“It was good to spend time with your parents at the dinner, even if Gary did crash the party.” He took another sip of his wine.
“And my parents absolutely adore you. Honestly, I’m convinced they’ve always thought of you as part of the family.” She paused. Then grimaced. “I sound like such a hypocrite. I’ve been unfair to your father, haven’t I?”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said. “You’re still in shock. Hell, I’m still in shock.”
“Yeah, but you were so much more welcoming than I was,” she pointed out.
“Heather, he’s my father, not yours. You were only trying to look out for me and, as infuriating as it was, I understand that the tension between you two exists because you care about me,” he said. “But I made my share of mistakes, too. Don’t put all the blame for our strained relationship on
my dad.”
“I guess.” She bit her lower lip. “He’s your father, though. So, even if you didn’t reach out to him for all these years, as the parent he should have been the one to get in touch with you to try to mend things. I wouldn’t expect Finn to try to reach out to Gary.”
“You wouldn’t, but Finn is just a child,” he said. “Anyway, my father was the one who reached out, remember? Sure, it’s taken him years to do it, but he finally did it. That has to count for something.”
“You’re right. If your dad is going to put in the effort, then so am I.” She frowned. “I’m just worried that the differences between you could bring back a lot of pain for you, Simon. I understand that you don’t want to go over the details of that last fight you two had, so I’m not going to pry. It just seems like the fight was extremely painful and personal for you. I can’t help but wonder if you guys argued about the career path you had decided to take. The fight was around the time you had just started college, right?”
Simon might have kept the details of the fight to himself to prevent her from having an even worse opinion of his father, but she was remarkably perceptive. He and his dad had fought about his career and about money, and Dover. “Yeah, the fight was partially about me branching out and leaving home for college in California.”
“Well, if that was the reason, maybe you could invite your dad for a tour of Dover,” she suggested.
“Heather, that’s a brilliant idea,” he said.
She beamed. “It could give you both a chance to talk. And you’d be somewhere you’re comfortable and you’ll have so much to talk about since you love talking about your work. Doing a tour would go a long way in impressing him.”
The more she talked about it, the more he liked the idea. “You could take the tour with us,” he said. “You’ve done so well at Dover in such a short time, I’m sure my dad would love to talk to you about the company.”
“Oh.” She hesitated, her brow furrowing as she thought things over. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I don’t want to intrude while you two catch up and get to know each other.”
“You wouldn’t be intruding,” he insisted. “Besides, I’m still worried things might get awkward between me and my dad after all these years, so it would be good to have you close.”
“Okay, I’ll come along for the tour,” she said with a nod. “When do you want to invite him to come down to Dover?”
“Next Monday, if he can take time off for a long lunch,” Simon said. “We can do a tour and have lunch together.”
“Don’t forget, Monday is the day a producer from the documentary crew swings by to make an introduction,” she said.
He groaned, remembering that Heather had told him about the introduction a few days earlier. “I had totally forgotten about that. Why is that even necessary? I haven’t actually agreed to do the documentary anyway.”
“I think the producers are trying to charm you into agreeing to do it,” she said. “That’s why they want to meet you. Anyway, it’s nothing formal. It’s just a chat that I’ve made sure won’t last longer than half an hour.”
Simon groaned again. Even when he didn’t actually agree to the board’s ideas, they had a way of badgering him with their strong-arm tactics. “Fine. Just make sure the producers don’t bump into my father. I’d rather not have these producers get a look at my personal life.”
She pursed her lips and cast him a knowing glance. “Even if the producers don’t see your father on Monday, if they go ahead with the documentary they’ll be asking your father questions.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Making nice with the media means letting them get a little glimpse of your personal life. Which means they will definitely want to get details about your childhood from your father.”
Chapter 6
The remainder of the weekend went by, and every moment she spent with Simon was wonderful. By the time they headed back into the city early Monday morning, she was refreshed enough to feel confident about taking on the upcoming week.
His father had agreed to take the tour, plus one of the potential producers of the documentary was going to visit Dover headquarters. After a quick stop at her place to make sure Finn had made it to school with his classmate’s parents, she got back into the car with Simon and they were off to work.
Their morning was uneventful, until it was time for lunch and they headed downstairs to the lobby to meet his father.
Onslow glanced around the gleaming lobby, his blue eyes lighting up as he took in the pristine marble that decorated Dover’s entrance.