dkrc Chapter 362
Chapter 362
At that moment, Richard’s eyebrows lifted slightly and he turned his head briefly toward Penelope with an expression that communicated clearly that his father had just said something worth paying serious attention to. Penelope, who had been hanging on every fragment of the conversation she could piece together, raised her eyebrows back at him questioningly."You have a point, Father," Richard said, turning back to the road with renewed focus. "You actually have a very strong point, and I think you’re absolutely right that this is the direction we should be going." He nodded to himself as the full logic of his father’s strategy unfolded in his mind.
"Because you’re right - even if we successfully prevent her from getting inside the venue on the day, that doesn’t mean she can’t cause disruption and chaos outside. She could create a scene at the entrance, she could draw media attention, she could manufacture some kind of public spectacle right outside the doors that overshadows everything happening inside."
His voice hardened with resolve.
"So yes - removing the problem entirely before the day arrives is absolutely the smarter and cleaner approach. There should be nothing left to chance. Not with what is at stake this time."
Richard glanced over at Penelope again, making brief but meaningful eye contact with her before speaking his next words into the phone.
"I will talk to my wife and get that picture organized and sent directly to you as soon as possible - immediately after I get it, it will be in your hands. You have my word on that."
His father’s response was immediate and unwavering, the three words carrying the full weight of a man who was already poised and ready to act the moment the information arrived.
"I’ll be waiting."
At that moment, the call came to a clean end, and the interior of the Rolls-Royce settled back into its quiet luxury as Richard lowered the phone from his ear and placed it carefully back on the center console. The city lights continued to drift past the windows in soft streaks of gold and white as they moved through the evening traffic, but the atmosphere inside the car had shifted noticeably from what it had been before the call began.
Penelope, who had been sitting through the entire conversation with the focused attention of someone trying to assemble a complete puzzle from only the pieces visible on one side, turned to look at her fiancé with a smile that was equal parts amusement and genuine curiosity. She had caught enough fragments, enough tones, enough changes in Richard’s expression and posture throughout the call to know that whatever had been discussed was significant on multiple levels.
"Well," she said, tilting her head slightly with an elegant raise of her eyebrow, "that conversation certainly seemed to be extremely strategic and very, very technical for the two of you to be going at it with that kind of intensity."
She gestured lightly with one hand, the diamonds on her fingers catching the passing light. "I could feel the weight of it from over here, you know. So what exactly were you two discussing so seriously? Does any of it happen to have something to do with that good-for-nothing girl? Because from the little I could piece together sitting here, it certainly sounded like it did."
Richard glanced at her briefly with a small but confirmed nod.
"Yes," he said simply but directly. "It has everything to do with her. I spoke to my father specifically to make sure that whatever she is planning, whatever scheme she thinks she has put together, it is not going to work. Not even close."
His voice carried the quiet certainty of someone who had just secured a very powerful ally in a fight they were determined to win. "My father is going to personally make sure that nothing she attempts is going to find any success, regardless of how determined or desperate she might be feeling right now."
Penelope nodded with visible satisfaction at that, but Richard wasn’t finished.
"But that wasn’t the only thing we discussed," he continued, and there was a subtle but unmistakable shift in his tone - something that moved from the practical to the genuinely extraordinary. "My father also informed me of something else. Something that I honestly was not expecting to hear tonight at all."
He paused just long enough to give the information the proper weight it deserved.
"A very special guest of honor is going to be gracing our wedding, Penelope. Someone my father has been working toward securing for quite some time now, apparently since before he and my mother even left the country." Richard’s expression carried the look of a man who was still processing the magnitude of the news himself, even as he shared it.
"And according to my father, this particular guest’s presence alone is going to elevate this wedding to a level that goes far beyond anything we originally envisioned. He believes this is going to make our wedding something that is talked about not just in this city, not just in this country, but across the entire world."
He glanced at her again, and the look on his face was one of genuine, barely contained excitement.
"He is really, truly excited about this development in a way I haven’t heard in my father’s voice in a very long time. And he is taking every single aspect of this responsibility very, very seriously."
The effect on Penelope was immediate and electric. Her eyes widened and she straightened up in her seat, and then, unable to contain herself, she brought both hands together in a sharp, delighted clap that rang out crisply in the quiet of the car.
"A special guest?" she exclaimed, her voice pitching upward with pure excitement. "You mean to tell me that somebody really, really big is actually going to come to our wedding? Like actually confirmed?"
Richard smiled at her reaction and shook his head gently but with emphasis.
"Not just somebody really big, Penelope," he corrected her, his voice dropping into something more reverent.
"Somebody mighty. The word big doesn’t even begin to cover who this person apparently is. Somebody genuinely mighty is going to grace our wedding, and honestly I am incredibly excited about it myself." He exhaled with a short laugh of disbelief.
"I really, truly want to know who this person is, because my father spoke about them in a way that I have never heard him speak about anyone before in my entire life."