He was struggling overall because this manic feeling just wouldn’t go away, pressing down firmly on his chest and not easing up. That he was letting something of extreme importance slip away every minute he didn’t tie her to his bed and make her stay with him. He needed to get his shit together and stop being such a wimp. They both knew this was a fling and that’s where it needed to stay. He needed a family and a woman who would stick. Parker, who couldn’t even mention the word feelings, wasn’t going to fit the bill. But that knowledge didn’t stop him from wanting it all the same.
When they got back to his house, he grabbed a couple of bottles of beer and suggested that they swim. Parker hadn’t wanted to change into her swimsuit, but sat on the edge of the pool with her legs dangling in the water and drinking a glass of red wine while he waded in the shallow end. He often swam laps in the pool, but this was one of the only times he’d just hung out there with someone.
“I’ve been thinking,” she told him, “I don’t need to be a partner, but I could take another look at those restaurant proposals and tweak the menus a bit.”
“Is that right?” he asked. Maybe things weren’t as hopeless as he’d thought. She was interested in what he’d proposed, but for whatever reason, she was afraid to take the chance or didn’t trust him enough. “I have the proposals in my home office, so we can check them out again tonight.”
“I like the one centering on local ingredients in Maine. I think it has promise.”
“It didn’t even have any lobster on the menu,” he scoffed, flopping onto his back to float. “What’s the point?”
He didn’t need to see the look on her face to know that her lips were thin and she was gazing upward. It was what he’d wanted to happen when he’d made the statement.
“That’s the whole point,” she told him, as if speaking to a recalcitrant child. He loved it. “Learning what Maine has to offer outside of a lobster roll. I just think the menu needs to be broadened a little so it’s less like a hippie commune and more accessible to everyone.”
“I could get behind it,” he said, still floating. “But is there really anything there to take it outside of Maine, you know? Local is local. We’re not taking local Maine ingredients to Montana or something. So we’re limited on growth.”
“You could make it regional,” she suggested. “All of New England. Or that could be your whole new chain concept. Every restaurant focusing on the local fare, but with your fill-in-the-blank.”
His head shot up then and he stood up, water sluicing down his chest and back. He met her eyes, swiping wet hair from his face, interest pricking at the back of his neck. “So each restaurant has different food but an overarching concept that connects them all?”
“Yeah,” she answered, and he felt the excitement in her eyes in his own veins.
“I like it,” he boomed, pointing emphatically at her as his other hand clapped the water. “I like it a lot, Parker.”
She grinned. “It’s good, right? And you could start with that Maine menu and go from there.”
“It’s so good,” he agreed, grinning.
Swimming over to stand right in between her legs, he brought her down for a kiss and his legs went liquid at her sigh. Fuck, he was going to miss this. He was going to miss her, period. But he really needed to stop acting like a lovesick teenager because they still had a couple of days and she was living at his house. That was good enough, and then he could concentrate on finding a wife. Because if nothing else, this time with Parker had shown him just how great a real relationship could be. And he was ready to find that again.
“So this is a subject change, but I have another question for the profile.”
“Shoot,” he allowed, “but then we need to think of an overarching concept.”
“Do you ever miss football?”
He shrugged. “I miss hanging out with the guys on the regular, but I see them often enough. Playing ball? Every once in a while, but I always figured I’d teach my kids, and I look forward to that.”
“You’d let your kids play football even though you got dangerously injured?” she asked, surprised.
“I’m more talking about just tossing the ball in the backyard, not turning pro necessarily.” He’d loved playing ball and even still thought about coaching sometimes when he got bored of just doing business as usual, but he volunteered with enough youth football camps and had his own coming up next month that it was just all the fun without the pressure of winning like coaching would be.
“Do you want kids?” he asked, cursing because it was too soon. And it didn’t matter anyway.
She flicked at the water and he kicked himself for asking. It wasn’t his damned business; they weren’t even in a relationship.
“I’ve never given it much thought, to be honest,” she told him. “My dad is around and I’ve never had a serious relationship, so it wasn’t something I honestly considered would ever happen.”
“But you’re not against them,” he clarified, his heart pounding hard in his chest, as if he had a stake in this game.
Parker shrugged, finally meeting his eyes. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”
And then when the silence stretched for a moment, he found himself asking, “Do you not want to find someone at all, Parker?”
That shrug again, the one he was coming to realize might be her avoiding talking about a real issue. “I do, I just haven’t, and the whole happily-ever-after thing never really seemed like a possibility. I just have to look at my dad to know that sometimes it’s not worth the trouble. Plus, my lifestyle has never been conducive to it so it hasn’t felt like I’ve been missing out.”
Hugh was no therapist, but the look on Parker’s face, the one trying to hide the fact that she wanted to believe she could find happiness but wouldn’t take the chance, was telegraphed as clear as day. He didn’t know her parents, but they’d really done a number on their daughter. Her dad by convincing her that love was conditional on her staying by his side and her mom by making her think she wasn’t worthy enough to accept or demand more.
