Page 61 of The Cowboy and the Bombshell
A grin split my face as I watched Harold, seeing the wheels turning in his head. “You devious old man,” I chuckled. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
He smiled wide at me for a moment, then his face fell. “I think there is a lot we don’t know about each other, Stone.”
I blew out a breath, feeling my chest constrict at the direction this conversation was going, but, if being with Penelope had taught me anything, it was that there was no time like the present. You never knew when your whole world would change, and I had wasted enough time trying to prove a point that didn’t need proving.
My father loved me, regardless of how his relationship with my mother turned out. As a son, I had come to realize that that was enough.
It was time I told him so.
“Harold, I owe you an apology.”
“No, you don’t Stone,” he started, but I raised my hand.
“Yes, I do. I never gave you a chance. What happened between you and mom, that should have stayed between you and her. You never did anything but right by me, and I turned my back on you every time. I am so sorry for that.”
Harold stared at me in open-mouthed shock as I spoke, and by the time I had finished, his face had crumpled, eyes wet as he fought back tears. He took a deep breath, and then another, before he responded.
“I loved your mother. I truly did. When I had to leave Austin, I asked her to come with me, but she refused. She told me she didn’t want to tie her life to a man and not have anything for herself. That she wanted to be someone before she became someone’s other half. I should have respected her for it. Instead, all I saw was a person who wouldn’t do what I wanted, what I thought was best. So, I left, and I left her behind. I thought that my loving her should have been enough for her. It was foolish and impulsive and I have regretted it every day since.
“I thought about her so many times,” he said, his voice catching. “I wanted to see how she was, what she was doing. But I didn’t want to look weak, so I intentionally stayed away. Actively refused anything to do with the Austin location, until I couldn’t make any more excuses. I returned to Austin, and there you were.” His eyes shone with love as he took me in, reaching out to grasp my shoulders, and I took a deep breath of my own.
“I swear to you, Stone, if I had known, I would have been there in a heartbeat. You are everything I could have hoped for in a son, and I could not be prouder to call you mine.” With those words, something inside me shifted, clicking into place where previously there had only been a void, a black hole filled with anger and resentment.
He was proud of me, proud that I was his son.
I wasn’t a mistake.
He wanted me.
I closed my eyes against the tide of emotion battering against my insides, feeling whole and complete in a way I hadn’t realized I needed. When I opened them again, I looked at my father and for the first time, I felt nothing but love. There was none of the resentment, none of the pain that I had spent a lifetime collecting, using it as a shield to hide the broken kid I was.
The broken kid that I made myself into by refusing to accept that what my father’s actions weren’t intended to hurt me. That he had done the best he could, the best I had allowed him to do.
I lifted my hands, shaking slightly with the energy flowing through me, and placed them on Harold’s shoulders, imitating the way he held me. I couldn’t remember a time when we had touched like this, affectionately, and the longer I held on to him, my fingers clawing at his shoulders, the more I realized I had been missing it.
Suddenly, like neither of us could wait a second longer, we wrapped our arms around each other. I stood there, grasping him like a lifeline in a turbulent ocean, and at that moment, there was nothing in the world that could make me let go of him.
My dad.
* * * *
It was the first time I had been to the Pennington Hotel corporate headquarters, and frankly, it was underwhelming. The hotel, the flagship building in the Pennington Empire, was impressive, of course. It was old-world class, the epitome of uptown style and sophistication. Over one hundred years old, the build looked like something out of a fairy-tale, all white and shining in the middle of the typical Manhattan gray. Designed in the French Renaissance style, with gorgeous Corinthian columns lining the entire frontage, each column standing almost three stories tall. The grand limestone steps at the center of the building opened in a sweeping arc to the street and as a result the entire thing looked like it had been picked up from the French countryside and dropped into the Upper East Side. Taking up an entire city block, it contained thirty floors of rooms and suites. Some of the most expensive suites were owned and used like apartments, the occupants taking full advantage of all the amenities of staying at a hotel, but with the ability to put their clothes in the closet permanently.
The top of the building was done in a series of castle-like turrets, topped with domed and faceted roofs of hammered copper, now showing their green patina after so long exposed to the elements. The windows were all of repetitive size and shape, with the top floor showcasing incredible Palladian styled windows, arching dramatically toward the sky.
It was through one of these monster windows that I now watched as the traffic below crawled along, no one looking particularly excited to be going wherever it was they were headed. Couldn’t say I blamed them, with every block looking just like the next, this place truly was a concrete jungle. If it wasn’t for the gorgeous spread of Central Park in front of me, I might start feeling a little claustrophobic. As it was, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of this town. I’d never thought I would miss Las Vegas, but having spent almost a week in the eternal fog that was Manhattan, I was ready for the bright lights of Sin City to welcome be back into their lively embrace.
Turning my back on the view, I faced the boardroom housed on the top floor. Technically, this was more like a mezzanine floor, as the guests were told their penthouse suites were on the top, but this was a taller, and smaller floor, that you couldn’t see from the ground, caged as it was behind the towers with their copper roofs. It provided the executive staff with a nice view, but didn’t take away from the pomp and circumstance of the penthouse guests, because, lord forbid they not feel like they were at the top of the world. But all told, the head office area was probably smaller than the building we had been working from at the back ofThe Alamoproperty for the last few months. But space was always at a premium here in The Big Apple, so the residents didn’t tend to bemoan their small digs the way people in the rest of the country might.
The table in the conference room held a dozen men and woman, with room for more. The board of directors for Pennington Hotels, they were the ones dad called when he needed to make big moves. He may have been the CEO, but the board of directors was in charge of the purse strings, so to speak, and anything that affected the bottom line had to be put to them first.
I’d gotten well acquainted with them over the last four days, to say the least.
Things had happened so quickly, I could hardly believe it myself. Personally, I wanted to march right up to Constance and tell her exactly what I thought of her bullshit behavior, but dad had reasoned with me. In order for this to work, things had to be done correctly, and that meant following protocol. I hated it, because all I wanted to do was get to Penelope, but in order to protect her, protect both of us, this had to be done right.
I was still standing with my back to the window when the door opened again and Constance breezed in, looking for all the world like she owned the place, even though she never would.
And that thought made me inordinately happy.
