Denying Mr. Parks (The Parks #1)

by Lilly James

  “Evelyn, I will do whatever it takes to be with you. I won’t hold back anymore. If I have to chase, then so be it.”

  “So fucking her is the deal too?”

  His frown dominated his forehead. “I’ve never slept with her.”

  “That’s what she implied,” I sulked. It was pathetic.

  “She’s lying.” He was getting cross.

  I threw my hands up in the air. I was drowning in too many emotions: confusion, gratitude, lust, desire. “I can’t do this. I really can’t.” I turned swiftly. Parks was about to follow me, reaching out to grab me, but I swiped at him. “Leave me alone!”

  ***

  I got home from work and desperately tried to ignore the sullen, empty feeling following me around. Half of me knew why I felt empty, and half of me denied it. Parks had, like I asked, left me alone. He gave me space. That’s what I wanted. Then why was I wishing it wasn’t?

  I texted Alex back, as he asked if he could call around to see me for a film and a takeaway that night after his shift. I said yes and desperately tried to look forward to it. My guilt towards the way I felt for Alex was growing, but then he wasn’t my boyfriend, so why did I feel sorry for sleeping with Parks instead of him?

  I decided to go for a swim to clear my head. Fifty lengths of aggressive swimming later, I was back in my clothes when my phone started to ring. I answered it mindlessly, and my dad’s voice came down the speaker all cheery. “Hey, kid, me and your ma want you over for dinner tonight. Say you’ll come.”

  The way he begged at the end made my eyes roll, because I knew I would say yes. I had nothing else to do, so I agreed. “Sure, what time do you want me?”

  The breath he’d been holding finally let loose. “Now? Your mum’s cooking a roast dinner.”

  Oh God, I couldn’t wait to see how that was going to turn out.

  ***

  After walking past the gangs of kids and up the metal stairs, I noticed my parents had a new door fitted. It was about time. Obviously the locks had been changed, so I banged on the door with my fist because the letter slot seemed to have been ripped off already. My dad answered, and his shaggy, shoulder-length hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks. His baggy clothes hung from his gaunt frame, and he was paler than the last time I saw him. I didn’t question him, though, I just walked inside, hoping for the smell of a roast chicken dinner, but all I could smell was burning. Then the fire alarm went off, and my dad rushed past me to swat the screeching thing with a towel.

  Never a dull moment in my parents’ house.

  “Fuck,” my mum yelled, followed by the crash of a baking tray. Yep, she had burnt it.

  Looking around, I noticed the house was messy with old newspapers and moldy cups and plates in the living room. There were tea stains on the settee, and the ceiling was yellow from how much they smoked. I didn’t know how they could live like this.

  I went to the kitchen, intending to help my mum out. When I got there, she was throwing the chicken—that had been charcoaled—into the bin along with the baking tray.

  “You can save that,” I scolded her, grabbing hold of the dirty oven gloves and taking the tray from her hands.

  “All I wanted to do was cook for you. Why has everything got to fuck up?” she yelled again with a cigarette hanging from her mouth.

  I rolled my eyes, then pointed towards her cigarette. “I thought you were giving those up?”

  She glared at me. “Don’t start, Evey.”

  My dad appeared in the doorway, waving an Indian takeout menu in his hands.

  “We’ve got no money,” my mum snapped at him, seeming to say she was skint so I would feel sorry for her. I did.

  “I’ll pay,” I groaned and didn’t get as much as a thank-you, but I was used to it.

  “You’re a good kid, Evey. I’m Hank Marvin.” My dad winked.

  “Well, what you waiting for? I’m wasting away ’ere,” my mother said.

  While waiting for the takeout, I didn’t sit down to converse with my parents. Instead, I collected all the dishes and dirty washing and cleaned them up. I pushed the vacuum cleaner around quickly and propped up the pillows on the sofas. When I was done, the food had arrived. I went down to collect it and even plated it all up.

  “So,” I began, trying to get a conversation going, but neither of them looked away from the TV. “How come you’re both skint?”

  “Bills and paying for that fucking roast dinner. I only bought it for you.” My mum was discreetly blaming me.