He understood more than he wanted to admit. The whole world loved him, but the only woman who had really known him had found him highly replaceable.
“You’re gone a lot, is that it?” he finally managed, giving her an out from admitting that she didn’t think anyone could love her if her own mom didn’t.
“Yeah, I had a boyfriend back in college for about two years or so, but nothing serious since then. I’m gone at least two but often four weekends out of a month, and sometimes weeks or months at a time if it’s an assignment like this, where we really want to explore the food culture. It’s just challenging to get something going.”
So she hadn’t even tried, is what Hugh was hearing. Parker was too scarred from her mom’s leaving to even try. That made him really sad and he dunked his head under the water to avoid the pitying look that was probably all over his face. He had a caring woman who was still carrying around a lot of pain and he was pretty clueless about how to help her heal. Despair crept over him because he hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he knew that the feeling taking hold of his insides was love. And there wasn’t a damn thing to do about it.
He felt a disturbance in the water and resurfaced to find that Parker had stripped down to her bra and panties and joined him in the pool.
“It looked too fun to miss out.” She smiled, sending a huge smack of water into his face.
Yeah, it was getting damn near impossible not to admit.
“You’re going to regret that,” he warned as he stalked toward her, but knew once he got his hands on her, regret would be the last thing they felt.
CHAPTER TWELVE
PARKER LOVED BEING at Hugh’s house. Not only was it way better than her hotel, which had been constantly crawling with tourists hell-bent on drinking so much they forgot their entire vacation, but it had Hugh in it. Hugh
, who had graduated from her favorite indulgence to a basic necessity.
With only two days left, she was having a mild freak-out because it was the end of their time together and she knew it was probably the last time she’d ever see him in her life. It wasn’t as if they lived in the same town where they might run into each other or something. This was it. The melancholia was creeping into her cells slowly but poised to take over her whole being once she stepped on that plane to Chicago without him.
She’d played it all wrong. All the lessons she’d learned over the years with guys about how not to get attached, swerving around any possible feelings, leaving them before they left her. Moving in with Hugh had been the ultimate in foolish decisions, because she never wanted to leave. Waking up alongside his too-warm and yet perfect body every morning was better than the thousand fantasy relationship scenarios she’d constructed in her head over the years when the monotony of living with her dad became too much. In her wildest dreams, she couldn’t have come up with a person who seemed so unsuited to her and yet fit her more perfectly than Hugh.
He made her breakfast every morning, handed out massages like candy, left her alone when she needed to work or go review a restaurant, patiently answered the most inane questions about his business, and it went without saying that the sex continued to climb in intensity because they both felt the weight of their imminent ending.
But most of all, he made her laugh, and she hadn’t realized how much she hadn’t been laughing until Hugh.
The years between now and her mom leaving felt like long, empty years in comparison and part of her felt like going back to Chicago was a return to that. Year after year of only existing and never living. But imagining a future with Hugh, she didn’t even have the tools. Couldn’t imagine staying with anyone and watching them eventually walk away, or her doing it. A month with Hugh and leaving felt like her heart was being ripped out. Being in an actual committed relationship and having him walk away? Hell no.
Which was why she was finishing up her last review and leaving tomorrow. She’d lied and told Hugh she was leaving the day after because saying goodbye was impossible, and if she told him she was leaving, he’d try to get her to stay and/or go into business with him. Which would break her resolve.
The fact was that she couldn’t ever leave her dad alone.
For Hugh or for anybody.
She parked Hugh’s silver Audi convertible in his garage and took the elevator to the main floor. Hugh was in the kitchen with his shirt off, blaring hip-hop, a baseball game on mute on the television, and tapping away on his laptop. The man could not tolerate silence.
When he noticed her, he smiled, waving her over to the island where he had a cold beer waiting for her. The same kind she’d said she’d liked at his restaurant that first night. The fridge was stocked with that and tons of other random stuff she’d mentioned liking over the course of their month together. Just like she’d taken to finding out and making his favorite meals on the nights they stayed in and doing yoga with him in the morning even though she hated it. She just wanted to show him how much he meant to her. How much all of this time had meant.
“Last work meal of the trip,” he boomed, holding up his hand for a high five. “How was it?”
She slapped his big paw, but instead of letting her go, he caught her fingers in his and pulled her in between his legs as he swung the chair around to face her.
“It was good,” she told him. She hadn’t tasted any of it even though she’d saved the best restaurant for last. Worrying about leaving tomorrow had made it difficult to do anything but cry right into her eighty-dollar steak. For the past two days, tears were very close to the surface, which was stupid because she literally couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. Maybe that animated movie about the toys? It was hard to say.
“What are you doing?” she asked, breathing in the familiar, brightly musky scent of him.
