22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Madison
W e had Sheila and Matthew Scott’s wedding three days before Christmas and I had a blast. The gardens looked amazing, the guests had fun, and the staff did a good job. Sheila turned out to be a fun bride. Even though she wanted her wedding day to be a spectacle, she completely let go after the ceremony and just enjoyed the party.
At the end of that long day, I felt proud. I made it. I came to California a jobless woman forcing a man who hated her to do something he didn’t want to and yet I made it. The success made me think about starting something on my own. No boss, no other name attached to the business. I could do it. Where to do it was another question. I wanted to go back to New York. To my apartment. To the city that had been my home for more than a decade. But something in my gut told me I should think about staying in California .
The only thing I didn’t like about the wedding was Parker’s absence. I assumed he would come to check up on things. Congratulate the happy couple. The groom had been a client for years. Or maybe express his gratitude for my work and efforts. But no. Parker chose to hide and sulk again. I began to suspect it was his pattern. He disappeared for the important main events and then sneaked out from the Blue Diamond, barely acknowledged his previous absence, and acted like he didn’t miss anything.
So when the day after the wedding he showed up at my doorstep with a smile on his face I wasn’t surprised one bit. Annoyed? Yes. Surprised? No.
“Good morning,” he bent down to let the puppy run into my villa and basically invited himself in with that, so I just moved to the side to let him slip in.
“It’s noon,” I bit out.
He shot me a look over his shoulder. “I assumed you wanted to sleep in today. After the wedding yesterday.”
There it was. The nonchalant way he mentioned the wedding made me want to punch him in the face.
“Everything went great, by the way. Not that you care.”
That gave him pause. “It’s my hotel. Of course I care. I talked to Ryan this morning. He was impressed.”
I snorted and walked past him.
“If you are just going to snort at me, maybe I should leave,” he said, and had the nerve to sound offended.
“Feel free to go. It’s not like I’ve invited you over.”
The dog had taken a pillow from the couch and was now lying on it while chewing on the edge .
“And take that monster with you. I can’t stand it anymore.” What I couldn’t stand was Parker’s attitude. I wanted him out of the villa. “Everything is covered in dog hair and saliva.”
A warm hand wrapped firmly around my elbow and Parker swirled me around.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
How could I explain it to him when I didn’t quite understand it myself? I hated how he came and went whenever he wanted. I hated how he sometimes made me feel like he enjoyed spending time with me and then completely ignored me for days. But most of all I hated that I cared about any of it.
“It’s not nothing. I gave you a compliment and you lost your shit.”
“ You gave me a compliment? I thought that Ryan was the impressed one.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that what this is about? My supposed lack of interest in your job?” I tried to shake his hand off but he didn’t let me. He leaned forward and continued. “You’re mad at me because I didn’t show up yesterday, aren’t you?”
My phone rang and saved me from having to answer that question. I yanked my arm out of his firm grasp and bolted toward the kitchen table. I didn’t remember the last time I felt so happy that my mother was calling.
“Mom! Hi.”
“Hello, dear. I just wanted to check if Parker is coming to Christmas dinner with you.”
I glanced at Parker. He smirked and started walking in my direction which could only mean that he had heard her.
“I’m not sure yet,” I shot him a warning glare.
“What do you mean you’re not sure? It’s in two days. ”
Parker reached me and leaned forward, the scent of his minty breath causing me shortness of breath. “Hi, Mrs. Hartley!”
Then he took the phone from my hand and put it on speaker.
“Parker,” my mother sighed in delight. “Please tell me you are coming to Christmas dinner.”
“I am,” Parker said in a sugary voice. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“Of course, dear. You are practically a part of the family now.”
I made a disgusted face at my mother’s obvious attempts to tie me and Parker together.
“Should I bring anything? Except your beautiful daughter, of course,” he said and winked at me.
“No, honey. You two are more than enough. I know you’re a busy man, but we would love to see more of you.”
