Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  "Are you on the school board, then?" he asked Brianna.

  "Oh, no, I'm on the faculty. I'm a first grade teacher."

  He studied her as they paused on the outer steps to wait for Sophie to lock the door. "For how long, a year?"

  Sophie stomped past them. "I said can it, Parker. Brie's not your type."

  "What is my type, then?"

  She whirled. "Rich widows with too much time on their hands who need a guy for no more than escort and stud service."

  Parker took the hit, allowing the pain only because he saw the pain in Sophie's eyes, too. He hadn't merely alienated her 128

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  with his warning last night. He'd hurt her. Remorse flooded him. He didn't know what to say. Neither, it seemed, did anyone else.

  "I'll see you Monday, Parker," Sophie finally said, pulling her sister behind her.

  "Nice to meet you!" Brianna called over her shoulder, stumbling as Sophie dragged her along.

  Parker watched them go, bracing his hands on his hips. A sharp prod in his side reminded him of the He-man in his hand. He studied the action figure. "You had it made, old son.

  You just acted macho and demanding and the women fell all over you."

  Still, he thought, all was not lost. He had the power to hurt Sophie. That meant she cared. That meant there was hope.

  Hope for what, he still had to determine.

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  CHAPTER 8

  Monday came, as it always did. Instead of getting up early and working out, then storming the office to catch up on everything from the week before, Parker dragged himself out of bed and stumbled around for a while before managing to get his act together. His secretary noted his bleary eyes and rumpled suit and clucked at him while she prepared his coffee.

  "Thanks, Betty. You're a doll." He reached for the coffee and took a long, restorative gulp. "I didn't get much sleep this weekend."

  "You're a nutcase, if you ask me." She bustled about, organizing the piles on his desk. Phone messages, letters to be signed, his schedule for the day, reports to review. "You need to stop playing around with that show and concentrate on your real work."

  Pretending he didn't feel guilty, Parker picked up the message slips and started to sort them. "Come on, Betty, you know your job is safe."

  Her back went rigid. "I'm not concerned about my job, Biff.

  I'm concerned about your health. You look like death is banging on your door."

  "It's not work that has me looking like this." He pulled the letters closer and started to scrawl his signature. Betty stood for a moment without moving, then relaxed. When he looked up to see why she was still there she was smiling, her hands clasped in front of her.

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  "What?"

  "It's a woman. A woman has you haggard and worried.

  Fabulous!"

  "Ridiculous," he scoffed, keeping his head down as if he was studying the routine letter in his hand. It wasn't ridiculous, not at all.

  He pushed that thought away and wished he could push Betty away as easily. The woman was extremely professional and never interfered in his business or his personal life. But now she simply wouldn't shut up.

  "Just what you need. A woman who means more to you than a little fun. Someone you won't want to fix up with a friend."

  Parker sat back in his chair, stunned. "What are you talking about?"

  Betty shook her finger at him and picked up his empty coffee mug. "Don't play dumb. Whenever a woman gets too serious you introduce her to some guy who just happens to be her perfect match."

  "I—"

  "Don't interrupt." She strode to the coffee pot next to the sink. "No one gets hurt. Not you, and not the little fluffmuffin."

  He couldn't help but smile. "Not all the women I date are fluffmuffins. Some are very smart."

  "But not a one seems to realize what you're doing." She set the coffee in front of him again and straightened. "Tell me, Mr. Noble. Who is Vanessa Whitehead seen with these days?"

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  He winced. "My cousin Chip. They have a big real estate deal going on."

  "Mm-hm." She gave him a case-resting look and swept toward the door. "I just hope this Sophie woman knows what she has in her hands."

  She shut the door on that compliment. Parker shook his head and turned back to his desk. The routine stuff was easy to get out of the way, but he couldn't concentrate on the reports. He kept thinking about the trip to the Cape this week for the Fourth. He and Sophie had gotten the day off, and thanks to Mare he didn't think she'd back out now. Thinking about being alone with her for the drive there and back caused him to read the same statistics three times before he realized they meant trouble.

  He was getting more than his share of that lately.

  * * * *

  Sophie fussed with the full skirt of her halter-style sundress. The three hundred dollar dress should fit right in with the snooty crowd she expected, but the skirt didn't hang right. She grabbed a belt from its hanger in the closet and cinched the dress around her waist. There, that was better.

  Her sandals had slight heels and she hoped they wouldn't make her feet hurt. She'd been wearing sneakers to work and had grown used to being comfortable.

  She studied her makeup. Light, in a concession to the heat. Just enough eyeliner to define. The lipstick was wrong, though. She wiped it off with a tissue and tried to find one 132

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  that matched the flowers in her dress. She was still rooting when the phone rang.

  "Sophie, darling!"

  She blew out a breath. "Happy Fourth, Mom."

  "I just couldn't let the day go by without talking to you.

  We are so going to miss having you here for the Brook Hollow Independence Day festival."

