CHAPTER NINETEEN
AURORA
––––––––
“I ’m going to explode .” I hold my hand against my stomach and carry my plate to the kitchen sink. Parker follows, putting the dishes in the dishwasher, then we both head into the living room.
I collapse onto the sofa while he sits on an armchair opposite me. I’m still getting used to living in Mom’s apartment and thought it was pretty fancy until I went to Parker’s last night. I’ve never stepped foot in such a beautiful home.
“My view isn’t anywhere near as nice as yours.” I smile.
“It’s better than the one you had.” He chucks his phone on the coffee table between us.
“That’s for sure.” I sigh.
It feels as if we’ve turned a corner in our relationship and that it could get serious. Clearly, I’m not a wealthy woman. After paying Mom’s latest utility bill, my savings were vastly stripped, so I won’t be able to hide it for much longer.
Parker isn’t dating me for my money, but I need him to know I am cash poor. Until after probate.
That could take months or longer.
I hope not.
“I don’t know how long I can keep this place. If I don’t get access to her funds, I will have to move out...I don’t really know how these things work.”
I blush with embarrassment.
“If you need a good lawyer, let me know,” Parker replies with little expression.
I guess he wasn’t expecting a fashion retailer merchandiser to be rolling in cash.
“Thanks,” I reply, knowing I can’t afford a good lawyer but grateful he didn’t seem to care.
I was hoping that moving in and spending time among my mother’s things would make me closer to the woman I never really knew.
Stupid really.
Now I learn she wasn’t even Mary-Anne Whitlock.
A few days ago, I found a diary in her bottom drawer. Excited, I sat cross-legged on the floor and began reading.
The entries were brief and a little coded. She’d shortened words into just a few letters, as if writing was laborious for her.
It did hint to her being aware she had health issues. Not that strokes give all that much warning.
Another pain in my arm today. Should go to the doctor. I will do it on Monday. Another argument with A. If only she knew everything. How much I wanted her. What I did to get her.
Huh? It didn’t take much guessing to figure out that I was A . But had she done IVF? It sounded like she had trouble conceiving. I’d assumed all these years that I was a one-night stand if my father wasn’t around.
Recently I’d found a photo in her wallet of a man and tried to grab it from her.
“Who’s this?”
Mom rarely dated. There’d been a lot of men—mostly groups of them—in and out of our home. She never called any of them her boyfriend.
Seeing a photo of one in her wallet caught my attention.
“Aurora! Give that back.”
I stood up from the seat and stared at the image, not letting her grab it out of my hand. The photo was old. Mom must’ve been thirty, thereabouts, and the man had his arm around her.
“Oh, my god. Mom, is this my dad?”
She launched at me and snapped it out of my hand. “Not every man I speak to is your father, for god’s sakes.”
Her comment had been cruel and hurtful. I’d asked a few times, but this was evidence of a man who meant something to her. I deserved to know and had a right to ask.
“Maybe if you told me who he is, or admitted you don’t know, then I could drop it.” I snapped back.
Mom made a big fuss about putting the wallet back in her Chanel handbag and zipped it up, then glared at me.
“Drop it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I have a right to know who my father is. Just tell me!”
“We’ve had this conversation a thousand times. You do not have a right, and I am not obligated to tell you.”
The pain is hard to describe. The one person who held the secret to a part of your identity was purposely hiding that information. Knowing that it hurt you.
“God, I hate you! Just tell me. Is he famous? Rich? Come on, Mom. What if I promise to never speak to him?” I pleaded, desperate.
The familiar shadow that crossed her eyes, as it had many times, appeared. I knew she’d shut the conversation down.
It was like I knew she’d never tell me.
Not as long as she lived.
And I was right.
“I’m not going to warn you again. Stop asking questions. Some answers should never see the light of day,” Mom warned. “Now I need to get ready, so see yourself out.”
That was the last time I saw her.
“Did you grow up here?” Parker asks, snapping me back to the present.
“No. Mom purchased this home a few years ago, but I grew up in New York. I actually didn’t know my mom was rich.” Then I remember I’m talking to a billionaire. “Well, you know, rich-ish.”
Parker frowns and tilts his head curiously.
“I don’t understand. This is a multi-million-dollar property, Aurora. You didn’t know she had this type of money?”
I shake my head.
“Did she win it? Inherit it?” he asks.
I shrug.
He lifts his ankle to his knee. “You didn’t ask?”
I draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Mom was very secretive. She never told me who my father was. I was homeschooled until college and before that, who I socialized with was very controlled.”