He fixed his gaze on me. “I’m working on it.”
Liar. The most dangerous type. A convincing one.
“What time should we come over?” He asked her.
“Well, the others are coming in the afternoon, but you could come later. I know you’re a busy man.”
“I’m not that busy. We could come early.”
“Mom,” I cut short their little game of cat and mouse. “Parker was just heading out.”
“Oh, okay. Bye, Parker.”
“Bye, Mrs. Hartley,” he gave me my phone back and leaned over, his lips grazing the shell of my ear as he whispered. “I’ll pick you up at three.”
** *
Waiting for Parker to pick me up at The Pink Diamond for my mother’s dinner didn’t sit well with me, so I decided I was going to wait for him in the parking lot. Intellectually I understood that Parker was doing me a favor by pretending he was my boyfriend in front of my mother. The rational thing would be to be grateful and facilitate the process. I however felt like he had somehow harmed me with his facade of a man in love.
But walking out of The Gem alone wasn’t just to spite him. It was the wise thing to do. We weren’t supposed to be together on Christmas Eve. People would start to talk.
I glanced at the reception desk and found Mel behind it. As far as I knew, she did a good job and was always nice to guests and other employees, but I was sure she hated my guts ever since I first stepped foot into that lobby.
Enjoying riling her up, I stopped right in front of her. “Working on Christmas Eve?” I made a sad face. “Is it as depressing as it sounds?”
Mel offered me a fake smile. “I volunteered.”
“How altruistic of you.”
“The Gemstone values team players.”
“You mean Mr. Wilson values team players.”
A slow, satisfied smile spread across her face. “That too.”
There was no mistaking the feeling that twisted my stomach at the thought of her and Parker together and for the first time since we started pretending we were dating, I considered extending the act to our workplace.
As if he read my mind about rubbing our relationship in Mel’s face, Parker appeared from the garden’s entrance with the dog in his arms. The moment he stopped next to me, the puppy started to whimper and tried to claw its way out from Parker’s grip and into my arms .
Mel’s gaze flew from Parker to me to the dog then back to me; her eyes were shooting daggers. Parker didn’t notice her reaction or he simply didn’t care. He placed the dog in my arms, the back of his hand grazing the swell of my breast as he removed it. That he noticed. His eyes bored into mine with such intensity I shivered. From the slight tilt of the corner of his mouth I came to the conclusion he noticed that too.
“How are you, Mel?” he turned to the receptionist.
“I’m good, thank you,” she smiled like an angel at him, then she seized the opportunity to throw me under the bus. “Miss Hartley just asked me if I was depressed about working on Christmas.”
Parker shot me a curious look. “Spreading joy, are you?” Then he turned to Mel with a charming smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “Don't take her too seriously, Mel. Madison likes to push people’s buttons. It’s her love language.”
Mel's eyebrows shot up in surprise at Parker's words. I wondered what that was about.
“Of course, sir,” she mumbled.
“Have a nice evening, Mel.”
“You too, Mr. Wilson.”
Then Parker placed his hand between my shoulder blades and pushed me forward, towards the exit. It wasn’t as intimate as placing it on the small of my back, but he made it clear to everyone who could be watching that we were going somewhere together.
His voice was low, meant for only me to hear. “What’s with you and the receptionist?”
I rolled my eyes at him but couldn’t hide the slight blush that crept up my cheeks. “She has a problem with me. ”
“Everyone has a problem with you. And you’re the one that usually starts it,” he quipped, his lips lifting at the corners. “But don’t worry. I’ll always have your back.”
I shot him a look that hovered between annoyance and amusement. “Oh, lucky me.”
Ignoring my sarcasm, Parker reached out and lightly tugged on a loose strand of my hair. “You know you love it when I’m around.” Then without waiting for an answer continued. “You have started to roll your eyes a lot these days.”
“What?”
