3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
Parker
“What the fuck just happened?” I mutter, dropping my forehead to the steering wheel. I take a second to catch my breath before heading into my brother’s restaurant.
Dallas bought this place from the owner when he returned home for good after serving twelve years in the Marines, and he’s created a booming business that is a staple tourist spot in Carrington Cove. Every Thursday, I meet Penn, Grady, and him here for lunch before he opens to the public. Normally, I just enjoy my time away from the animal hospital and listen to them drone on about their love lives, but today, I’m pretty damn sure the spotlight’s going to be on me.
I storm through the front door and spot Penn at the bar with Dallas and Grady. Grady’s daughter, Callie, is strapped to his chest, sleeping peacefully.
“Uh, you okay?” Grady asks as I approach the bar, tossing my glasses down and blowing out a breath.
“I don’t even fucking know,” I mutter, rubbing my temples as I look up at Dallas. “Can I get a beer, please?”
He furrows his brow. “A beer? It’s noon on a Thursd ay…”
“Just pour me a fucking beer, Dallas!” I snap, squeezing my eyes shut and pinching the bridge of my nose as the full weight of the past hour crashes down on me. Dallas slides a beer in my direction, and as soon as it’s within reach, I grab the glass and drain half of it before saying, “Fuck. My. Life.”
Dallas moves from behind the bar to stand by Penn and Grady, all three of them eyeing me with varying shades of confusion and amusement, clearly wondering what the hell is going on.
I wish I knew.Me? Engaged ? I mean, I’ve made it crystal clear to everyone since Sasha left that I’m not going through that shit again. Not opening myself up to trust someone just to be let down. I don’t need the risk, and I don’t want the distraction. So how the hell am I suddenly “engaged” to a woman I barely know? Worse—a woman who happens to be my boss’s daughter.
But before I can say a word, the front door bursts open, and I half-expect to see Dr. O’Neil hobbling in to beat the hell out of me with his cane. Instead, Cashlynn comes barreling in—her hair wild, her eyes scouring the room before they land on me.
“Oh my God, Parker! There you are.”
“Who the hell is this?” Dallas mumbles to Grady out of the corner of his mouth.
“No idea,” Grady mutters in return.
I spin around and meet the eyes of the woman who just inserted herself into yet another part of my day.
Reining in my irritation, I grate out, “Cashlynn, what are you doing here?”
She brushes her hair from her face. “Well, you rushed out of the vet’s office so fast that we didn’t get a chance to talk.”
I huff out a laugh. “I think the time for talking was before you made that little announcement.”
Beh ind me, Grady mumbles, “Should we say something?”
“Not yet,” Penn replies under his breath.
“I’m sorry, I just…” Cashlynn blows out a breath and then finally acknowledges that we have an audience, covering her chest with her palm. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt…”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Seems like unannounced interruptions are her MO.
“You’re not, although I think we’re all wondering how you know my brother here,” Dallas says, gesturing to me. “I’m Dallas by the way.”
Glaring at Cashlynn, I turn to the guys, trying to be polite even though there’s a million emotions racing through me right now. “Guys, this is Cashlynn O’Neil.”
“O’Neil?” Grady asks, confused. “Isn’t that…”
“As in Dr. O’Neil, my boss?” I nod. “The one and only.”
Grady turns to Cashlynn. “So you’re…”
“Dr. O’Neil’s daughter,” I finish for him. I shoot another irritated look at our surprise guest and then say something I’m sure none of them was expecting. “And as of today, my fiancée.”
Penn starts coughing, Dallas’s mouth drops open, and Grady’s eyes dart back and forth between me and Cashlynn like he’s watching a championship ping-pong match.
“I’m sorry…your fiancée ?” Dallas asks, drawing out the last word.
Cashlynn stands tall and rushes over to them, extending her hand like this is completely insane. “Yes! We’re engaged. It’s so nice to meet you all.”
As if it were choreographed, all three guys twist their heads in my direction, looking for confirmation.
“Uh, little brother…” Penn starts, clearing his throat. “When did this happen?”
I s nap my eyes back over to Cashlynn. “Today, right?”
She blows out a breath and steps back over to me, lowering her voice. “I know you have questions, and I’m sorry to have blindsided you—”
“Blindsided?” I cut her off, voice rising. “You didn’t just blindside me, Cashlynn. You stormed into my workplace and lied to your dad, who also happens to be my boss, about us being engaged! ‘Blindsided’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be, but—”
“You don’t get it!” My hands start shaking as memories push their way to the surface, images of walking away from Sasha, from everything I thought I’d wanted. The last thing I want is to be back in that space. “I am not the man who would get engaged—especially not like this.”
