Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Nick nearly swallowed his tongue when Parker answered the door. He’d spent an hour walking the waterfront, trying to calm himself down, before going back to his hotel and taking a shower. A cold one.
Until she opened her apartment door, he’d managed to convince himself that he’d had a brain melt, reacting to her so strongly.
He was tired, he’d been working nonstop without a break for almost two years.
He’d been working in failed states mostly.
Places where women were kept under wraps quite literally.
They were poor creatures who scuttled from home to market and back.
His professional dealings had been with men who were brutal, understood only the crudest of power.
Nick himself was immune to the men, had a force field around him that protected him.
He was a Westerner, was rich, was there usually upon their government’s request, and he himself was strong, was a really good shot, and had been trained in martial arts.
No one touched him, though they would have liked to.
Not so for the women. They were screamed at, caned, beaten with sticks and stones.
The same for the kids and dogs. He knew he couldn’t intervene, but it sickened him.
His time there had felt endless and was certainly sexless.
Any woman he had sex with would be killed.
Somehow, in the back of his mind, the other sex had become this beaten down group, dressed in sacks, heads and faces covered, objects of pity, certainly not lust.
Parker—whoa. Not a figure of pity, no way.
So beautiful you had to work not to stare at her.
And so bright, like a shining star. And the author of The Smiling People!
That book and that documentary had kept him company in many a long, lonely night in terrible places, reminding him that humans could be civilized, too.
But…maybe he’d been blown away and she wasn’t as enticing as he remembered?
That was always a possibility. After so long in unsavory places, maybe he had like the bends and had blown her up to something she wasn’t in his head.
Nope. When she answered the door, he nearly sighed. Somehow, she was even more beautiful than he remembered.
“Hi,” she said, and he made some kind of sound with his mouth. “Sorry I’m running a little late. I’m never late, but I had a zoom call with my publisher, and it dragged on.”
She was chatty and friendly, but all of a sudden, she stopped, frowning. “What? What’s wrong? Do I have lipstick on my teeth, or something?”
“Huh?” he said. And then realized he had stopped, frozen just inside the door, and was staring at her.
Creeps stared at women. It was a tool of intimidation but also stalkerish. That’s not what this was. It’s just that he was frozen. She was so fucking beautiful she ate up his entire hard disk.
Maybe it was wrong, him meeting her just back from the badlands. He wasn’t used to beautiful, smart women. It bunged up his brain and tangled his tongue.
“Nick?” She was frowning and had taken a step back.
That shocked him out of his paralysis. He was making her afraid of him. Goddamn, that was the last thing he wanted.
Get your head out of your ass, stat! he told himself sternly.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “Had a little fugue state there. About work.”
The little lie worked. Parker relaxed. “Had a few myself. Would you like a drink while you wait? I still need a few minutes.”
A few minutes? He’d wait months, years for her. A few minutes was nothing.
Nick smiled at her. “No, I’m fine. I’ll just sit down and wait.
Done a lot of that in my career. A lot of soldiering is just waiting around.
I’ve got waiting around down to a fine art.
” Hours lying immobile in a hide, pissing in a bottle.
Hours traveling in a fiercely uncomfortable C-130, strapped to the bulkhead, pissing in a bottle.
Hours on surveillance, pissing in a bottle.
This—this on the other hand, was sheer heaven.
He looked around. Parker’s apartment was a delight, like the inside of a music box.
She had antique furniture, nothing modern.
But not trophy antique furniture— they looked like things that had been used generation after generation.
Antique rugs and what looked like real art on the walls.
The total effect was charming and soothing.
To add to the sensory overload, classical music was playing.
He was a musical barbarian and had no idea what it was—there were flutes and a harp and a piano—but it was better than a beta blocker to slow down the heart.
The last rays of the sun slanted in from the French doors open to a wrought iron balcony, filling the room with golden light, making everything shine.
Just sitting there made him feel better. And on top of that, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen was in the other room, getting ready to go out to dinner with him.
His last job had been in one of the ’Stans, a six-month long contract on behalf of the DOD to get a local warlord to sign a treaty respecting human rights.
The warlord had no intention of respecting the treaty, and even getting him to sign had been a crash course in human psychopathology, as if Nick needed that.
It had involved going hunting with the psychopath, clubbing with the psychopath, and eating with the psychopath who had the table manners of a feral boar.
He’d had to watch him behave like a monster, smiling all the while, trying to inculcate some values of decency in a man who had none.
And in the evening, he’d go back to his dusty, uncomfortable hotel, which was the best in the city, and take a half-hour shower trying to scrub Fuckhead Psycho off his skin.
His company had made eight million dollars, and the fuckhead had signed, which calmed things down around his borders and maybe some lives would be saved. But he’d counted the minutes before he could leave and heaved a sigh of relief as his company plane took off.
Originally, once his last contract finished, he’d just wanted to go home.
But home wasn’t really home, it was just a place.
He’d chosen London as his home base because it was in a convenient time zone, but what was waiting for him was a deluxe flat in the center of the city that was half empty, felt empty, even smelled empty, and was more alienating than a hotel room.
And it had rained in Psycholand for weeks. The streets had instantly become pools of mud, since the company that paved the streets was owned by the President-For-Life’s nephew and he was a cokehead who didn’t have the faintest clue about road maintenance.