“You roll your eyes a lot. It’s a good thing. You look less like a robot and more like a human. It’s also easier for me to read you.”
“If it was easier for you to read me, you wouldn’t make a show of defending me in front of Mel. Or leading me out of the building with your hand on me.”
He came with me to the passenger door of his car and opened it for me. “And if you really didn’t want anyone to know about us going out together, you wouldn’t stop for a chat with Mel. You wouldn’t take the dog from me. In fact if I didn’t know better, I could say you marked your territory.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re not my territory.”
“See,” he pointed at my face. “You just rolled your eyes.”
Shit. I did.
And I also just said shit in my head. Great. My mother would be delighted to hear me swear at the dining table.
“Come on, cupcake.” He waved towards the open door. “You can have your identity crisis on the ride to your mother’s house.”
We drove off from the parking lot. The fact I had started to show signs of emotional discomfort and swore in my internal monologue didn’t change my personality and I needed to challenge him .
“Mel is obsessed with you and she hates my guts. It’s not me marking the territory, it’s her.”
Was it true though? I could have just walked past her like the hundreds of times I had in the last three months.
“She's obsessed with me, huh?” A big smile stretched his mouth and I felt like I was going to be sick.
“Please tell me you are not one of those sleazeballs.”
“I will need you to elaborate about what type you are referring to before I can deny it.”
“The sleazeball that sleeps with his employees.”
He glanced my way but his eyes didn't meet mine. He looked embarrassed. I had never before seen him embarrassed.
“Honestly? I didn’t think I was, but it might turn out that I am.”
“Well, I wish you two a very happy, dysfunctional relationship.”
“What?” He asked like he wasn’t following the conversation at all.
“You and Mel. The moment I told you she had a crush on you, your face changed completely.”
“Changed how?”
“From amused to…pleased.”
“I love how observant you are. But it’s not Mel having a crush on me that pleased me, Madison.” He paused. “Would it bother you? If I slept with an employee?”
Picturing him and Mel together made my stomach turn. “No,” I lied.
“Thirty seconds ago you sounded disgusted that I might enjoy it and called me a sleazeball.”
“Forget about it. I'm on edge.”
“Why are you on edge?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said sarcastically. “It might have something to do with me having to play pretend in front of my family. ”
“How is that different in comparison to what you have been doing the first thirty-two years of your life?”
“Excuse me?”
“You are a completely different person around them. It's like you are a soulless statue.”
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just dropped my gaze down to the puppy in my lap.
After a few awkward moments of silence he asked. “When was the last time you fell in love?”
I snort laughed and returned the question. “When was the last time you fell in love?”
“Twelve years ago,” he said without any hesitation.
“Who was she?”
“I feel like playing our game tonight. An answer for an answer.”
“I don’t fall in love.”
He shot me a disbelieving look. "Now you are just flat-out lying to me."
“I’m not. The last time I felt like I was in love was with my high school boyfriend.”
“Is that why you slept with him at your sister’s bachelorette party? Because you still have feelings for him?”
“No.”
“So? What happened? He fucked around in high school, broke your heart, and you swore off men?”
“No. We graduated. I moved. I thought I was going to be devastated. It turned out I wasn’t.”
“And yet you hooked up with him years later. Why?”
“I don't know.”
“That's the lazy answer.”
“Lazy or not, that's the answer you're getting. ”
Parker let out a small chuckle, shaking his head.
“Your turn,” I changed the subject. “Who was the woman you fell in love with twelve years ago?”
“The kindest person I had ever met. The moment I saw her, I knew she was it for me. My end game.”
“Something went wrong between you two apparently,” I said, ignoring the sting I felt from the way he spoke about her.
A resigned smile appeared on his face, but he said nothing.
“So? You graduated and she dumped you?” I asked.
“Can I save that part of the story for another time? I really don’t want to get into it right now.”
