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I could see how shocked she was, but she hadn’t put two and two together yet.
“Yes. He did,” I said slowly.
“Okay, so what does that have to do-,” Hope started and then stopped.
She didn’t look at me right away, but her eyes got a faraway look. I could see her mind going as she took it all in. I wanted to reach out and take her hand. I wanted to beg her to tell me what she was thinking, but I had to sit back and wait until she was ready to tell me.
“I had no idea that he was doing that to us. If I had any clue he was trying to set us up, I never would have come up to you at the bar. I never would have asked you out. I want to be with you, I love you. You’re everything that I’ve ever wanted in life, but I didn’t want you this way. I never meant for you to be deceived. You have no idea how sorry and angry I am about this, and you have every right to be too. I just hope that one day you can forgive me and my father for putting you through this,” I said.
Hope didn’t answer me but stood up and walked over to the window. I could see her looking out over the city, seeing it aglow in the evening lights. Her shoulders were relaxed and she didn’t look tense at all, but that didn’t help me to know what she was thinking.
“Are you saying that your father made sure that you were at The East that night so that you would see me and Bash together?”
“Yes,” I answered honestly.
“How did he know that Bash and I were going to be there?”
“He had a meeting with Bash earlier in the day and suggested it was a good place to impress a woman. I don’t know the whole story, but if I know my father, he would have been very persuasive about suggesting he meet you there.”
“So, he had dinner with you at The East with the sole purpose of you seeing me with Bash, hoping that you would get jealous enough to come and talk to us?”
“Something like that, yes. I’m sorry it happened this way. I wanted to ask you out for years. I had thought that the right situation would eventually present itself. I couldn’t when I was mentoring you and then you were busy with school. When I saw you and Bash there and you looked so distraught, I just had to step in. The rest felt like fate, until I realized it wasn’t.”
“Did your father know how you felt about me?” She still hadn’t turned around to look at me.
“Yes. Apparently, I was pretty obvious about it.”
“Well, it wasn’t obvious to me.”
She turned back to look at me and had a lopsided grin on her face. The smile caused my heart to skip a beat and for me to think she wasn’t too upset.
“Good. That makes me feel a little bit better, but he shouldn’t have done that to you or to me. I’m sorry he did.”
“I’m not,” Hope said.
“You aren’t?” I asked.
“Well, look at it from my perspective.”
I leaned back on the couch and smiled at her. “I thought I was, but enlighten me.”
Immediately, I saw our future. One where we sat in a living room like mine and we talked things out. Where our kids learned that a marriage was about supporting and helping the other out, listening and learning from your partner. I had done all that and more with Hope.
“Your father, Remy Bennett. Owner and former CEO of Bennett Liquors. A multi-billion-dollar man, choose me. Me! Out of all the other women out there in the world to be with his eldest son.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. She wasn’t angry; in fact, she was helping me to see that maybe my father did have my best interest at heart, and I shouldn't be so upset with him.
“Well, technically, I picked you. Look at you, any man would be lucky to have you in their life, much less their bed. Am I going to be that lucky?”
“Do you want to be?”
“Lucky? I think I’m the luckiest man alive every time I get to look at you, take you out to dinner, much less hold or kiss you. Do I want to continue that luck and have you in my life, in my bed, for as long as you will have me? Absolutely. Will you let me?”
“What would you have done if I told you I was upset with your father? If I had been hurt that he had pushed us together? If I had said I couldn’t stand being around you and your family because you were all liars?”
“I would be devastated. I would hate that I finally got to be with the woman I love only to lose her, but I would understand, and I would leave you be. Only for a little while. I would find a way to get back to you. I wouldn’t give up on us or on us being together. No matter how long it took.”
My eyes locked on hers and I waited to see what she would say. After a moment when she didn’t say anything, I asked. “Is that how you see it?”
