Chapter 16: Simon's Surrender
The study door closed behind Simon with a soft, definitive click. The sound seemed to echo in the sudden quiet, louder than his admission had been. Matt stood frozen, his hand still tingling from the firmness of Simon’s handshake. The man’s grip had been steady, but his eyes were a shattered window.
Dee was a statue beside him, one hand pressed to her mouth. Her eyes were fixed on the empty space where her father had just stood.
“Did that just happen?” Matt’s voice was rough, disbelieving.
“I think so.” Dee lowered her hand, letting out a shaky breath. She turned in a slow circle, taking in the room—the dying fire, the empty whiskey glass, the ghost of her father’s presence in the worn indentation of his leather chair. “He looked… broken.”
“He looked human.” Matt moved to her, slipping an arm around her waist. He pulled her close, feeling the slight tremor running through her. “It cost him. Saying that.”
“I know.” She buried her face in his shoulder. The scent of his shirt, clean cotton and the salt air from Malibu, was a tangible anchor. “He asked for forgiveness. He actually said the words.”
They stood like that for a long moment, listening to the hollow tick of a grandfather clock in the hall. The victory felt pyrrhic, shrouded in the melancholy of a dynasty’s gentle collapse. The war was over before it truly began, and the silence it left was disorienting.
“He needs time,” Dee murmured, repeating his words. “He excused himself from the wedding planning.”
Matt chuckled, a low, warm sound. “Probably for the best. Can you imagine him and Lara Cho in a room arguing over floral arrangements? It’d be like NATO negotiations.”
A genuine laugh burst from Dee, surprising them both. It broke the solemn spell. She pulled back, swiping at the corner of her eye. “God, you’re right. He’d want to contractually oblige the peonies to bloom on schedule.” She took his hand, her fingers lacing tightly with his. “Let’s go home. I never want to smell this much mahogany and regret again.”
The drive back to Malibu was a decompression. The oppressive, cloistered atmosphere of the Bel Air study evaporated, replaced by the wide-open blast of the Pacific breeze through the car windows. Dee kicked off her shoes and put her feet on the dash.
“So,” she said, tilting her head back against the seat. “We have my father’s blessing. Sort of. Conditionally. With a side of profound emotional trauma.”
“The Waldorf family special,” Matt agreed, shifting gears. “Still tastes better than his outright opposition.”
“True.” She was quiet for a mile, watching the cliffs blur past. “He hugged me. He hasn’t hugged me like that since I was a kid. It was… he meant it. The apology.”
Matt reached over and squeezed her knee. “I know he did. It doesn’t make it easy, but it makes it real.”
When they walked into the Malibu house, the sun was high, bouncing off the ocean and filling the space with a blinding, clean light. It felt like crossing a border into a different country. Their country. Dee went straight to the kitchen island—the same one from that golden morning two weeks prior—and hoisted herself up to sit on it, as if reclaiming the territory.
“Okay,” she announced, slapping her palms on her thighs. “Enough heavy. We are officially, weirdly, blessedly allowed to be happy. So. Be happy with me.”
Matt leaned against the counter opposite her, a slow smile spreading across his face. “What did you have in mind, Ms. Waldorf?”
“First, I’m starving. We skipped lunch for that dramatic confrontation. Second…” She bit her lip, a mischievous glint in her hazel eyes. “We have a wedding to vaguely think about. And Mike Nichols might be joking, but Lara sent six emails while we were driving. Six. Including one from Vogue.”
“Vogue?” Matt raised an eyebrow.
“They want a conversation about an exclusive. A ‘couples’ portfolio.’” She made air quotes. “I told Lara to hold them off. Indefinitely.”
“Good.” He pushed off the counter and stepped between her knees, his hands settling on her hips. “No portfolios. No exclusives. We give them the ceremony, one clean shot, and that’s it. The rest is for us.”
“Deal.” She leaned forward and kissed him, a sweet, lingering promise. “Now about that food. I’m thinking something profoundly unhealthy. Something my father would deem ‘career-suicide for the gut.’"
“Burritos?” Matt suggested.
“Perfect.”
They ate oversized, messy burritos on the terrace, laughing as guacamole dripped onto the slate tiles. They talked about nothing—a ridiculous movie they’d seen separately, a dog they’d watched struggle with a skateboard on the beach walk earlier. The conversation was light, buoyant, a deliberate shedding of weight.
Later, as the sun began to dip, painting the sky in violent streaks of orange and purple, they moved to the couch. Dee curled into his side, her head on his chest.
“It’s quiet,” she said.
“It is.”
“No buzzing phone. No impending sense of doom.”
“Just the ocean.” He stroked her hair. “And us.”
She was silent for so long he thought she’d fallen asleep. Then she spoke, her voice soft but clear. “I found the envelope. The one from Germany that fell on the floor that morning.”
Matt’s hand stilled. “The sealed one?”
“Yeah. I opened it last week.” She tilted her head back to look at him. “It was a formal job offer. Head of European Distribution for a major studio. Based in Berlin. They’d been trying to reach me for months.”
The information landed, a small, cold stone in the pit of his stomach. He kept his expression neutral. “What did you say?”
Dee smiled, a true, easy smile that reached her eyes. “I wrote them a very polite ‘thanks, but no thanks’ email the same day. Told them I’d found a permanent position stateside. Much better benefits.” She poked him in the ribs.
The relief was a physical warmth flooding his chest. He tightened his arm around her. “Berlin’s loss.”
“Absolutely.” She snuggled closer. “This is my distribution channel now. You. This view. The occasional burrito.”
He laughed, the sound rumbling in his chest under her ear. The future, for the first time, felt less like a battleground and more like a horizon—vast, open, and uniquely theirs. The last embers of the old life, the one ruled by silent mandates and a father’s fear, were cooling in a Bel Air hearth miles away.
Here, there was only the steady rhythm of the waves, the gentle cadence of their breathing, and the solid, unquestionable reality of her in his arms. The path ahead was clear. They would walk it together.