“Sure,” I said and shrugged as if I didn’t care that much, while unhealthy curiosity made me want to continue my interrogation. But most of the time he respected my boundaries more than I respected his, so I stopped asking.
With his eyes on the road, he reached for me, or at least I thought it was for me, until he patted the dog’s head. “I’m not trying to hide anything. It’s just not the right time.”
“Please, Parker,” I laughed. “Why would I be concerned about you hiding something? We’re fake. I don’t care about your love life.”
He removed his hand from the dog and squeezed the wheel. “Noted.”
We spent the rest of the drive in silence and when we arrived all traces of sulkiness evaporated from him. It reminded me again that he really was a skillful liar.
Tyler waited for us outside and took the dog from my hands.
“I can’t wait to see her face,” he said, referring to Hannah.
“I can’t wait to see Mom’s face,” I teased. “She’s going to kill you for bringing a dog into her house. ”
Tyler shrugged me off with a smile, shook Parker’s hand and walked back inside. Parker took my hand in his and I didn’t pull away. He was right the last time we were here. I should look like I enjoyed being in a relationship with him. What was the point in any of it otherwise?
“No pulling away, cupcake?”
“I told you not to call me cupcake.”
Just as I was about to cross the threshold and follow Tyler inside the house, Parker tugged on my hand and pulled me against him. “You also told me that this nickname gives you a rash. Maybe I want to see it.” Then he took a long and slow look up and down my body, making it perfectly clear that he would enjoy looking for any skin condition known to mankind under my designer clothes.
“You want to see a rash?” I tilted my head up a little, looking at his gorgeous heart stopping smile on his beautiful face. “Go do Mel. I’m sure that will give you a rash to look at for a while.”
He reached and removed my hair from my shoulder, pushing it back. “It drives you crazy, isn’t it? The thought of me and Mel together.”
“So disappointing,” I shook my head.
“What is?”
“You. Thinking that I’m jealous.”
He pressed his mouth to my ear and I shuddered. “That’s the thing I hate and love about you the most, Mad. You refuse to lose. But so do I.”
Then he leaned back a little, watching me intently. The pull between us got stronger with every second we spent together. We both felt it. The undeniable spark, the electricity crackling in the air whenever we were close. But as much as we danced around each other, neither of us was willing to take that final step and risk everything .
I turned around and went inside the house, Parker right behind me, still not releasing my hand. We found everyone crouched down in the living room, petting the dog. Everyone except my mother. She had her hands crossed over her chest, clearly displeased with the dog being in there.
She shot me a death glare. “You could have told me about this,” she pointed at the dog, who was currently licking Lucas’s face. Daphne seemed to enjoy that a lot, because she giggled the most adorable baby giggle I had ever heard.
“I thought you were the one I could count on not to bring those types of unpleasant surprises,” my mother continued with the usual reminder that I was supposed to be the perfect one. The one to behave and play the bad cop right along with her.
No one paid her any attention except me and judging by the tension in Parker’s body, my fake boyfriend.
“Well, it’s not my dog, so you’re addressing the wrong person here.”
I tried to untangle myself from Parker without causing a scene, but he didn’t let me. Instead he leaned in and whispered. “Don’t run away. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Oh, God. Did that feel good? To have someone on your side for a change.
I relaxed against him and he wrapped his warm palm around my neck, squeezing gently, reminding me he had my back.
The dog eventually got tired from all the attention and we moved to the kitchen to finish up the dinner preparations. My mother talked about a friend of hers, but I had zero interest in her story, so I eavesdropped on Parker’s conversation with Hannah and Tyler.
“Feeling better?” He asked my future sister in law.
“Yes. Much better. ”
“Glad to hear it,” he said and she sent him a sympathetic smile, then patted his hand.
There was something I was missing here and apparently Hannah and my brother weren’t.
They continued talking in hushed voices and when Hannah stole a glance my way, I was sure they were trying to keep it quiet because of me.