  Her mother rambled on. Sophie tried to decide if the call was good or bad for her nerves. She lifted a hand to her hair and wondered if the French braid was too "sweet." It wasn't really her. She looked at the clock and decided to leave it.

  "Anyway, enough about all that. I wish you were coming home, sweetie. It's been ages since we've seen you."

  "And now I'm the only bird away from the nest and you worry too much about me. I'll come home for a weekend soon, okay? Parker will be here any minute. I've got to go."

  "Okay, well, have a great time, enjoy the Cape—I wish we were going with you!—and make sure you wear sunblock.

  And—"

  "Thanks, Mom, I will. Bye!"

  Sophie eased the phone down and let it drop into the cradle. She sighed at how exhausting conversations with her mother could be.

  The next five minutes seemed interminable. She gave up on the lipstick and just put on a frosted gloss. Perfume would be a mistake, as she'd be outside in the humidity. She didn't want to draw mosquitoes and flies and bees. She only wanted to draw Parker.

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  No, she didn't. She stalked to the bedroom to grab the foolish little purse that matched her shoes and held her driver's license and lip gloss. She looked at it in disgust.

  Impractical and dainty, it wasn't like her any more than her hair was. She was acting like someone she wasn't and thinking she wanted something she didn't.

  She was old enough to stop looking for an interesting time with a guy with no care for the future. She was smart enough not to waste time with a guy whose goals were diametrically opposed to hers. She was secure enough to nurture a friendship with her on-air partner without believing it could be more, that she could change him.

  She stopped pacing and paused in the middle of her living room, then took a deep breath and relaxed. She liked Parker and was hap
py to be friends with him. She didn't want more, and this nervous twitting about was ridiculous.

  The doorbell rang and she was relieved to find that her pulse didn't jump. At least, it didn't jump until she opened the door.

  "Parker." She swallowed hard against the dryness in her throat. The navy polo shirt and khakis weren't anything special, but the man inside them was.

  Maybe she should just sleep with him and be done with it.

  "Sophie." His once-over took her in from the top of her loosely braided hair to the tips of her pink-painted toenails.

  He cleared his throat. "No, ah, red-white-and-blue today?"

  She shook her head as she stepped out and locked the door behind her. "I don't usually wear any of those colors.

  Not in a dress, anyway. Sorry for the lack of patriotism."

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  "You're forgiven." His eyes blazed briefly, then they were walking down the sidewalk to his Porsche.

  "No giant ego-mobile today?"

  Parker grinned at her as he opened her door. "No, just the little ego-mobile."

  Once Parker was settled in the driver's seat, Sophie asked,

  "What is it about rich guys and their vehicles, anyway? Don't you think it's stereotypical of you to drive a Porsche and a giant SUV?"

  "Sure. But it's just as stereotypical that women dig 'em."

  She tossed her hands. "I give up."

  "We should do a show on the topic," he said.

  Sophie itched for a pad. "You're right!"

  "Under the seat."

  She looked at him. "What?"

  "There's paper under the seat."

  Sophie reached down and immediately found a leather folio with a legal pad and Waterman pen. She flipped it open.

  "Theme. Stereotypes or men's egos?"

  "Ha. Stereotypes."

  She wrote it at the top of the page and underlined it. She loved the feel of the pen stroking across the paper, the warmth of the metal under her hand. She might have to save up for one of these.

  "We've got men and cars as one."

  " Women and men and cars."

  "Women can't drive," Sophie offered, writing as fast as they talked.

  "Men are too aggressive on the road."

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  "Truck drivers and all the things they supposedly do wrong." Sophie tapped the end of the pen on the pad. "Maybe we can get some calls from drivers who can tell us what people in cars do wrong around trucks. What else?"

  "Road crews," Parker offered, pointing to a quiet work area up ahead. "Standing around instead of working."

  "State workers in general."

  They brainstormed for another ten miles before they ran out of steam. Sophie grinned at Parker. This was much more fun than she'd expected. They were getting close, though, and she didn't know what she was getting into.

  "Tell me about your family," she said, after tucking the pad away. "Who am I meeting?"

  Parker's hands flexed on the wheel. "Well, you're meeting more than family. But the basics are my dad, my stepmother, and Mare and the kids." He looked over his shoulder before changing lanes to pass a slow-moving minivan. "Dad's Biff the Senior, I'm Biff the Second at these things. Everyone calls me Biff except Mare and my stepmother, Fawn." He glanced over at Sophie. "Fawn is a stereotype, too."

  "Trophy wife?"

  "Undoubtedly. She's younger than I am and doesn't like to be reminded of that, so she calls me Parker. And Mare hates the name Biff."

  "How come?"

  He lifted a shoulder. "More stereotypes, I guess? Biff is a spoiled, selfish playboy who doesn't care about anyone but himself."

  "Are you talking about the name or the Senior?"

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  He glanced at her. "Perceptive. My father epitomizes 'Biff.'

  My mother always called me Biff, but as soon as Mare could talk she corrected everyone she met. But my father's personality is too strong for most of our acquaintances. He wanted me to be Biff, I'm Biff. I didn't mind it growing up," he added. "I wanted to be like my dad."

