“Why are you so upset?”
She turns from the sink, eyes glittering. “He’s the father of that puto bendejo who gave you a stroke, that’s why!”
Suddenly exhausted, I blow out a hard breath. “It wasn’t a stroke, Mama.”
“Atrial fibrillation, heart disease, whatever! He’s the one who caused it! You’re healthy as a horse until he dumps you like a bad habit, and then you have to take medicine every day because your heart fell apart? It’s his fault!”
In all likelihood, I’d had the heart condition from birth, but it went undetected. It took a “mitigating event,” as the doctor put it, to uncover the problem. But for my mother, the mitigating event was and will always be Parker Maxwell.
Just one more mark to add to his tally of doom.
“Either way, I’m looking into both of them. It’s only a matter of time before I dig something up.” I stand and go to her, wrapping my arms around her frail shoulders. “And then I’ll even the score. Okay?”
It takes a few long moments before the tension begins to fade from her body. Finally, she sighs and pats my back. “I’m sorry, mija. I don’t mean to shout. I’m tired today.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, staring over her head through the window and out into the yard. “I’m tired too.”
She pats my back again, withdraws from my arms, goes over to the big pot on the stove, and starts to ladle the rest of the soup into the freezer-safe plastic containers stacked ready on the counter. Keeping her back to me, she says, “We’ll go by the school tomorrow afternoon. Clean sheets and towels are in the hall closet. Truck’s got a full tank if you need it.”
There’s more to be said—there’s always more—but I simply nod and push away from the counter. I wander through the living room and down the hall, pausing to look at the faded pictures of my brother and me, framed in cheap plastic frames and hung on tacks stuck through the wallpaper. In pictures, the progression of his disease is painfully clear: crutches, wheelchair, hospital bed with metal rails. I’d almost forgotten how angelic his smile was.
So many old ghosts. I wonder if they’ll ever let me go.
With a painful flutter in my chest, I turn away from the pictures. I take my duffel bag into the room I used to call my own, change into jeans and a T-shirt, shrug on a jacket, wind a scarf around my hair and don my big black sunglasses, and grab the keys to my mother’s truck.
Then I go for a drive in the chilly Texas afternoon to revisit all the places that still haunt me.
The next day at ten after three, my mother and I sit in a parking lot, watching the outpouring of students that bursts from the school doors after the end-of-day bell.
The school is a good one—a private one—a sprawl of red brick and majestic white columns set on a lush, landscaped green hill on the good side of town. It looks like something out of a movie set. Like a spy, I’m peering at it through a pair of binoculars.
“We’re too late! We missed her!”
In the passenger seat, my mother squints into the bright afternoon sun. “No, she hasn’t come out—” Suddenly she clutches my arm and points. “There!”
I follow the direction she’s pointing, and my heart stops dead in my chest.
Emerging from the shadows of the building into the warm afternoon sunlight is a girl. She’s tall, honey-blonde, leggy, dressed in the school uniform of white shirt and navy plaid skirt, carrying a stack of books in one arm.
My daughter—my beautiful daughter, the beautiful stranger—lifts her hand to shade her eyes from the sun.
My voice choked, I say, “She’s so tall. When did she get so tall?”
“Children grow like weeds. The last time you saw her she was, what? Ten? Now she’s fifteen. A young woman.”
Fifteen. The age I was when I met Parker.
Two years before my life imploded.
I lift the binoculars and stare through them again. Viewed closer, Eva is even prettier. She has her father’s dimples, his easy, long-limbed grace. I watch breathlessly as she waves to a few friends, then skips down the steps, turns a corner, and disappears.
It’s not until I take the binoculars from my eyes that I notice the wetness on my cheeks.
My mother and I sit in stifling silence until I can compose myself. She politely keeps her gaze turned away. After most of the cars have left the parking lot and the doors to the school have been shut, she says quietly, “Robert died.”
