by Layla Hagen
"And this," Parker says, "is the kitchen."
"Wow." Shiny surfaces and every appliance that can be found in a kitchen surround us. All unused.
"Museum kitchen?" I ask.
"Guilty as charged. I've been eating out ever since I moved in here. But here's your chance to inaugurate it. Ready?"
"You bet. Let's start. I'm starving."
Chapter Fifteen
Parker
If I had to make a list of the hottest things a woman can do, cooking wouldn't make that list. But watching Jessica near the stove is a turn-on. She puts music on her phone and starts dancing around the kitchen, smiling the entire time. The fact that she’s dressed in a provocative red dress and high heels adds a touch of weirdness to the whole thing. But then again, there is nothing ordinary about Jessica.
I lean on the table in the center of the kitchen, content to watch her. The way she inspects each ingredient, you'd think they're some kind of precious stones. But that's the thing with her. She finds joy in everything. She brings this place exactly what it’s missing. Life. Light. I begin to ask myself if there's any place Jessica wouldn't bring light to.
"You should have a housewarming party," Jessica says after putting all the ingredients in three pans. She now waits patiently by the stove, peeking inside.
"No time. Besides, the house is half-empty. It's just the ground floor and two of the six bedrooms that have furniture."
She turns to face me, a smirk crossing her delicious lips. I can't wait to taste them again. "Housewarming parties aren't about showing off your furniture, for heaven's sake. It's about not having too much furniture so it doesn't stand in the way of fun."
"Not for adults," I answer, smiling.
"Being an adult isn't an excuse for being boring."
"No, it definitely isn't for you," I muse.
Her eyes widen, and something flickers in them. "Is that a bad thing?"
I walk over to her, putting my arms on the counter around her, trapping her.
"I'm not sure. You make me lose control in a way I haven't allowed myself in a long time. And I'm beginning to like it."
I kiss her before she can answer, tasting a million things on her lips. Her passion for life, and everything in it. Her passion for me.
"Parker," she whispers when we stop for air. I kiss her again, indulging in what she makes me feel. I lift up her skirt, hungry to touch her again. I pull her closer to me until her full breasts press against my chest, making my dick throb anew, wanting to pound her again. A weird whistling sound comes from somewhere next to us. She pushes me away.
"Crap," Jessica exclaims, hovering over the pans again, with a deep frown on her forehead. "You stay away from me until after we eat. I don't want to ruin this."
"Agreed, chef," I say and she darts her tongue out briefly before focusing on the pans again.
***
Jessica
"So what's the verdict?" I ask, as he takes the first bite of steak.
"You are a witch."
"The I'll-use-your-entrails-for-a-potion kind, or the I'll-turn-your-pumpkin-into-a-carriage kind?" I frown. "No, I think the latter kind was called a fairy."
I feel Parker's warm breath against my neck as he puts an arm around my waist from the back. "The kind that has the power to turn everything around her bright."
Normally, I'd laugh at a line this corny. But my breath catches instead. This is no line.
We take a seat at the kitchen table, opposite each other. Parker takes another bite of his steak.
"You think you got well acquainted with your kitchen?" I ask playfully.
He chuckles. "This isn't the first time I've been in the kitchen, Jessica. I spent a lot of time in here when I was a kid. It was my second favorite place in the house after my dad's study. I spent hours here, chatting with the cook or the maids."
It takes me a few seconds to realize what is wrong with that sentence. Cook . . . maids. "How about your mom?"
No reaction from Parker. He merely shifts the remaining pieces of steak from one side of the plate to the other. "Let's just say my mum wasn't a very hands-on mum."
"She didn't spend a lot of time with you and your brother?" I press.
Parker stiffens in his seat at the mention of his brother, then drops his fork, looking at me. "No, she was all right with Robert. She just loathed me."
The ease with which he says the last few words breaks my heart. Like it's nothing more than a simple fact of life. It might seem devastating and cruel to others, but it's something he's learned to live with. "I'm sure that's not true," is all I manage to say.