  "You don't now?"

  "No." The answer came quickly and without elaboration.

  Sophie figured she'd better not press that button, so she tried another.

  "What happened to your mother?"

  Parker frowned. "Why do you keep assuming people are dead?"

  "Because you keep talking about them in past tense!"

  He sighed. "Mother is remarried to a count or something and living in France. I haven't seen her since I was ten. She and my father parted with the most animosity possible. I talk to her once every few months and only then if she catches me at home."

  Sheesh, the man had family problems. "What happened between your parents?" she asked tentatively.

  He shrugged again, this time in a very European manner.

  "I'm not sure. I think Mom got too old for Dad, and Dad got too dumb for her."

  "So you have a young stepmother," she prompted.

  Sophie could see real affection in his smile. "Fawn's a sweetheart. Not the brightest candle on the wall, and not really a match for my father's lack of caring, but she's a nice lady. She tries very hard."

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  "How old were you when your father remarried?"

  "Which time?"

  "Oh."

  "Yeah, 'oh' pretty much says it all. Mom and Dad divorced when I was eight and Mare was seven. My mother is Mary, by the way, and I think that's why Mare doesn't like it. My father still speaks pretty derisively of my mother. Dad was alone for about ninety seconds. He married my first stepmother less than a year after the divorce. My mother was still around then, and had joint custody. Phyllis didn't like us too much.

  She wasn't mean, just not used to children. She died when I was ten. Two months after my mother told us she was moving to France."

  He quieted, and Sophie wasn't sure if she should pry any more. She was curious, though, about these people and their lack of concern for their children.

  "I guess you felt pretty abandoned."

  He nodded slowly. "I guess I did. I don't think I've used that word before. Phyllis didn't choose to die. I think she was taking some kind of medication and reacted badly. And at the time, my mother really seemed sorry to be leaving us." He thought a moment. "She cried the day she told us. She said she'd fallen in love and didn't think we'd like France. She should have given us a choice, but I always figured my father wouldn't let us go. She didn't tell us that, though. She never made him the bad guy."

  "How come you haven't seen her? I mean, you don't sound like you blame her."

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  His face hardened. "Oh, I blame her. Not for leaving us. I understood that. I was young enough then to believe in falling in love."

  Ouch, Sophie thought. I guess he doesn't now.

  "I blame her for not coming home. Not sending for us for a visit. I blame her for allowing her count to make her shut us out of her life."

  "Did she have more children?"

  "No."

  Sophie reached across the gearshift and rested her hand on his thigh. "I'm sorry, Parker. No wonder you don't want to get married and have children. You don't have the best role models, do you?"

  "You only know half of it." But they were pulling into the long winding driveway of a seaside house, cutting the conversation short. Sophie admired the trees lining the drive and the mansion that came into view, but she didn't gawk.

  Even if she hadn't been to such places before, she knew a little of who lived there, and it removed some of the shine.

  "Nervous?" Parker asked. He parked the Porsche instead of leaving it with the valet. Sophie waited until they'd climbed out of the
car to answer.

  "No. In my old job I had to meet crowds of strangers on a regular basis. I can handle it."

  To her surprise, though, she knew much of the crowd.

  Dave, one of the partners of MMT, was there with his wife.

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  way across the lawn toward Parker's family, they were stopped as much for Sophie as for Parker.

  "Love your show, Soph!" was a common refrain, as was

  "When ya comin' back to the corporate world?" Parker got the same, as well as several business queries. Sophie learned more in those fifteen minutes about Parker's business holdings than she had in the entire time she'd known him.

  "So you're a dabbler," she commented when they were momentarily alone by the buffet.

  "I guess you can call me that." Parker lifted a chilled shrimp and fed Sophie a bite. "I do what interests me.

  Fortunately for my diversification, everything interests me."

  Sophie grinned, then turned that into a polite smile for the silver-haired giant coming toward them. Despite the bulk that Parker obviously hadn't inherited, Biff Cornwall the Senior looked just like him. Same color eyes, same basic shape to the face. Same charm, she noted, as he greeted the woman with his son.

  "Ah, Sophie Macgregor. The Mouth of Boston, or something like that? You and Biff Junior have quite an entertaining show, I hear." He held her hand in both of his and gave her his full attention. It was a skill learned early by most business people, but Sophie suspected Biff put it to his best use when coming on to women.

  She really hoped he wasn't coming on to her.

  Sophie retrieved her hand and turned her polite smile to the waiflike woman next to Biff. Fawn Cornwall wasn't tiny, but projected an air of fragility Sophie didn't think was put on. Her perfect face displayed worry lines in her forehead and 140

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  around her mouth that she'd tried to hide with makeup. But her pleasure was genuine when she accepted Parker's kiss on the cheek and greeted Sophie.

  "Thank you so much for making the trip out here. It's lovely to meet Parker's partner. And so important to Biff to have his family around on the holidays."