His smile was huge, the corners of his eyes crinkling with excitement. “I just got off the phone with my lawyer,” he informed her, grabbing a small stack of papers sitting on the island beside him. “And he drew up an agreement of what it would look like if we did a restaurant together. So just take this with you, look it over, give it to your own lawyer, no pressure. But I want you to know that there’s an offer on the table if you want it. A real one, not just one you think I made because we’re sleeping together.”
Parker had never hyperventilated before, but she feared she was on the verge of it. Her heart was beating so fast she could barely count the beats in her head like she normally did to calm down, and it felt like she couldn’t draw a full breath into her lungs.
She nodded numbly at him and took the papers, pretending to look even though the words were just a blurry mess as she continued to stare blindly at them.
“Hey,” he asked, standing up and pressing a thumb under her chin so he could see her, concern etched on his handsome, scarred face. “You okay? This isn’t to scare you, Parker. I know you’ve said no before, but I wanted you to at least have all the details so you could make an informed decision. There are two agreements there. One where you could own part of the business with me and the other to only be a menu consultant, which means helping with the menu and concept like we talked about in the beginning. There wouldn’t be as much traveling or financial risk involved.”
The pay was ridiculous, she saw that, for the consultant. The investment option wouldn’t pay out for a while until the restaurant made a profit, but he was really tempting her with the consultant option and he knew it. This is what she’d wanted to avoid by lying about leaving. So much of her wanted to say yes, but the fact was that when she left Vegas tomorrow she was going to be in pieces. It wasn’t a matter of if, but just how awful she was going to feel leaving Hugh. The idea of then turning around and seeing him on a merely professional level was impossible. She couldn’t do it, she knew it. Nor could she ever do a long-distance relationship. Saying goodbye on a regular basis? She might as well be tearing off her own arm on the regular. That’s what it would feel like if today was any indication.
So instead of answering, she did the only thing left to do and kissed him with everything she had. To somehow burn how she felt into his skin so he would know just how much she cared for him.
Their lips met in a bawdy, openmouthed, angst-fueled storm.
Hugh picked her up and carried her to his room, where the wall of windows was retracted. The sun was setting in the desert, the gradated shades of neon red and purple and gold still lighting the sky just enough for them to see each other. He laid her down on the bed and a light breeze floated into the room as he climbed on top of her, returning to her mouth.
“Stay with me a few extra days?” he murmured against her lips, their foreheads together, their warm breath hovering in the air between them like their own intimate world.
“Maybe,” she said, because she was leaving tomorrow anyway. What was one more white lie?
“Say yes instead,” he whispered, the words sounding more like a plea than as the suggestion he’d meant. “Stay.”
The words were on her tongue—she wanted to say yes, to just let go and let him be part of her life and actually take a chance on the first person who’d made any effort to be there—but they wouldn’t leave her mouth. Maybe she was just that broken. She didn’t know, but her heart hurt and that was something she hadn’t felt since her mom left all those years ago.
“You deserve to be happy, Parker,” he continued when she remained mute. “Choose it.”
If her heart was stone, which sometimes she’d thought it was, it was nothing but a soft, doughy mass of love after his words. And yet she couldn’t take the chance. So she did the only thing she could, her lips finding his mouth again in a fury of unacknowledged emotions and pipe dreams.
His hands found the hem of her shirt, pulling it up and off along with her pants. The warm desert
air hit her skin and she felt exposed physically and emotionally. Hugh’s lips were on hers as she tugged off his shorts, impatient and desperate to have all of him. His body was large, blocking out the entire rest of the world from her view, and it didn’t matter. She didn’t feel claustrophobic or caged in; as always, Hugh just made her feel protected and safe. She did not know how she was going to leave him at all, dreaded it with every contrary fiber of her being. Even now, solidly in his arms, she didn’t want to be anywhere else ever. She could live inside the cocoon of his brick house body.
He reached over, grabbing a condom out of the bedside table, and her thighs clenched in wanton anticipation, just pushing the reality that she was leaving away long enough for her to enjoy one last night with the best man she’d ever known and the best sex she’d ever had.
“You make me happy,” he whispered against her lips, dropping down to her neck, kissing everywhere he could reach. It was lovely and tender and downright heart-wrenching when he got on his knees, kissing up her thighs, worshipping her skin as if she were the first woman he’d ever known.
Fighting back tears, she pulled him up until he was over her again and wrapped her legs around his back, pulling him into her. He positioned himself at her entrance, his head bent and broken eyebrow just visible, and a wave of longing hit her so hard that she had to score her fingernails into her palms to keep from crying. Raising his head again, their eyes met as he inched slowly into her, letting her feel every bit of him. The playfulness that had become a hallmark of their sex life was gone. They were without the jokes or quips because everything she wanted to say couldn’t be said.
“You make me happy, too,” she finally breathed as he began to move.
He swallowed then, the lump in his throat bobbing as he accepted the words. Dropping his forehead to hers, their lips barely touching, he moved in her, slowly at first, the slide purposeful and measured, designed to draw out their pleasure and let her know how he felt inside her, as if she could forget. As if she’d ever forget anything about him.
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