"You don't know her." He inhales deeply, his stare vacant. "She didn't want me at all. Or my dad. She just married him because she had my brother, Robert, and his father had left them and she didn't have any financial means to support herself and a child. She hated her marriage to my dad and planned to leave him after a few years. But she got pregnant with me and my dad refused to grant her a divorce. She even told him she'd leave me behind with him, if he agreed to a separation."
"That sucks," I say, unsure if I should add anything else.
He merely shrugs. "I still have some great memories of this house from when my dad was alive. After he died, Mum sold it. Not that I was around in the new one much. I wasn’t exactly . . . welcomed. She sent me away shortly after Dad’s funeral."
"I know you've been in a boarding school."
"Several," he says. "I got chucked out of quite a few. No matter how much my mother tried to bribe the headmasters, they weren't willing to keep me."
"Why?"
"I caused lots of trouble. I'd either spend my time alone or cause trouble. I had anger issues. Got into a lot of fights."
"What were you angry about?" I ask quietly.
"Everything. I was mostly angry with my dad for dying. Then I'd feel guilty. I mean, who does that? I couldn't understand how I could be mad at him." A ghost of a frown replaces the impassiveness he's displayed until now, as if he can't recall that particular detail without awakening a very deep pain.
"That's because you were a child, Parker," I say, and wanting to touch his hand, I extend mine over the table. But Parker removes his hand quickly, and I fake wanting to grab salt instead. Why does he reject affection when he needs it? And then it dawns on me. Because he isn't used to getting any. Perhaps he thinks he doesn't deserve it. "You weren't supposed to understand these things on your own. You weren't supposed to go through this alone."
"Well, I did," he says.
"How about your brother?"
"We didn't get along at all. Mum enjoyed her newfound freedom as a rich widow and shipped him to boarding school as well after some time. I think Robert resented me because of the trouble I caused. He got admonished a lot for my behavior. In a way, he felt responsible for me, and it wasn't a responsibility he wanted. Then as we grew older, he became more competitive."
"In what sense?" I ask, confused.
"In every sense." His tone is final. No more talk about his brother. Got it.
"How about your mom? Did she change?"
Parker raises his eyebrows. "She remarried two years after my father's death. I didn't go home during the holidays if I could avoid it. When I was sixteen, she officially kicked me out of the house and cut all my funds."
My jaw drops.
"But you were underage."
"Didn't matter to her. My uncle, Helen's dad, supported me through high school. I refused to take money from him afterward. My dad had set up a trust fund for me, but I didn't have access to it until I turned twenty-two."
"How did you put yourself through college? You wouldn't have had access to scholarships and loans because your family was rich, right?"
Parker looks at me with an uneasy smile. "If I wouldn't know better, I'd suspect you are a reporter. There are a lot of people who'd pay good money for all these details."
"Parker, I'd never—”
"I know, it was a joke. A bad one." He runs his hand through h
is hair. "For what it's worth, I'm not sorry for Mum cutting me off like that from everything. It gave me freedom. But I think you've heard enough for one night. Don't want to scare you away. No more confessions. From me," he adds in a measured tone.
Though he hasn't brought it up again, I know he's still waiting for me to explain my tattoo. He won't push me if I don't say anything, but I'm suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to speak. I've never talked about it before. I never even wrote in a diary about it, because I knew diaries weren't infallible. I read Serena's for almost year before she realized what I was doing, in an effort to understand my tongue-tied friend better. So no diaries for me. A secret is only a secret when you don't tell anyone. But Parker laid himself bare before me. Why shouldn't I do the same?
"Ready for the next course?" I ask.
"Full already, but I have the feeling you'll chop off my head if I say no."
"Excellent preservation skills, I see." I serve us a few crêpes each, with cinnamon, honey, and vanilla ice cream.
Between bites, I find myself blurting out the words, "Remember when you said the tattoo guy botched my tattoo?"