My head jerks around. I stare at her. “Eva’s adoptive father? When?”
“Last year. He was hit by a drunk driver.”
“Mama! Why didn’t you tell me?”
My mother finally looks at me. Her eyes are full of sympathy, and it makes me furious.
“Why, mija? What could you have done?”
“I’m sure I could’ve done something—”
“No.” My mother’s voice is firm. “You could not.”
Even through my anger, I know she’s right. What could I do? Eva doesn’t know me, has never known me. I gave her up when she was only minutes old. I never even got to hold her. The doctor took her from my body and whisked her away, into the care of the agency my mother chose to handle the adoption. I’ve only ever been a part of her life like this, hovering out of sight, stealing glimpses of my own child like a thief.
Even this is more than I should have.
The adoption was private, the records sealed. But long before I had Tabby on my payroll, I had someone else who hid and unearthed information for me. A man named Dooney whom I met in a grief counseling group after I gave birth. He was an expert in information technology who’d been a bigwig in the military before a dishonorable discharge for manslaughter. Something to do with his wife and another man, although he never provided the details. He helped me forge a new identity from the ashes of my former life, helped me find out who had adopted my baby, and later hanged himself from the rafters of his garage.
Tabby I have to pay. Dooney did it because he was in love with me.
Birds of a feather flock together, and so do birds with broken wings.
My mother sighs. I know she wishes I’d never found out where Eva went, but she stopped telling me long ago that these clandestine visitations were an unhealthy thing to do. Besides, she’s been unable to keep away either. Like addicts, we’re still drawn to the thing that ruined us.
“I visited your father’s grave the other day.”
Rage rears its ugly head inside me. I mutter, “Why?”
My mother thinks for a moment. “Sometimes I need someone to talk to.”
My breath hisses out between my gritted teeth. “And you decided the man who spent every last dime of yours gambling and drinking himself to death and every minute before that screaming at me about what shame I’d brought on the family because I got pregnant was the one you needed a friendly chat with?”
Her voice is hollow when she answers. “I told him how much I still hate him. I told him his weakness is what killed your brother. If he hadn’t wasted all our money, we could have gotten Eduardo better doctors, more help. His illness wouldn’t have been cured, but he could have been in less pain. He didn’t have to suffer so much, disfigured and helpless, shitting himself like an infant.” She’s silent a moment, staring out the window. “I hope your father is rotting in hell.”
I tilt my head back against the headrest and close my eyes. “It wasn’t Dad who killed Eduardo. It was Parker. Before I got pregnant and Parker deserted me, we were fine. Everything was fine. And then it wasn’t. Because of him.”
Silently, my mother nods. This is an old theme between us, a conversation so well-worn it’s really no longer necessary to speak it aloud. The fact is undisputed. Parker Maxwell was the catalyst of my family’s misery. He is the cross on which all our pain hangs.
And now the daughter he’s never met is fatherless once again.
When I exhale a long breath, my mother guesses what I’ve been thinking. “You can’t interfere, mija. Anything you do that puts you in the p
ath of that girl, you risk being discovered. Think what would happen then.”
I can see the headlines now. The Queen Bitch Has a Hidden Love Child! If I try to help Eva and I’m found out, her life will be miserable. The press will descend like vultures. And then she’ll discover who her real father is, and he’ll desert her just like he did fifteen years ago.
“You’re right. Better to let sleeping dogs lie and concentrate instead on kicking the shit out of their useless master.”
I start the truck and pull out of the parking lot, headed back home.
In my handbag, my phone begins to ring. At the exact same time, my mother and I both mutter, “Speak of the devil.”
We look at each other. She says, “Jinx.”
My depression suddenly lifting, I look back at the road.
She’s just given me a brilliant idea.