I was cutting tomatoes, because that was pretty much where my expertise in the kitchen ended, at the salad level, when Parker walked over to the island where I was standing. He came behind me and snaked his hands around my waste, then pressed his front to my back.
“Do you need help, love?”
I almost cut one of my fingers off.
The silence that followed his words was deafening. Then everyone started talking, chopping and clacking tins and pans too loudly, obviously trying to mask their shock and give us some privacy.
I left the knife and wiped my hands in a cloth, then turned in his arms. He didn’t ease his grip on me, nor did he take a step back to give me space. I raised a brow at him and he understood what I was asking without me uttering a word.
“I really like that one,” Parker leaned into me a little more, a mischievous glint in his eyes. My heart rate quickened at his nearness, his cologne enveloping me. I fought to maintain my composure. He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, a move that sent shivers down my spine. Before I could come up with a response, he closed the gap between us and pressed his lips to mine in a daring kiss. I opened for him, and he didn’t hesitate. His tongue invaded my mouth, deepening the kiss.
Parker Wilson had me pinned against the kitchen island in my mother’s house, his hands low on my back, devouring my mouth but I couldn’t care less. The world around us seemed to melt away with each swipe of his tongue against mine. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew my mother wouldn’t appreciate this PDA, but I was too into it to really care about it now.
Parker’s hands slipped up from my waste and cupped my face, then he broke the kiss, but gave me a few brief pecks before he took a single step back and placed both his hands on the countertop behind me. I panted and his eyes dropped to my chest for just a second, but it was enough to make me hot everywhere.
Everyone was still talking loud enough to be heard from the other room. Trying to gather my wits about me I said. “You can't just kiss me like that whenever you want.”
“You kissed me back.”
I couldn’t tear my gaze away from him, my body begging for more, while fortunately for me my mouth still obeyed my brain and lied.
“If we were alone, I wouldn’t.”
“I’ll definitely test that statement later.”
My mother cut off our hushed exchange. “How old are you, Parker?”
I straightened at the sharpness of her tone, shot her a glare and answered before he could. “I think that question is against your own rules for polite conversation.”
Parker reached for my hand and rubbed a thumb across the back of my palm. Warmth spread inside my chest at the gesture. Then he turned to face my mother.
“I’m thirty-five,” he answered with a smile.
If he was annoyed because of her interest in him, he didn’t show it.
“At thirty-five, I was already married and had three children. ”
“And you were such a devoted mother,” Tyler said and Hannah looked between our mother, Parker, and me like we were a car crash about to happen.
“What is wrong with you?” Sylvia asked my brother and sounded truly baffled.
“A lot of things actually. How much time do you have?”
“Ty,” Parker said. “It’s okay.” Then he focused on my mother again. “I was married once.”
I took a step back as if he had slapped me. He sent me an apologetic look. Was that the conversation he didn’t want us to have in the car?
“Well,” my mother started again. “A lot of people get divorced nowadays. Myself included. I hope you don’t resent the entire concept after the first time around didn’t work out for you.”
“Mom,” I warned.
“What? We are just talking,” Sylvia looked at me like I was the one making a scene.
“Would you like for us to talk about your failed marriage? Or maybe your alcohol problem? Or analyze your relationship with Clem?”
Silence settled around the kitchen. I glanced around taking in the shocked expressions etched onto each face. My outburst caught everyone off-guard, except my mother.
“Clem and I worked out our differences. And we shouldn’t bring up old issues. We have a guest.”
“You and Clem found a way to co-exist in the same room. You haven't really resolved anything. You just swept it under the rug.”
“I didn’t mean to overstep.”
“Of course, you did. It's your signature move. You’re always overstepping.”
Parker’s large hand cupped my elbow, trying to get my attention. I glanced up at him. He had that wary expression on his face. He probably expected me to swat his hand away. To turn my anger on him.
But I didn’t move an inch away from him. “Merry Christmas. We’re leaving.”