Parker stops in the act of cutting the crêpe, nodding. I hesitate, but then go over to him leaning on the edge of the table, lifting my dress a little so the butterfly tattoo on my hip is visible. He leans forward, tracing his finger over the main body of the butterfly, the suspicious part where the skin is rough and deformed in a slight cavity.
"This part doesn't look like it's part of the tattoo. I mean there is ink on it, but—"
I take a deep breath. "I got this tattoo right before I started at Stanford. I did it to mask a scar—that ridge where the body of the butterfly is."
"How did you get the scar?"
"From the lash of a belt buckle. My father's belt."
Parker stiffens.
"You want to talk about it?"
"Why not?" I ask nervously, letting my dress fall, covering me. But I don't go back to my seat. Somehow, being so near to him gives me strength to talk.
"My father's lifelong dream had been to become a doctor. No one in his family had gone to college, and he was very proud that he was the first one with such aspirations. He did his best to get a scholarship, but it didn't work out. His family encouraged him to settle down and enjoy the simple life, like they did. I don't know why he chose to settle. Maybe his family pressured him to. But he never enjoyed it. He was frustrated. Nothing was ever good enough for him. Not his job, not my mom. When she became pregnant, he wanted a boy. He got me instead. And I . . . I wasn't the best daughter. Certainly not the studious and responsible daughter he wanted."
I take another deep breath and look at Parker, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn't. Maybe it's better though. If he interrupts me now, I don't know if I can continue.
"He was never violent, though. I mean, he did slap me now and again, but mostly he just said horrible things to me—”
Parker's jaw tightens. "There are many kinds of abuse, Jessica. Verbal and emotional abuse can do just as much damage." He frowns. "What did your mother say?"
"Not much. Though I did hear them fight from time to time. Mostly my mom telling him that he was too harsh on me. But she rarely intervened when my dad was lecturing me on the pitfalls of becoming a loser." I wink, trying to lighten things up a bit, but Parker's frown doesn't dissipate. "Whatever I did was never good enough. Not once. We weren't doing very well financially, so I began to babysit the neighborhood children on weekends. He wanted me to do it on weekdays, too, in the evenings, saying since I couldn’t be bothered learning, then I should at least bring some money home. As I said, whatever I did was not good enough. So eventually I stopped trying to please him altogether. I should cut him some slack, though. I wasn't a very good daughter. I started wearing lipstick and dating guys when I was thirteen and a half. I—”
"Don't you dare blame yourself for this," Parker says in a warning tone. His hand shoots forward to mine, but now I'm the one who avoids his touch, just like he did before. Funny how giving affection comes easier to me than receiving it. I guess it's the same for him.
"Don't you dare pity me, Parker." I abruptly leave the table, turning my back to him, staring at the double-door fridge as if I'm particularly fascinated by it.
"I'm not. I . . . just go on," he says.
"After Serena moved in with us, things got better. But also worse. It was better because he wasn't as hot-tempered when he lectured me. Less shouting. It was worse because Serena was everything he ever wanted his child to be. And he made sure to let me know this as often as he could. The last time he lost it, he lost it badly and he gave me this." I point to my hip, shuddering at the memory. "It was right before I went to college. I don't even remember what it was about. I showed up late from a party, and he . . . Well, the point is, the wound left a scar."
"What did your mother say?"
I gulp, indignant that he might think my mother just stood by, silently agreeing with him. "She never knew. My mom is a very kind woman. She always sees the best in people."
"You didn't tell anyone? Not even Serena?"
"I was ashamed. And my mom would have been devastated. And Serena was so fragile during high school. I never shared bad things with her. She was barely recovering after her sister's death. I didn't want to burden her with something like that. I always kept everything related to my father secret from Serena. She knew we weren’t getting along very well. But nothing more detailed. Absolutely nothing. She thinks of my father as somewhat strict and a bit ill-tempered, but I never told her more.”
"Always thinking about others and not yourself, eh?" Parker asks in such a kind tone that I melt on the spot.
