Chapter 16: The Dinner Invitation
The sun was just beginning to set over the Manhattan skyline, casting a gorgeous golden hue across the floor-to-ceiling windows of my newly assigned executive office.
I was in the middle of reviewing a structural engineering report for the upcoming community center project in Queens when my office phone blinked. I pressed the speaker button.
"Miss Montgomery," my new administrative assistant, Chloe, said politely. "You have a visitor in the lobby. He insists it’s urgent, but he doesn't have an appointment."
"Who is it, Chloe?" I asked, rubbing my temples slightly.
"It's... your father, Mr. Richard Montgomery."
I froze. I hadn't spoken to Richard since the day at the Hamptons gates when he warned me about Victoria’s tabloid stunt.
"Send him up," I said after a brief hesitation. "Bring us two coffees."
Ten minutes later, the heavy glass door of my office clicked open. Richard stepped inside, looking older, smaller, and infinitely more tired than he had at the Regency Hotel. He wasn't wearing his usual tailored Italian suit; instead, he wore a simple, un-pressed woolen sweater and carried his coat over his arm.
"Arya," he said softly, stopping near the edge of my desk. "Your office... it's incredible. I remember when your mother used to use this room as a private lounge for her fashion magazine editors."
"It's an office now, Dad," I replied evenly, not standing up. "People actually work in here."
Richard winced slightly at the coldness in my tone, but he didn't argue. He slowly pulled out the chair opposite my desk and sat down, resting his hands nervously in his lap.
"I didn't come here to ask for favors, Arya," Richard said, his voice cracking slightly. "And I didn't come on behalf of your mother. She... she doesn't even know I'm here."
"Then why are you here, Dad?"
He looked down at the polished wood of the desk. "I came to apologize. A real apology. Not the kind where I tell you to keep the peace or remind you that family is complicated."
I crossed my arms, leaning back in my leather chair. "Go on."
"For twenty-four years, I watched your mother marginalize you," Richard confessed, a tear finally slipping down his weathered cheek. "I watched her push you into the background, steal your achievements, and hand everything we built over to Madison just because Madison knew how to play the victim. And I stayed silent. I told myself it was easier to keep my mouth shut than to stand up to Victoria. I was a coward, Arya. And because of my cowardice, I almost lost my relationship with my only daughter."
I felt a sharp pang in my chest—a sudden mixture of old grief and long-overdue validation.
"You did lose it, Dad," I said quietly. "You don't get twenty-four years of silence back just by showing up in my office with an apology."
"I know," Richard whispered, nodding slowly. "I don't expect you to forgive me. Not today, and maybe not ever. But I wanted you to know... I filed for a legal separation this morning."
I sat up straight in my chair, genuinely shocked. "A separation?"
"I can't live with her anymore, Arya," Richard said, looking up with a firm, exhausted resolve in his eyes. "She’s consumed by bitterness and a level of narcissism that is destroying everything around her. I'm moving into a small apartment downtown. I'm going to counseling. And for the first time in my life, I'm going to stand on my own two feet."
May you like
He stood up slowly, picking up his coat. He didn't ask for money. He didn't ask me to intervene with Grandma Eleanor on his behalf.
"I’m proud of you, Arya," Richard said softly, walking toward the door. "Your grandfather would have looked at you sitting in this chair and known immediately that the future of this family was in the right hands."
