An overprotective father locks his daughter in his office after the quarrel. An hour later he receives a message from his restaurant’s manager that the restaurant is on fire and the stuff is already evacuated. But no one knew she was inside.
Everybody loved Gordon Brown, the owner of the popular restaurant called Gordon Bleu — a restaurant that had become a regular haunt for high profile individuals who wanted to kick back and enjoy a private conversation with a friend or lover.
It was what Gordon liked to call “a safe space.” No paparazzi were allowed beyond the gate, and the patrons could be themselves within the establishment — plus the man could cook.
Gordon was a single father. And like the patrons of his restaurant, he was concerned about his daughter’s safety. So much so that he could overdo it sometimes.
His daughter Lily was 18 years old, but she would always be a little girl to him. She was a good girl who had her mother’s beautiful looks and her father’s intelligent mind.
She studied well and always listened to her father, who raised her independently. He had no other family besides her, so he was very particular about keeping her safe.
His wife had been killed in a mugging, and Gordon had never forgotten. He took security very seriously, and he controlled every step his daughter took to ensure her safety.
Lily’s freedom suffered, but it was a small price to pay to keep her safe. Then one day Gordon discovered she had started lying to him at some point.
She had a friend named Linda a few houses down from theirs, and earlier that week, she had demanded permission to take evening walks with the gentle girl.
He had refused at first. “It’s not safe out there Lily, you can’t go around making unnecessary trips. That’s a one-way ticket to trouble,” he told her.
“Dad we won’t leave the neighborhood, we just want to be able to communicate more and you know her parents, they’re safe,” she had countered.
Gordon would have dismissed her words as he usually did, but somehow he knew she was willing to defy him, so he agreed to let her take the walks.
Gordon noticed that she became happier as a result, and the walks quickly became daily. The day he found out it had all been a lie, the proud father had returned home later than usual, and he had deliberately taken the route Lily took on her walk with Linda.
That day, as he drove by the park in their neighborhood, he caught sight of his daughter, but she was with an older boy, not Linda. He drove to a halt with a screech and stormed out of the car in their direction.
“Who is this?!” he yelled when they noticed him approach.
“Daddy!” she squealed, running to meet him, stopping him from moving closer to the boy she was with. He was shaking on his feet.
“I’m William Wort sir,” he said. “I work as a waiter at your restaurant.” Indeed, William was a poor guy, but that was because he donated all the money he earned for the treatment of his mother.
It made Gordon furious. “How can you date such a poor man?!” he shouted at Lily. “He probably only needs you because I’m your father. Can’t you see he is just using you?”
After that day, Gordon forbade Lily from seeing William. “As for you,” he said, facing William. “Stay away from her if you want to keep working at my restaurant.”
Gordon expected that to end everything, but to his surprise, the following day, Lily showed up at his restaurant, charged straight to his office, and declared that if he would not let her be with the man she loves, then she would leave the house and he would never see her again.
Gordon saw the determination in her eyes, but at the same time, he saw his little child trying to make a decision she would regret.
He was running late for a meeting, and he feared that she would run away with the boy while he was gone, so he locked her in his office, which was on the second floor of the famous restaurant.
“Let me out of here daddy!” she yelled as he walked away hurriedly.
“We’ll talk when I get back, I promise!” he yelled back then made his way to another building five minutes away from his restaurant. He was in talks with the owner and hoped he could get it for a low price to open another restaurant.
Unfortunately, while the meeting dragged on, a fire coincidentally began in his restaurant’s kitchen. Because no one was brave enough to pass through it to reach the fire extinguisher, it spread to the gas tank and triggered a mini-explosion.
Everyone had to get out of the building quickly, but Lily was trapped inside her father’s office. No one knew this, and as she tried to figure out where the smoke was coming from, the fire started spreading very quickly.
At his meeting, Gordon received a message from the restaurant’s manager which read, “There is a fire in the restaurant. We have already evacuated the stuff.” Gordon dropped everything immediately and ran there.
William was the last person to run out of the restaurant, but he heard a familiar voice screaming for help. It was Lily’s.
“Hey, someone is on the second floor!” he yelled, trying to sensitize his colleagues. However, nobody was willing to go back inside the building.
The firemen sirens had become audible, but they still sounded far away, and William knew they would be too late. He ran into the burning building with a deep breath and quickly made his way up to the first floor.
Flames had started eating at the wooden stairs and what could burn in the hallway was already aflame. In desperation, William started attacking the door separating him from his girlfriend, and after a few solid kicks, he felt it give way.
There was a fire blanket in the office, so he quickly covered Lily with it before running with her to the exit. As they escaped, an ambulance and a fire truck pulled onto the scene while William, who had inhaled a lot of smoke, blacked out.
When he woke up, Lily and her father were standing in front of him. “I’d like to ask for your forgiveness,” Gordon said. “Thank you for not abandoning my child despite all I said to you.”
The doting father also added that he now believed that William was someone who could handle the duty of protecting his daughter. “To someone like you, I can definitely entrust my daughter,” Gordon said.
He allowed them to be together and also helped William raise money for his mother’s operation through a fundraiser he organized at his restaurant.
What did we gain from this story?
Avoid being too controlling. Gordon controlled his daughter’s every move, and that was all he was trying to do when he locked her up to attend a meeting. He almost lost her in the process, but thankfully William was there to save the day.
Don’t hesitate to apologize when you’re wrong. As soon as Gordon realized what a protector he had in William, he was quick to apologize for looking down on him and, to atone for his mistake, offered to help him solve the problem of his mother’s ailing health. In the end, everyone was happy.