Nick needed someplace warm and sunny and welcoming. His next job was scheduled in Naples in four days, so he decided to give himself a few days off and flew directly to Naples.
Man, was he glad he did.
Parker came out of her bedroom, and he stood. Oh God. How could any woman be so beautiful? It was like she shimmered when she walked. She had on an elegant summer dress the exact color of her eyes.
She blinked at him. “Is something wrong? Are we late?”
“No.” Nick almost took a step back when she walked up to him. Fuck, he never took steps back no matter what. “Why?”
She touched his arm, and Nick felt a little electric shock. “You stood up so abruptly. Why did you—oh!” Those cobalt-blue eyes widened. “You stood up because I walked into the room? Not often you see that. Someone brought you up right.”
He had an answer for that.
“My father is very old school, instilled manners in me and chided me if I forgot them, particularly in the presence of ladies.” He grinned.
“My mom, on the other hand, is brutal and would smack me if she didn’t like my behavior.
You learn quickly. I didn’t want to disappoint my father, and I was terrified of my mother. ”
She studied his face. “No, you aren’t. You aren’t terrified of your mother.”
No, he wasn’t. He shrugged. “Busted. The truth is, my mom is a nice lady who is a stickler for manners. She was appalled when I joined the military. To her, the military is made up of barbarians.” Appalled was a weak word.
Both his parents did everything but tie him up so he wouldn’t enlist, but he’d been unstoppable. They didn’t talk to him for a month.
Her head tilted. “What did they want you to do?”
“I think my mom was hoping I’d teach. History maybe, because she is a history buff. My father was hoping for the sciences because I was decent at math.”
She studied him carefully, close scrutiny by those eyes that were shards of sky.
It wasn’t a hardship. He let her look all she pleased.
She looked him carefully up and down. Finally, she gave a half smile.
“I’ve been among historians all my adult life and I think I can safely say that you look nothing like an historian. ”
He raised his eyebrows. “That’s a good thing?”
The smile broadened. “A very good thing.” She glanced out the window where the sun was low in the sky, flooding the Bay with golden light. “Maybe we should be going?”
The light still flooded the apartment too, picking out glints in silver frames, an alabaster vase full of flowers, the brass pull handles on a chest of drawers. It turned the room golden. He smiled.
“Something funny?” Parker tilted her head.
He looked down at her, happy about everything.
Happy about where he was, happy that he was with Parker in this beautiful room.
Happy that they were going to go out for what would undoubtedly be a spectacular meal and that no one would shoot at them on the way.
Happy that she was good company. And decided to say the truth.
Why the fuck not? Nick never ever revealed what he was thinking or feeling, certainly not to a woman he’d just met. But hell, it just spilled out anyway.
“Do you know where I was exactly a year ago today?”
She shook her head.
“I was in a shithole country which shall be nameless, where you take your life in your hands walking down a street after the sun has gone down. I was brokering a peace between two warlords who were brothers and who hated each other. Their war was killing a lot of innocent people, and we managed to come to a conclusion where they could still hate each other’s guts but share in lording it over a country reduced to ashes by their war.
“I was staying in the nicest hotel in town, and it smelled of piss and boiled goat meat, with an overlay of whiskey and cheap perfume. The two men were both cruel and untrustworthy, borderline crazy, and I had to shower after spending any time with either of them. And now look at me.” He waved his hand around the charming living room, glistening with light.
“In a lovely apartment that smells of lavender, about to go to a famous restaurant with a beautiful woman. My fortunes have definitely improved.”
Her expression didn’t change at hearing herself called a beautiful woman. Nick had told a number of women that they were beautiful, though none of them could touch Parker. They all changed expression at the words, either turning coy or batting away the compliment in a fit of false modesty.
Parker did nothing. But then she’d probably been told she was beautiful all her life.
She’d probably been a beautiful child and beautiful teenager, too.
It sure hadn’t sidetracked her. She’d built an amazing career that had nothing to do with her looks, and everything to do with her smarts.
And to have produced that documentary, she had business smarts too.
“So being here is an upgrade?”
“Definitely an upgrade. You about ready? If not, I can wait.”
Parker reached behind her for her purse and put on a gauzy summer jacket. “I’m ready. And hungry. Didn’t have any lunch and the food at the Consulate reception, as you know, wasn’t great.”
Nick put a hand to the small of her back, sorry that he was touching gauzy silk and not silky skin. He replayed what she’d just said and frowned. “How come you didn’t have lunch?” She was very slender and shouldn’t be skipping meals.
“I was finalizing a chapter I sent to my agent and didn’t have time for lunch, and anyway, I thought there’d be food at the Consulate reception.
But, as we know, that didn’t work out too well.
” She tilted her head, studying him. “If I’d had a mother, you would sound just like her. Worrying about what I had for lunch.”
“You didn’t have a mother?” He blinked, momentarily sidetracked. “You were hatched?”
“No.” She smiled. “But my mother died giving birth to me. I have no memory of her.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.” Nick tried to imagine his family without his strong-willed mother and failed. “Growing up without a mom is tough. Your father never remarried?”
Her face closed up, just froze, as if it were a fist that tightened. “No, he never remarried. I’m ready.”
Nick had been around a few blocks and recognized a closed door when he saw one. “Great.” He opened her door. “Off we go. We might even be on time which I understand would be a first in Naples.”