I turn to him.
"How do you know your dad didn't do the same thing to your mother?" he asks.
I shake my head. "He isn't a violent person at all. It's just me who somehow manages to get that reaction out of him. I must have a special talent."
"You think this was your fault? That's rubbish. And when I say that, it has absolutely nothing to do with pity."
"I really could have been a better daughter, you know," I whisper.
"You were a rebellious teen. So what? Plenty of teenagers are like that. And let me tell you, that's not how normal parents deal with that. Heck, you weren't even that bad. You got into Stanford, didn't you?"
"I guess. I don't want to talk about this anymore," I say abruptly.
"That was the last time it happened?" Parker asks as if he hasn't heard me.
"Yes. But I avoided speaking to him whenever I could after I left for Stanford. He didn't talk to me for a year after I informed him and my mom of my major. I guess as far as disappointments go, a daughter who studies art and history ranks right up there with stripper for someone who once aspired to be a doctor."
In a fraction of a second Parker is in front of me, his hand lifts my chin. "The only person you have a duty not to disappoint is yourself, Jessica. The other people in your life, no matter how close they seem, can bail at any time. Don't try to live a life that will please others."
I laugh, resting my palms on his shoulders. "Well, as you can see, I'm not. If I did, I'd probably be busting my ass in med school. Oh, who am I kidding? I would've never gotten into med school. If I'd gone down that route, I would've been a nurse. Hitting on hot doctors and all that." Parker chuckles, but still looks at me expectantly. "I'm working very hard because I want to prove to myself that I'm capable of something more than causing trouble. I want to prove it to myself." And to the universe, which includes my parents, but I don't say that out loud.
"Good. You will live with your choices. Make sure they are the ones you really want. Don't live the life others want you to live. It will feel like prison."
The word makes the hair at the nape of my neck stand on its end. "Don't ever try to control me, Parker."
Parker tenses under my palms. "Why would you say that?"
“Nothing in this house is even slightly misplaced or anyth
ing less than impeccable. Your car almost literally shines. Your suits never have even the slightest wrinkle. This tells me that you are a man who seeks perfection in everything. That kind of perfection you want is not attained without having a firm grip on everything around you."
Parker loosens a bit. "I admit I have a tendency to want to control everything around me. But not you. I knew that since I first saw you in that club. I knew you were uncontrollable. And I liked that about you even though it scared me."
"Oh, you must have loved that about me," I say sarcastically. "That’s why you ran away from me.”
“I didn’t think you’d enjoy being with someone as... obsessed with control as I am.”
"So where do you stand now?"
"I think I have already confessed that you make me enjoy losing control."
"How so?"
"I don't know. You make me feel . . . free." He trails his fingers on my tattoo again, but I don't flinch this time. "That's what your tattoo is about, the wings—freedom, isn't it?"
"Yes," I whisper. "The scar was so ugly, and I wanted to turn it into something I liked, a token that meant something for me."
"I will never try to take away your wings, Jessica," Parker says, brushing my neck with his lips, his arms now circling me, pulling me to him. "I want to learn how to fly with you."
"Thank you," I say, snuggling in his arms, enjoying his peaceful, warm breath over me.
We stay like this for a few good minutes, before Parker says, "You know what, I'll have another crêpe," and walks to the table with a grin.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Damn," Parker says through a mouthful. "Just when I thought I survived the interrogation. Shoot."
"What were you really doing in California, Parker? And don't tell me you were working with James, I know that. But your presence there wasn't really crucial, was it? You said that as an investor you are more of an advisor, but you don't need to get involved in day-to-day executive things."
Parker laughs. "You actually listened to that? That's impressive. People generally just phase out right after they pose the question. Anyway, yeah, that's how it usually is. That's what allows me to invest small amounts in multiple companies at a time. But I always was more hands-on with James's businesses. I also put more money in them than I do with others." He takes a deep breath. "But no, you are right, my presence in California wasn't really necessary. Let's just say I needed a break from myself."
