it gets bad, but she told him the last time would be it. That was two years ago, and she’s sticking to her guns. They aren’t even speaking.”
“Isn’t your sister loaded?”
“She is,” Penny replies in a faraway voice, and I brush her fallen hair off her cheeks. It’s intimate, and it makes me yearn for more. I have to touch her.
“My father was never willing to take her money though. She’d come in and help negotiate his debts. Talk to the banks. Raise the prices on his services. But none of that is sustainable. He cuts everyone a deal, people who are down on their luck. He’d bumble it up and then find himself right back where he always is. He has the biggest heart, but I guess sometimes that’s not enough. Now he’s just living in a hot mess.”
“Hey, that was my father’s second residence too. Maybe they’re neighbors.” I laugh, trying to make her smile. I’m not good at this—trying to make someone feel better. I don’t let my father’s failures impact my emotions, but I can relate to having one who screws up a lot.
“I try to help him, but I’m hopeless at that stuff. I’m just like him. Maybe too much.”
“I thought you loved
your Bohemian lifestyle. Carrying your own groceries, cooking your own meals. Roughing it.”
“For the record,” she says, looking over at me with a silly grin, “those are not novel ideas that make me some kind of hippie. Most people handle their own stuff. But watching my dad lately, I’ve had to take a good look at my own life. There’s a chance I’ve taken some things to the extreme. I’ve had some really promising job opportunities over the years, and I’ve turned them down. I’ve had success at my fingertips and intentionally let it slip away.”
“Intentionally?”
She’s quiet for a moment then shrugs. “When my parents split up, my sister aligned herself with my mother very early on. They looked at my dad and his silly failing business as if he were a fool. He barely had enough money to get by. My mother was a corporate executive when very few women were. She was a fighter. Exhausted. Driven. Laser focused. To them, my father was an embarrassment. They didn’t count his happiness as a currency. So I picked his team. And I was all in. I love a lot about my life and my principles, but sometimes I wonder if I’ve let my allegiance to my father drive too many of my choices. I wonder if I refused to work any places where I thought it would make my mother or sister proud. If I was on their side, wouldn’t that mean I wasn’t on my father’s? It’s pretty twisted.”
“Not really,” I say, shifting on the seat so I can face her. “Half the shit I’ve done in my life was to spite my father. Who cares what the motivation is, as long as you end up where you want? Are you where you want to be?”
“I’m not sure,” she admits, nibbling on her lip. “I’m still trying to figure that out. I want to be free, but I also want to be stable. If I’d have been a little more like my sister I could be helping him out right now. Not knowing what to do for him scares me—and makes me sad.”
Damn. Vulnerability. My goal was to get her to admit she isn’t all sunshine and lollipops, and look what it gets me. I don’t do sad and I stopped letting fear win a long time ago. I deal in facts and problems with clear cut decisions. Emotions cloud what should be simple. Any solution I offer her won’t be something she wants to hear. I could find him an investor. I could loan him some money. How much could it really cost to keep something that small going?