23
Parker
Tuesdays in the restaurant business aren’t typically the craziest nights of the week, but tonight is an exception. Kai is having another meltdown in the kitchen—this time over beets, of all things—we’re so overbooked, two scuffles have already broken out in the bar over the availability of tables, and my shipment of wagyu beef never made it, which means I’ll be serving filet mignon—at half the profit.
But none of those things are the reason my mood is so black.
“Still no call, huh?” Bailey, trying her best not to smirk, peers around my shoulder. I quickly shove my cell phone into my coat pocket and cross my arms over my chest. The only answer I give her is a glower.
“Okay, I don’t mean to say I told you so, boss, but…I totally told you so.”
I rake my hand through my hair. “Not helpful, Bailey. And shouldn’t you be working right now instead of giving me grief?”
She shrugs. “Shouldn’t you be working instead of obsessing over your booty call?”
“It wasn’t a booty call!”
Bailey chuckles. “Really? Because I thought when a woman calls you for the express purpose of coming over for an ad hoc shag and then sneaks off in the middle of the night and doesn’t return any of your gazillion phone calls, it’s the textbook definition of a booty call.”
I say through clenched teeth, “I called her.”
She grins at me. “Which is completely beside the point, because she’s obviously pulled the infamous Maxwell Disappearing Act, and you’ll never hear from her again.”
I stare at her in stony silence. “You’re enjoying this a little too much.”
Her grin is so wide, I can see all her teeth. “It’s just amusing to see the shoe on the other foot for a change. Honestly, Parker, if I had a dollar for every female you ghosted, I’d be filthy rich.”
She turns and saunters away, leaving me fuming.
I won’t allow it. I will NOT allow Victoria Price to give me everything I didn’t know I needed and then bolt. I drag in a deep breath, close my eyes, and count to three, marshaling every bit of self-control at my disposal to refrain from taking out my phone again and calling her. Again.
But when I open my eyes, a miracle has occurred, because there she is.
My heart falters and then takes off like a rocket. She stands near the front door, looking around, wearing a lovely knee-length white dress that accentuates her curves. When she spots me by the kitchen, she freezes. Our eyes lock. What I see in her gaze is something that catapults me across the room.
I’m at her side in four seconds. She says, “Parker—”
“Not here. Come into my office.” I gently take hold of her arm and steer her away from the door, ignoring the curious gaze of the hostess, feeling a hundred pairs of eyes on me as we walk. Victoria seems tense—her head is held at a stiff angle, her back is ramrod straight—and I have the horrifying thought that she’s come here to dump me in person.
Fuck that. She’s not dumping me.
When we’re in my office, I lock the door behind us and turn to her. “You ran away.”
“I panicked.”
She doesn’t hesitate, there’s no strange inflection in her voice, but something tells me there’s more to the story. I step closer, carefully watching her face.
“You’ve been avoiding my calls.”
“I had an emergency.”
“Did the emergency involve your cell phone dying? And your office phone dying? And every other phone within a hundred-mile radius?”
“No, it’s… I had to fly out of state suddenly. To California. It was a family situation. My mother…”
She looks away, and my frustration with not being able to get in touch with her and fear that our affair is over before it’s even had a chance to get going are instantly replaced with concern. I take another step toward her.
“Is everything all right? What happened?”
“She’s not well. She’s…declining.”
Her face pinches. It does something to my heart. I reach out and take her in my arms. When she buries her face against my chest and wraps her arms around my waist, I swear I’m so relieved, I want to groan.
She’s not dumping me. She had a family emergency. Thank God.
Don’t be such a selfish dick!
I murmur into her hair, “Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?”
She lifts her head and stares deep into my eyes. “Yes,” she says, her voice husky. “You can kiss me.”
It takes me all of a tenth of a second to obey this command. When our lips meet, she melts against me. My body tingles with need. My arms tighten around her. She makes a soft, feminine noise in her throat that sends a flash of heat straight to my groin.
“You have to stop running away from me,” I whisper when we break apart. We’re both breathing hard, and it’s all I can do to keep my hands from drifting toward her breasts. Her perfect, delectable breasts.
