Recipe for Temptation - Gina Gordon Page 0,65
on her brother for her entire life. The look of a man seeking approval.
“Tell me something, Dave.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Does it make you happy doing everything Dad tells you to do? He wanted you to be a teacher, so you did. He wanted you to play football. So you did. He wanted you to get married and have a family. And you did.” She held out her hand, gesturing to Beth, who now paced the edge of the pit with Hannah in her arms.
“You think that just because I didn’t follow the path Dad wanted me to that I’m unsuccessful. You tease me. You dismiss me and my work.” She choked back tears. “I’ll have you know Cole and his brothers help thousands of kids a year, Dad. In different ways than you do, but they’re changing lives just like you are. All of my work, everything I do, supports their efforts. So I am helping kids. I am making a difference. But I’m doing it my own way. Not yours.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be a drone. A damn carbon copy of the rest of you.”
When this was all over, she was going to have to apologize to Pete and Christine. She didn’t have the same harsh feelings about them as she did the rest of her family, even though Pete had toed the Foster line his entire life.
She just hadn’t been able to swallow the identity pill that would make her exactly like the rest of them. She wanted to do something completely different. Achieve it all on her own. On her own merit and determination. Which was why her job with the Madewood family was so important. Which was why, if she got a spot on the board, she didn’t want it to be tainted because people found out she’d had a sexual relationship with Cole.
“Are you quite finished making a scene?” Her father looked behind him. Probably making sure that no one was paying attention to her inappropriate outburst. But the only people on the beach were a few couples who were too engrossed in each other to care about her freak out.
She narrowed her eyes, thinking about it, staring at the blank faces of most of her siblings. She’d said her piece. She’d tried. The ball was now in their corner.
With a heavy breath, she grabbed one of the s’mores sticks and began poking the fire. “Yes, thank you.”
“What I don’t understand is where this is all coming from,” her mother said, shooting a disapproving look at her father. Interesting.
“It was the only way to make you actually listen.”
Which was true, but it had everything to do with being angry that she’d fucked up with Cole. His departure was the straw that broke the camel’s back, forcing her to be true to herself.
“You all know nothing about me. Yes, it’s my own fault. I should have told you I was changing. But I didn’t dare, because I was afraid of being criticized or laughed at, and—” She’d hidden herself from her family out of fear. “I was afraid that you wouldn’t love me anymore.”
“That’s preposterous,” her father scoffed.
“Not entirely, dear,” her mother responded.
The stick Penn was holding caught on fire when she froze at her mother’s words.
“What are you saying?” Her father had a furious look on his face.
Penn shoved the stick into the sand, putting out the flame, and quickly returned to the scene between her parents.
“You made it very clear that if any one of our children didn’t excel at sports or follow in your footsteps, they weren’t good enough. You showered our sons with love and affection because they could throw a ball through a hoop. But Pennelope? Not so much.”
Penn still couldn’t shoot a free throw to save her life. And the surfing fiasco the other day had proven her aversion to water sports was warranted.
“I—” Her father gaped. “That’s not—”
“Forty years. We’ve been married for forty years, and I have always stood by you. But I’ve always thought you pushed the children too hard.”
Penn looked over at Pete. His face was frozen in shock.
Her mother sighed. “They all seemed to like competition. Thrived on it. So I never questioned your methods. But apparently that wasn’t really the case.” She turned to Penn. “I thought you were happy, Pennelope. If I’d known you weren’t, I would have spoken up years ago.”
She stared blankly at her mother. She appreciated the support, if