“Is it safe?” her father demanded at once.
“Safe enough. And…” She couldn’t meet their eyes. “Actually, I have a roommate.”
“Another stockbroker?”
“No.”
“One of your friends from school?” her mother said hopefully.
“No. It’s someone I met when I first moved in.” She’d gotten this far. She might as well go for the rest. “It’s a man and I’m very much in love with him. He’s a contractor. He does renovations.”
“Oh, my,” her mother said, waving her napkin to stir a breeze. She did look ready to faint. Gabrielle encouraged her to take a sip of water.
“I’m fine, dear. It’s just that this is such a surprise.”
“Shock would be more like it,” her father growled. “Who is this man? What do you know about him? What’s his family like? I hope you’ve looked at his background very carefully, Gabrielle. A woman in your position can’t be too careful. It would be just like some con artist to take advantage of you because of me.”
“Actually, Paul didn’t even know you were my father until quite recently. He wasn’t wild about it.”
“What!” Her mother was aghast. “Why on earth not?”
“Because he’s a wonderful, sensitive man. He sensed that you would disapprove of him because he’s not rich and powerful. I’d like it very much if you would help me prove him wrong. I’d like you to come to dinner tonight.”
“Like hell we will,” her father said. “I do not condone your living with a man, no matter what his financial status, without being married. It goes against everything I stand for.”
“I’m not asking for your blessing, Daddy,” she said with quiet finality. “This is what I want. You can either accept it or not. It’s your decision. I’ll understand if you feel it would put you in an uncomfortable position politically.”
“Now, Gabrielle,” her mother whispered in a shocked tone, instinctively reaching out to pat her husband’s hand. “Your father is worried about you, not his political career.”
“Then please come tonight,” she said again. “I really think you’ll like Paul, if you give him a chance.”
“Is he keeping you?” her father said bluntly.
Gabrielle swallowed her fury and managed to say politely, “No, Daddy. We’ve started a business together. I’m earning my own way.”
“What kind of business could you possibly do with a contractor?”
“We’ll tell you all about it tonight. Will you be there?”
Her mother cast a look of entreaty toward her father. “Please.”
He sighed heavily, then said with obvious reluctance, “Okay. We’ll be there.”
Once the shock of her news wore off, they spent the rest of the meal catching up on other gossip from home. Gabrielle gave them her address, then went home to prepare a dinner that hopefully would soothe her father into a more receptive mood.
It might have been better, she thought later, if she’d fed him tranquilizers. From the minute her parents walked through the door, the tension was so thick it would have taken an ax to chop through it. Everyone was so incredibly polite, she felt like choking.
Her parents found her apartment quaint. The word was said with a slightly disdainful sniff. Paul congratulated her father on a recent victory in the Senate. She knew it was for a bill with which he violently disagreed, but he kept his own opinion in check. Her mother found Paul charming. That was said with a subtle lift of her eyebrows, meant to be seen only by her father. Naturally Paul saw it as well and the lines of tension around his mouth deepened. And then there were the less than subtle comments about Townsend, how devastated he was over the broken engagement, what a wonderful future he had, how often his family inquired about Gabrielle.
The final blow for Gabrielle came when they pointedly wondered when she’d be coming home to stay. It was as if they hadn’t heard a single word she’d said that morning.
Shocked and infuriated by the blatant rejection of her life with Paul, she said, “I’m not coming home. I thought I’d made that clear this morning.”
“But, dear, you can’t go on living this way,” her mother said, twisting her napkin nervously.
“What way is that, Mrs. Clayton?” Paul said.
Gabrielle heard the restrained fury in his voice and waited for the explosion. Her mother, however, hadn’t been a politician’s wife for thirty years for nothing.
“Paul, it’s not that we don’t appreciate your giving Gabrielle a place to stay,” she said, immediately reducing his status to that of Good Samaritan. “Nor is it that we think your apartment isn’t lovely. You’ve done an interesting job of fixing it up.”
There was that word, Gabrielle thought with a groan. Interesting.
“Actually, your daughter is responsible for the decor,” Paul replied with obvious pride. “She’s becoming quite a success as a decorator.”
Her mother looked startled. Gabrielle shot a guilty look at Paul. “I hadn’t told them about the business yet.”
“I see,” he said heavily.
Gabrielle heard the defeat in his voice, but had no idea how to reassure him short of turning the dinner into a family shouting match. She listened to her father’s patronizing remarks and her mother’s weak attempts to pacify everyone and saw Paul fighting to remain calm.
“Perhaps I’d better leave,” Paul said finally. “I’m sure you have things you’d like to discuss without an outsider present.”
“Paul,” Gabrielle protested helplessly as he grabbed his jacket and strode to the door.
“We’ll talk later,” he said curtly. “Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Clayton.”
Gabrielle watched Paul go and knew the greatest fear she’d ever known, greater than losing her job, greater even than losing her family’s support. And it made her blazing mad, at her parents and most of all at herself. Paul had chosen to act charitably and ignore her parents’ rudeness, rather than fight back. She should have had the courage to defend not only him, but their relationship.
“How dare you?” she said, turning on her parents the minute Paul had left.
“What did we do?” her mother asked in seemingly genuine bewilderment.
“You’ve just spent most of the evening putting Paul down. Putting both of