  “Why don’t you both get a job?” I told them straight-out. If they were struggling for money, then that would be the logical answer.

  My mum glared at me like I’d grown two heads. “Who’d employ two ex-junkies, huh? I’m surprised you got a fucking job.”

  She had a point, but then she would have to manage her money better if that was the case. “Then you should budget better.”

  My mum threw her fork down onto her plate aggressively. “Don’t come over here and tell me how to run my life, Little Miss Perfect.” She looked me up and down in my yoga pants and hooded jumper like I had the queen’s royals on.

  I held my tongue. “Whatever, Mum, that’s not what I’m doing.”

  “Leave it out, Liz,” my dad intervened, giving my mum a warning stare. “How’s your job, kid?”

  I wouldn’t tell them the truth. I always made out my life was better than it actually was to my parents because I wanted them to think I had a life. That I could be happy and they couldn’t put me down anymore. Even if it was a lie.

  “Great.” I swallowed down some rice. My dad smiled widely at my news, but my mum rolled her eyes, even though she wasn’t looking at me. “Still staying clean?” I had been dying to ask it since I had arrived, and with my mum’s attitude slowly going back to being a first-class nob, I didn’t hesitant to.

  My mum’s posture stiffened and she stopped eating. “I told you I was better, didn’t I? Are you?”

  “I’ve been sober for almost a year,” I said matter-of-fact, excluding my small relapses.

  She narrowed her eyes at me, searching for a trace of lies. I stared her out until she looked back towards the TV.

  After we finished our food, I started clearing all the plates away. I wanted to leave as soon as I could, because being at my parents’ flat brought back a lot of bad memories. It took most of my concentration to try and keep my mind blank like I had learned in group sessions. If I went to my parents’ house and set my mind free, I would relive bad memories I’d tried so hard to banish. I wish it didn’t take all my concentration to block out these thoughts, but it wasn’t an easy thing to do. Before, when I was in an unhinged, drunken state, I would avoid places and people that reminded me of the trauma I had to deal with. My way of coping with the pain of my past was to become drunk until I couldn’t feel anymore. People had said to me that I was born cold, but no one is born cold. There is always a reason someone has a hardened shield that protects them from life.

  I dried my hands and went back into the living room to gather my things. When I glanced at my parents, they suddenly seemed sheepish. “What’s wrong with you two?” I frowned, hitching my bag over my shoulder.

  “Your dad has something to ask to you.” My mum nudged him with her elbow.

  “You couldn’t lend us some cash, could you, kid?”

  I stopped myself from lashing out because I couldn’t see them go without. I wish I could, but I couldn’t. “How much?” I sighed, dropping my bag from my shoulder to dig inside for my purse.

  “Thirty quid will do,” my mum piped up that time. I pulled out the money and handed it to my dad, but my mum snatched it from my hands and stuffed it in her bra.

  “For food, right?” I questioned suspiciously, because I was wise enough to know that most of their money went to drugs and alcohol.

  My mum went straight into defensive mode. “You’re never going to believe we’ve ever got clean, are you, Evey? You’re always going to look down your
nose at us. We were never good enough for you, were we? That’s why you ran off to Cheryl’s house and left us with nothing,” she spat.

  I recoiled, deeply confused about where the hell that came from. “Don’t start on me, because I have every right to ask you what you need to buy with my money. And as for running off down Cheryl’s, I had no fucking choice. I was sixteen years old. An unwanted kid. I had nothing.”

  My mum groaned dramatically. “You had inheritance from your gran, and you gave me nothing.”

  I wasn’t shocked by her accusation. She had said it to me numerous times before, but not giving my parents a penny was my nan’s wish, and I obliged. “And what did you give me, Mum? What did you ever give me except bruises, scars, and pain?”

  She turned her head away from me, acting like I was the one who was out of order. I knew if I stayed a row would break out between us. “You know what, forget it. So much for proving to me you’d changed!”

  “Ah, kid, don’t go. Lizzy, tell her,” my dad pleaded.

  She flapped her hand in mid-air. “Let her go.”