His eyes widen.
“I don’t know why.”
Those blue eyes watch me, and I hate the judgment he’s carefully hiding. This is where I share more, but there isn’t more, so I smile sadly and wait for him to realize I’m just a shell of a person.
Suddenly a kind of insanity comes over me and I snort.
“Not much of a catch, am I? No career goals, fuzzy childhood memories, and no father.”
Parker blinks, casts his eyes around the penthouse, and then returns to me.
“Is that what you think of yourself?”
“It’s what I know. It’s all I know.” My eyes fill before I can stop them.
His hands grip the arms of the chair as if stopping himself from crossing the room to soothe me.
I want him to.
But...I also don’t. It’s such a stupid thing to get upset about. Boo-hoo, I was homeschooled and don’t have a dad. Many kids have much worse lives.
Mom told me she loved me once or twice, but...I don’t...it didn’t feel like she was telling the truth. It never felt real.
My control breaks, and suddenly tears are pouring down my face.
“Fuck.” Parker is across the space in seconds, pulling me into his arms.
“Sorry.” I sob against his solid, warm chest and close my eyes. Nothing in the world has made me feel as safe as his arms. It’s wrong to let my guard down so early into this relationship, but my feelings for him are growing.
Yes, he’s insanely possessive and rough with me in bed, but if I’m honest, it makes me feel like I belong.
With him.
And I want that.
“Tell me. Tell me about her.” Parker repositions himself so his arm is around me as I nestle into his warm body.
What can I tell him?
There’s only one honest answer.
“I don’t think she loved me.” I confess for the first time out loud.
––––––––
PARKER
––––––––
T HAT WASN’T AT all what I thought she was going to say. My interpretation of Aurora's life, from my perspective as a boy taken to Mary-Anne’s home, was that she was loved and cherished.
She was protected from what was going on in the other parts of her home and looked to live a golden life.
If I hadn’t spent the last few weeks with Aurora, I’d be rolling my eyes at the Manhattan princess, telling her to call a shrink.
But things are not adding up.
Knowing that she’s not my sister—thank fuck—I start broadening my curiosity. She shared that she was homeschooled and didn’t know who her father was. With all the men I remember floating around, it could’ve been anyone.
“Do you have any details on your father now?”
She shakes her head.
“The stork must’ve delivered me.” She sighs. “Mom wouldn’t tell me. The more I pushed, the angrier she got.”
Angry?
That’s an odd reaction to a child wanting to know who their father is. I brush the hair off her forehead and she sits up straight.
“I used to pretend he was the president or a famous actor. Kevin Costner was my dad at one point.”
I let out a soft chuckle. Then ask a question that is creeping way too close to the entire reason I’m here. “What men were around in your life when you were young?”
Aurora’s gaze darts across the room, like she’s searching for a memory. “A lot. But no one who acted like a dad. Or said he was my dad.”
So she has some memories.
“Define a lot. Did she bring a lot of men home?” I prod.
“No. Not like that. She had a lot of parties.” Aurora answers and my back teeth begin to grind as my heart rate increases. “I wasn’t allowed to join in.”
I force my expression to stay neutral.
The past races to the present as two sets of eyes who have once before gazed up one another revisit it.
“Adult parties,” I say but it’s a question.
“I guess.” Her eyes hold mine when she adds, “But there were other kids.”
Fuck.
She’s meaning me.
Out of the blue, I consider something I never have before. Aurora might’ve been interfered with during that time. Privately. In my child’s mind, I saw her whisked away and kept safe from all the men and women at those parties.
What if she wasn’t?
What if she FUCKING wasn’t?
What if she was the prize at the end of the night or something similarly fucked up. I wrap my arm tighter around her.
This wasn’t the goddamn plan.
Aurora was meant to be a source vengeance for my pain. Now the fire inside me has fuel poured on it and the need to hunt down every single one of those fuckers and rip their throats out is a million-fold.
Then I’ll exhume her mother and cut her up into tiny pieces. Piss on her and burn her while laughing at her ashes.
Aurora is watching me, questions on her face. I know I’m not hiding my reaction well enough.
Does she remember me?
Does she know it’s me? Has she always known...
“These other kids,” I begin, my throat dry. “Why were they allowed to be there?”
I feel sick.
My mind is thrown back to that room, the pool table, the bottles of booze and nineties music. The feel of eyes on me, my pants being taken off. The fear, the pain.
The shame.
The confusion.
