Page 14 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

You pompous ass. "Yes, a good thing," I said firmly.

"I founded my first tech company when I was 22 years old.

Right after I graduated with honors from Harvard University.

Blive Tech International. Maybe you've heard of it?

It's a publicly traded Fortune 500 company.

Well, I sold it last year for 2.8 billion dollars.

I don't need to work another day in my life.

Your daughter, our future children, and our grandchildren won't need to work a day in their lives if they don't want to." I can’t breathe. I pushed my chair back under the table and looked down at Penny. Please can we leave? I couldn’t be here anymore. I felt like it was my mother sitting across the table from me seething. I can’t breathe.

Penny grabbed my hand and the air filled my lungs again. She nodded at me. "I think we should probably go."

She was choosing me. She was the only person in my life who’d ever chosen me.

I’d always felt…abandoned. And a piece of me hadn’t expected her to do it.

A part of me still had trouble trusting anyone.

But now? I didn’t have a single doubt in my mind.

Penny meant everything to me. And I’d do my best to be everything for her.

"Wait," her mom said, breaking her silence. "A break from what, James? Why did you need to start over?"

Because I wanted to kill myself. I took another deep breath.

I didn’t think adding suicidal thoughts to my list of qualities was a good idea right now.

"I felt empty in New York. I needed a fresh start.

Teaching helped with that. I wish that the circumstances had been different.

But Penny is my fresh start. She made me feel whole again. "

"I do understand," her mom said. She looked at her husband. "Penny was right. We were her age when we fell in love. I'd like to think that if the circumstances were different for us, we'd still be together. Please don't go, Penny." She gave her husband a pleading look. "Peter, say something."

"So that means your last name is Hunter?" her dad asked.

So he did know about me? "Yes."

He sighed and sat down. "James Hunter, the founder of Blive Tech International. I didn't realize you had taken a sudden career change into teaching."

"I needed the change."

"You know, I actually own stock in your company."

"You do?" I remembered him talking about stocks the first time we’d met. He’d called Tesla Tesller. I wondered how he was going to start butchering the name of Blive Tech…

Her father nodded. He put his hands together on the table and looked down at them for a second. "I'm sorry. It's just...Penny's our baby." He didn't look angry anymore. He just seemed…sad.

"I know," I said. "I understand that you're just trying to protect her. And I truly am sorry about how this happened."

"You can't really understand until you've had children of your own."

We were both silent for a second. I could accept his apology.

And it seemed like he accepted mine too.

The tension was slowly seeping out of the room.

I was really glad I hadn’t said the thing about Penny being a good little slut for me out loud earlier.

Or we probably wouldn’t have reached this moment.

"So, your relationship was written about in the paper?" her mom asked.

"Yes, there was an article in the paper this morning," I said. "If you read it, you should know that it is not accurate."

"What do you mean?"

"It's mostly from my ex-wife’s point of view. And it implies that there will be charges of sexual misconduct from other students I've had. And from Penny. That's not the case."

"Okay." Mrs. Taylor took a deep breath. "What happens now?"

I ran my hand through my hair. "It's really up to Penny. I've advised her to drop Comm. Unfortunately, the way that the information was leaked about our relationship does not make it easy going forward."

"I think it'll all die down if I ignore it,” Penny said. “I just want things to go back to normal.”

Normal? She really had no idea how hard this was going to get. The camera crew outside my apartment wasn’t going away anytime soon. Neither were the rumors spreading around campus.

"This whole thing has been blown out of proportion because of my name,” I said. “Under other circumstances, it would not have gotten as much press as it has already. Normalcy is a long way off."

"So you resigned because of the allegations?" Mr. Taylor asked.

"They gave me the option to stay if I was willing to terminate my relationship with Penny. I wasn't willing to do that. Resigning was the only option."

"That's very romantic," her mom said.

I smiled. I wasn’t sure if it was romantic.

It was just what needed to be done. Because there was no way I was walking away from this girl.

I squeezed Penny’s hand and then pulled her chair back out for her.

Now that everyone had calmed down, we needed to stay and answer any more questions they had.

Her parents understood. Love was love. All the messy details didn't really matter.

And I felt so relieved, like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest. We both sat back down.

"And if things can't proceed as normal, what then?" her dad asked.

"Honestly, I'm not sure what the backlash is going to be like," I said. "The blame for this lies on me, not Penny. It is my understanding that the University of New Castle will make that clear. If things don't go smoothly, she can always apply for different schools next semester."

“Mom, Dad, it's going to be fine. I went to class this morning and it wasn't even that bad."

I glanced down at her. Not that bad? She’d practically been in tears. I didn’t know what exactly had happened in class, but it certainly hadn’t been good. That was Comm though. Hopefully her other classes would be better.

"Unfortunately we both need to get to work,” her mother said. “Are you sure we can't get you to stay for dinner?"

"No, we need to get back,” Penny said.

"Okay." Mrs. Taylor looked over at her husband.

"Do you mind if we talk to Penny alone for a second?" her dad asked.

"Of course." I stood up. Honestly, I was relieved to be excused. "I'll be outside." I put my hand on Penny’s shoulder for a second and then walked out of the kitchen. I closed the front door behind me and took a deep breath.

That could have gone worse. I guess. I took another deep breath and sat down on the front step. I was glad it was done.

I pulled out my phone. I had a million missed calls from Ian. Fuck, what now?