  I couldn’t deal with my mum when she was like this. I couldn’t deal with her full stop, so why I kept trying with her was a conundrum.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I walked into my flat and jumped a mile when I saw Alex. “Fuck.” I clutched my chest. “What are you doing?”

  His expression was lost, hurt. “We arranged to watch a movie. I’ve been waiting here all night.”

  Oh shit. I rubbed my forehead. “Alex, I completely forgot.”

  “Why don’t you just be honest with me, Evey?”

  “I am.” I recoiled, my guilt building as he made his way towards me.

  “Really?” He bent down and kissed my lips, and I found myself flinching, not heating up; no arousal, nothing. Alex pulled away, closing his eyes as he swallowed down a lump in his throat. “You don’t feel anything, do you?”

  I hung my head in shame, but he continued, almost pleading. “Evey, I think about you day and night, don’t you understand how I feel? I see a future for us.”

  “Alex, I—”

  “I’m falling in love with you, Evey,” he bellowed.

  Fuck. My heart sank. I wrapped my arms around myself. “Alex, you can’t love someone like me. No one can love me.”

  “I do.” He swallowed again.

  I shook my head. “You shouldn’t.”

  “Tell me why,” he yelled.

  “Because I don’t have feelings for you,” I yelled back. “And I don’t want to break your heart by building your hopes up and shattering them.”

  I watched him take in my words heavily, and the pain that spread across his face was excruciating. But I couldn’t lie to him anymore. I’d tried to convince myself he would be good for me—for us. That dating Alex would surely bring on a spark, because he was safe for me, but I couldn’t lie to a man I cared about deeply, who I thought of as family, only to break his heart.

  Rubbing his head as if needing to think, Alex sighed deeply, then turned to pull his jacket from the back of the chair. “You know, I don’t get you, Evey. You have sex with all those sleazy men that only want one thing, yet you refuse to give a man like me a chance. I would offer my heart out on a plate for you, but it’s not good enough, is it? Why do the good guys always come last, ey?”

  I gulped, my eyes tearing because I was hurting him. “Alex, please don’t say that. It’s not like that. I care about you, don’t you see? That’s why I can’t carry on this fantasy, because I will turn it into a nightmare for you. That’s what I do.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not me, it’s you, right?” He looked utterly lost. And I was the one that put him there, but I wasn’t the one who could help him find his way back. “Is there someone else?”

  “You know there isn’t.” I looked away.

  “Then what?”

  “I just can’t have a relationship, Alex. I push people away. I hurt everyone I get close to. And I really, really don’t want to do that to you.”

  “You already have,” he whispered, knocking my shoulder as he passed me to leave.

  I deflated down onto the sofa, put my head into my hands, and tried to take deep breaths. I knew what I wanted, because it was the same thing I always wanted when something in my mind, in my emotions, had been disrupted.

  Wine. I had a bottle stashed in my room, but now I desired something else. I pulled out my phone and typed vigorously.

  Me: Wade, I need to see you.

  Wade: Cleaver will be there in ten.

  Cleaver pulled up outside the flat as soon as I shut the front door. I ran for the car, not even giving him time to open the door for me. When I jumped in, there was no Parks.

  “He’s just finalizing a teleconference, Evey. He should be with you shortly when we arrive.”

  I got up to his hotel room and was alone. I wandered into the living area for the second time and came face-to-face with the small bar. I knew if it held any alcohol I would have had a measure of something. So I closed my eyes and tried to forget about it and walked to his music station. I pressed ‘play,’ and the last song he was listening to came on. Paloma Faith’s beautiful “Only Love Can Hurt Like This.” I was slowly wondering if there was a secret meaning behind Parks’s music choices, but I couldn’t get sucked into the lyrics. I turned in the opposite direction and straight into Parks’s hard chest. He was worried. I could see the look on his face.

  “Jesus,” he breathed. “Are you all right?”

  I blurted out my intention for calling him before I changed my mind. “I want you to spank me. I want to see why I’m getting hung up on the idea. I need to get the curiosity out of my system. This is not for your benefit but for mine.” I made my last point crystal clear.