“I’m sorry. I told you I’m shitty at relationships. I hate spending the night. All that awkward small talk and eye-avoidance in the morning…ugh.”
She shudders, and I chuckle. “I know. I have a rule against spending the night too.”
For the first time since she walked in tonight, she smiles. “You do?” When I nod, she turns playful. “Any other of your rules of engagement I should know about, Romeo?”
This new lightness in her makes me happy. I’m so relieved she’s smiling instead of blowing me off that I’m giddy. “There are three. The first, which you already know, is no spending the night. The second is no expectations for the future.”
“And the third?” she prompts.
Because I’m not thinking straight, I answer. “No questions about my past.”
The moment it’s out, I regret it. In other circumstances, I’d never tell a woman about my rules. They only invite more questions and the inevitable pressure for me to reveal more of myself than I can or will.
But Victoria, my elusive, enigmatic Victoria, accepts what I’ve said as if it’s the most natural, most commonsense thing in the world. She nods, holding my gaze.
“Very wise. I couldn’t have said it better myself. But there’s only one problem.”
“Which is?”
“You’ve already told me about your past, Parker,” she murmurs. “You’ve told me a secret you’ve never told anyone else.”
“I have. And you’ve told me a secret or two of yours.”
Our faces inches apart, we stare into each other’s eyes. I have the oddest sensation of falling. A sensation of stepping off a tall building or jumping from a tree, my arms flung wide, my feet no longer on solid ground.
I’m not looking down.
Why do I feel like I know you? Why do I feel so damn good when you’re near? How can you affect me like this, so soon?
I blurt, “Do you believe in soul mates?”
Her eyes, gorgeous dark eyes the color of fine chocolate, flare. “No.”
“Me neither,” I lie, and take her mouth in a deep, demanding kiss.
As she always does, she reacts instantly, arching into me, digging her fingers into my
skin. The kiss lasts and lasts, getting hotter by the moment, until there’s a sharp knock on my office door.
“Boss! Kai’s got the sous chef by the throat! You need to come deal with this!”
Victoria and I break apart. I mutter, “Fuck.”
Victoria giggles. “It’s okay. I was on my way to have drinks with Darcy, anyway. I just stopped by to say hi.” Her voice drops. “And that I’m sorry for leaving like I did.”
I take her face in my hands. “Promise me you won’t do it again. No matter how freaked out you get, promise me you’ll at least wake my ass up to tell me you’re running away.” I gently kiss her lips. “And I promise I’ll let you go and not stalk your phone if you do.”
“That sounds suspiciously like an invitation to spend the night, Mr. Maxwell,” she teases, batting her lashes.
Sweet Jesus, I love it when she flirts with me.
I grin. “Call me when you’re finished with drinks, and I’ll come get you, wherever you are.”
“Such an eager beaver! I’ll have you know I have a very important meeting first thing in the morning.”
I kiss the corners of her mouth, the tip of her nose, her petal-soft cheek. “Then I’ll have you up bright and early for work, Ms. Price. And you probably shouldn’t say the word beaver in my presence unless you’d like the bulge in my trousers to get even bigger than it already is.”
She throws back her head and laughs.
“Boss!” shouts Bailey through the door. She bangs her fist against it again.
I’m really going to have to talk to her about her attitude.
“I’ll let you get back to work. Call you later.”
Victoria plants one final kiss on my lips. She slips out of my arms, and we walk to the door.
When I open it, Bailey stands there glaring at us like an ex-wife in divorce court. She says, “Finally!” shoots Victoria a lethal glare and then spins on her heel and stalks off.
Victoria smiles. “Oh dear. I see your sidekick doesn’t approve.”
I decide it’s prudent not to answer. I lift her hand and kiss it. “Until later, baby.”
Wicked Games: The Complete Wicked Games Series Box Set Page 17