“Okay…”
Dallas steps in, gripping my shoulder and turning me to face him. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but maybe you should cool off before you say something you can’t take back,” he says quietly.
I glance back at Cashlynn and see genuine worry in her eyes. But there’s something else there too—fear and a look of regret that tells me she knows what a mess she’s created.
If she lied about an engagement to her father, there has to be a reason.
And I want to know what it is.
“Your brother’s right,” she says shakily, trying to keep her composure. “Let’s take a little while to cool off and then can we please talk… Later tonight?”
I simply nod, not trusting that I won’t lose it again if I try to speak.
“Can I get your number?” she asks. “So I can text you where to meet?”
Pen n steps in since I seem to be incapable of speaking. “I can give it to you,” he says, rattling off my digits as she enters them into her phone. A moment later, my phone vibrates in my pocket.
“There. Now you have my number too,” she says, offering a faint smile.
“Joy,” I manage.
“All right. It was nice to meet you, Cashlynn.” Dallas says, signaling for her to leave, and thank God she takes the hint, retreating back out the front door as he follows her to lock it behind her.
When he turns back to face me, I feel Penn and Grady’s eyes on me too, waiting for an explanation. I pick up my beer, drain the rest of it, and set the glass back down on the bar.
“Pour me another.”
***
Thirty minutes later, my second beer is gone, I’ve brought everyone up to speed, and managed to choke down half of my burger, but only because my older brothers made me.
“So you met her a year ago?”
“Were you not fucking listening?” Glaring at Penn, I toss my napkin on the bar and lean back on my stool.
“No need for the language, dickhead.”
Dallas sighs. “Look, I’m not about to break up a fight between you two again. Have some sympathy, Penn,” he says, glancing at the more annoying of my two older brothers. “Think about what this means for Parker.”
“That he might be engaged to a beautiful woman?” Penn asks with a shrug.
“ Yeah, that he doesn’t even fucking know,” Dallas fires back.
Grady holds a finger up in the air, swinging his hips from side to side as he rocks his daughter still resting peacefully on his chest. “Not to mention, her dad is his boss.”
“Thank you all for the recap,” I mutter, running a hand down my face. “You’re such a load of help.”
Dallas grunts, leaning against the bar and crossing his arms over his chest. “Okay, so let me ask you this. Is there a reason she would have lied about something like being engaged to you? I mean, that’s a pretty calculated lie, if you ask me.”
“I have no idea why those words came out of her mouth, Dallas.” My hands are buried in my hair as I lean my forearms on the counter. “She barely looked at me when she stormed in the animal hospital, chastising her dad about being there when he was supposed to be resting, and then before I knew it, she called me her fiancé.”
Penn taps his chin with his finger. “There has to be a reason. You need to ask her about it when you talk tonight.”
“You think?” I glare at him.
“I just don’t think people are going to buy it,” Grady chimes in. “I mean, this is Parker we’re talking about. He’s made it very well-known that the idea of marriage repulses him.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I say as I push myself off the bar and sigh. “No one who knows me is going to believe this.”
“Depending on her motivation, you may have to become a really good actor,” Dallas says.
“Why are you encouraging me to go along with this?”
He shrugs. “People lie for different reasons. And the truth is, you do have a history with this woman.”
“Believe me, I know.”
For the past thirty minutes, all I’ve thought about is that night—holding her hand while we were flying, her on her knees sucking my cock, and watching her scramble out of that hotel room after life-altering sex.
This woman has been a fixture in my mind on and off for a year, and suddenly she appears out of nowhere. I’ve got to be missing something.
Penn pats me on the shoulder. “Just hear her out tonight.”
“And if I decide not to go along with it? Then I’ve lied to my boss.” I bury my hands in my hair again. “Fuck, he’s never going to leave the practice to me after this.”
“Shit, I didn’t think about that,” Grady mutters. “I don’t know what’s worse—going along with the lie or admitting it was a lie to begin with.”
“I can’t win.” Groaning, I drop my head onto the bar. “Ow.”
“Let’s not do that then, yeah?” Dallas says, pushing my head up. “Just talk to her tonight and decide where to go from there.”
Something tells me I’m about to agree to being engaged, and I vowed I’d never do that again.
But apparently, life—or more accurately, my boss’s daughter—had other plans.