  After a pause he nodded with understanding. With a gesture of his hand, he told me to have a seat in the living area. When I sat, he settled down next to me and ran a hand through his dark, styled hair, hair that was too amazing for a man, dishevelling it a little. I took my gaze away from it and tried to focus. Hell, if I could. Even his eyes were so green and mesmerizing, I almost questioned if they were fake. His square, chiselled jaw, his perfect nose, and fresh, clean-cut, tanned face; everything about him was stunning. He was thoroughly disarming, and that made it hard to concentrate.

  “You want punishment?” He narrowed his eyes, reading me. I gulped hard and nodded. Parks sat back into the sofa and studied me carefully. “Tell me your reasons for this, Evelyn. If you’re asking me to punish you out of curiosity, then I understand completely. But if you’re asking me to punish you for something you feel you should be punished for, I would like to know what it is.”

  I inhaled deeply, then breathed out a long, stretched breath. “It’s curiosity. Nothing more.” The doubt in my eyes was clear. I felt it as much as Parks saw it, but I remained confident he’d believe me and concealed all other emotions.

  “I can see you’re confused about it.” He half closed his eyelids, shaking his head like I was guileless. To this in particular, I was.

  “I’m confused because I hate that I’m asking you to do this. I’m so against men like you who think they can do what the hell they like with women. But I’m also curious because when you did it to me before, it felt…” I gave up. “I can’t explain it.” I bowed my head and stared into my lap. I felt ashamed. As usual.

  Parks’s concern for me came through, but there was more underlying it than he let on. But I was talking about a CEO. A master of his trade. A powerful, dominating male that stood alone and was complete in himself. He wasn’t going to allow me in easily. Just as well, I didn’t want to be allowed in.

  “You will find it enduring, pleasurable, and liberating. Maybe that’s what you felt before? That is why you are curious. That is why you want more.”

  How the hell did he know my own feelings better than I did? I looked up and nodded, accepting his logic. His lip twitched once with satisfaction. “Fine. Go to my office. The
room is the first left outside this door. When you get there, bend over my desk and wait.”

  I hesitated after his brusque command. “I’m not lying across your lap?”

  “I only carry out pleasurable spanks on my lap. I thought you wanted the punishment?”

  “I want to figure out both.” My voice was firm, but inside I was nervous. Nervous about the unexpected. Nervous because I thought, in a way, this punishment might heal me somehow. Either way, it was what I deserved.

  “I understand,” he finally said. “Go. Get ready for me. Jeans off. Nothing else.” I swallowed hard and made my way into his office.

  His office didn’t go with the rest of the hotel room. It was older, dated, and dark. Pulling myself together, I took off my shoes and jeans and rested them on the chaise longue. I thanked God he didn’t ask me to take off my jumper. But then, I would have refused anyway. I faced the desk and pressed my palms flat on the wood. My legs were bare, and my ample bottom was exposed because of my choice of underwear. I was wearing a black garland-string thong and almost wished I had more coverage. For what seemed a considerably long time, I waited in breathy anticipation for his entry, my heart beating harder the longer I waited; my skin becoming hotter, and my breaths becoming deep.

  Finally, I heard him enter the room. His presence made me turn automatically. He was still dressed in his grey trousers, but all the buttons on his shirt were undone, exposing his strong array of exquisite abs and that sexy line of hair from his navel to his pubic bone. I had no idea why staring at that alone made my mouth water. Then I spotted his eyes. They were dark and cold, and his body language was reclusive.

  “Turn around, Evelyn. You don’t get to look at me when you’re being punished. I will not repeat that again.”

  I did as he demanded, quickly becoming aroused as I felt him nearing. He stopped just behind me and ran his fingertips across my bare arse. The lightest touch from him felt phenomenally intense as he circled my backside with his fingers whilst speaking in a low, imperious rasp. “Let me talk you through it, Evelyn. Punishment spanks will hurt most. My fingers will be spread out to deliver a harsher sting.” He splayed his hand out across my arse cheek to show me what he meant. “For pleasurable spanking, my palm will be cupped, my fingers together.” He grabbed the curve of my bottom a little more aggressively, making me whimper. “Understand?”