“I don’t know. I hated being left out,” Aurora sniffs. “I wanted to play with the other kids. Even the adults. I was so lonely.”
Fucking hell.
My stomach lurches, but I swallow and stay, holding her against me. I want to scream and shake her all at the same time.
“There was one little boy. He was bigger than me, but smaller than the adults.”
Fuck.
“I saw him a few times, but when I tried to smile at him, he looked so mad. I’ll never forget him.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
That boy.
That was me.
I know it was.
I lift her and stand abruptly. Walking to the windows to catch my breath, I feel myself shaking and fight to clear my head. I can’t get this far and expose myself.
Aurora knows more than she thinks. I just need to dig through her mind—and her mother’s home—then I can get the hell away.
I hated being left out.
Left out?
If only she knew what evil had taken place in the home she’d lived in. That the little boy that she watched from the doorway has hated her his whole life. Now he’s fucking her like a wild animal and manipulating her.
More than that...he—me—has feelings for her. Feelings that have no goddamn place in this world. I want to hate this child—this woman—and a part of me still does.
I need to get out of here.
She’s innocent. I hear Maddox’s voice in my head.
“Are you okay?” Aurora asks, placing a hand on my back. I didn’t even hear her cross the room. “I understand this is a lot.”
Something in her tone makes me turn, my eyes falling to hers to understand. Looking vulnerable and worried, I realize she’s concerned that I won’t want her anymore.
Aurora has decided she knows who I am as a man. Successful, powerful, and looking for the perfect woman to make my wife. Like any billionaire in America.
She’s only half right.
I am successful and powerful.
But I have pussy on tap at the Alliance Club. That isn’t going to change for a very long time. Intimacy or a relationship is not something I seek.
Not when it triggers these emotions and memories.
I clear my throat and cup her cheek, shifting her flaming, dark red hair.
I have one goal: to keep having access to Mary-Anne’s home. Which means Aurora's life and now, apparently, heart.
“We all have baggage, sweetheart.” I decide to throw her a bone.
Breaking her is no longer my goal. She doesn’t deserve it. If I find out she is fucking with me, I will destroy her. Otherwise, I will take what I need, then leave her to pick up the pieces of her life.
As I’m trying to do with mine.
“I need to be honest with you about one thing. I’m not looking for anything long term here. This is getting intense. You’re beautiful, smart, and sexy as fuck, but that doesn’t change anything.”
To her credit, Aurora doesn’t react.
Not visibly.
Her hand, which had nestled on my chest, falls away as she lets space fall between us. My natural instinct is to pull her back, but I slide my hands into my pants pocket and let the space back up my words.
I enforce it with a single step of my own.
“I see.” Her words are empty.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep fucking you. I do.” I add. “And as promised, if you and Chloe want to come to the club tonight, I’ll take you.”
Aurora wraps her arms around herself and nods, keeping her chin up. “Okay,” she replies cooly.
“Do you want to check with Chloe?”
She shakes her head. “No, she’ll clear her schedule.”
God, I hate that I’ve hurt her. It was a risk to push her away, but if she falls in love with me...if I allow myself to feel more, this gets really fucked up.
“But Parker?” she asks, and I lift a brow. “If this is casual, then your possessive behavior from last night needs to stop.”
Like fucking...
That takes me by surprise. I feel my face darken, ready to argue and tell her she is mine.
Aurora is right. I have no claim on her and after what I just said, I can’t backtrack. My brain searches for a way around this.
“If you come as my guest, you’re my responsibility,” I say firmly.
“But not exclusively.” Aurora turns and walks across the room, glancing over her shoulder while my heart thunders in my chest.
She still has tears in her eyes, and I need to go to her.
“You are right, Parker. We all have baggage, but I have a lot. I can admit that.” Aurora lets out a sigh as she glances around. “My mom just died, I’m grieving and working out who I am in life. It’s not a good time to get involved seriously with anyone, so perhaps just fucking is a good time filler.”
Time filler.
Did she just call me a fucking time filler?
I grab my jacket and walk to where she stands, forcing myself not to grip the back of her neck and tell her I’m no one’s fucking time filler and no man is touching her.
I don’t.
“So, we are on the same page,” I say instead.
“Same page. No more sex toys. No more caveman behavior. Agreed?” Aurora tilts her head.
Motherfucker.
I’ve cornered myself and can’t get out of it.
“Agreed.” I lie.
She tiptoes up, kisses my lips softly, and pats my chest before dropping to the pads of her feet. “See you tonight.”
God fucking damn.