Outmatched: A Novel

by Kristen Callihan

  Fairchild blinked and then stared at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. “Oh. Of course. I meant no harm by it. My apologies.” My boss gave me the first genuine smile I’d ever received from him. “Very rude of me.”

  “It’s quite alright,” I lied because I’d been raised to accept an apology when it was given. And also because I was still trying to impress this man even if that made me feel like a sell-out.

  “Yes, yes, Jackson has been very impressed by you, Parker. And if you managed to make this man settle down,” he said, slapping Rhys on the shoulder, “then that’s truly impressive.”

  Thankfully, he told us he’d be right back and disappeared so I could turn to Rhys and growl my frustration.

  A real, honest-to-goodness growl.

  My fake date snorted.

  “It’s not funny,” I hissed, turning toward the water. “He’s despicable. I’m suddenly worthy of his attention because I’m not just some girl you’re taking ‘for a ride’ but someone you are serious about. He is everything that is male and white and privileged and wrong about this country.”

  Rhys leaned on the railing, his arm brushing mine. “Then why are you trying to impress the guy? You got money to tide you over while you find another job.”

  I looked at him, startled to find his face so close. His proximity afforded me the opportunity to study his eyes. There was a ring of light golden brown around the inner iris that I’d never noticed before. The vivid pale green of the outer iris swam into the golden brown, so startling you could never call them hazel.

  Mossy green, I thought.

  A beautiful mossy green.

  And naturally soulful too. A woman could fall into those eyes if she wasn’t careful.

  With a sigh, I looked out at the water. “Because I love my job. It’s an important job and it’s everything I’ve worked for. My family wanted me to join their fancy law firm in New York and I refused because this is what I wanted to do. And I hate disappointing my family. That’s how much I want this job.”

  “So we put up with him.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “He doesn’t seem to bother you that much.”

  Rhys shrugged. “We’re trying to impress the guy. I’m not going to be outright rude to him even when he’s being a prick.”

  I jumped on that. “You think he’s a p-r-i-c-k?”

  He threw me that boyish grin as he gestured behind us. “I think they’re all pricks—if you sound out your words, Tinker Bell, you’ll get there eventually.”

  I rolled my eyes and decided to ignore that. “Well, that’s not fair. About them being pri—nkles. You don’t know them.”

  “Let’s be clear.” He turned toward me. “I didn’t call them prinkles. That sounds like something you put on a fucking cupcake. And I know enough about these people to know most of them are pricks.” A hint of bitterness laced his words.

  “If you think these are ‘my people,’ you must think I’m a prinkle too.”

  Rhys smirked. “Do I think you’d taste nice on a cupcake? Yeah, I fucking do.”

  Determined not to laugh at his teasing in case it encouraged him, I fought a smile and shook my head at him like he was a naughty schoolboy. This just seemed to delight him more.

  “Truthfully,” he said, nudging me with his arm, “what’s with the schoolmarm, no-cussing thing?”

  My amusement died. “It’s not a thing. I just don’t like curse words.”

  “You’re a grown woman, denying herself the right to a gratifying ‘fuck’ every now and then. That ain’t right.”

  I blushed at the lurid images that suddenly filled my head.

  “Dirty Tinker Bell,” he tutted, grinning, “I wasn’t talking about that kind of ‘fuck’ but —”

  “Argh.” I pressed a finger to his lips to stop him from saying anything that might make me want to punch him and melt all over him in equal measure. The man had way too much sexual charisma for it to be fair. “Stop.”

  His lips twitched against my finger, and I instantly dropped my arm.

  “If you must know, my mother hates curse words.” I smoothed my hands down my dress and turned back toward the party, thinking of how miserable events like this made me and always had. Much to my mother’s chagrin. “She’s a complicated woman. This is a woman who marched with over one hundred thousand men and women on Washington in 1977 in ninety-five-degree heat to demand an extension on ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment.” I was extremely proud she did that. “But this is the same woman who has very specific ideas about men and women. She believes in our equal rights and she believes a woman can do anything a man can do, career-wise. She does not, however, have a problem with a man cursing but believes for a woman to do so is extremely unladylike.”

  Rhys shrugged. “Again, you’re a grown woman. You can do whatever the hell you want.”

  That’s what everyone said out loud, but I had to believe I wasn’t the only one who could still be reduced to childlike status by my parents. I loved my mom and dad. They’d given me a lot of opportunities in life and they loved me. It was in my nature to people-please, especially my parents, so denying them anything was hard. And I’d denied them a lot over the years.

  “I’ve disappointed them,” I admitted. “My parents. In different ways.” I flicked Rhys a look and found him watching me, curiosity in his gaze. I glanced away and gave the party a breezy smile. “The least I can do is keep my mouth clean for my mom.” I chuckled but was desperately searching for a passing waiter with a tray of ten champagne flutes I could divest him of.

  “If that’s true, why do I need to keep my mouth clean?”

  Thinking about it, I had no answer. Perhaps her distaste had become my distaste, but truthfully, I was growing used to Rhys’s cursing. It was just who he was. And it wasn’t as if I was ever going to introduce my cussing fake boyfriend to my mother. I didn’t want my parents to know I’d stooped to lying to make my career happen, and I didn’t want to lie to them and get their hopes up that I’d found someone I was serious about.

  “I guess you don’t,” I conceded as I straightened my shoulders. “We should find Fairchild and remind him I exist.”

  Rhys decided to give me that, not pushing the subject of my parents, which I appreciated. We moved down to the middle deck where Fairchild conversed with a group of men while women in string bikinis lounged behind them in a hot tub.

  It was a clichéd scene that belonged in the 1980s. This yacht was my worst nightmare.

  “Ah, there he is!” Fairchild spotted Rhys. “Men, you have to meet Morgan. Morgan, come here.”

  Rhys tightened his grip on my hand and led me over.

  Whatever he’d been feeling earlier, Rhys let go as he charmed Fairchild and the men around him. They asked about his days as a heavyweight champion, an existence that was such a far cry from their own, and Rhys indulged them. My boss, Jackson, appeared with Camille, along with a few colleagues and their partners. We spoke a little, a light relief at a party that made me uncomfortable, but they soon dispersed among the crowds. Except Jackson who stayed with Fairchild, listening to Rhys.

  Other people joined and left the conversation, businessmen and women, members of Boston society, and Rhys handled them all with amazing aplomb. It occurred to me that, during his professional boxing days, he would have been surrounded by wealthy people. He was used to them.

  He was better with them than I was, and I grew up in this world.

  As the night wore on, I longed to be back in my apartment, curled up on my bed with the fantasy novel I was in the middle of. It was about faeries and war and romance and kick-ass heroines.

  Or I’d prefer to be hanging out with the guys. “The guys” were my friends from MIT who hadn’t left Boston. Every second week we found a quiz night to attend and took far too much pleasure in annihilating our competitors.

  Rhys was in the middle of convincing Fairchild and a few of his friends to drop by the gym for boxing lessons when I felt a hand on the small of my ba
ck. I turned sharply and looked up into a smiling, familiar face.

  Stephen Chancer.

  An ex.

  Ish.

  We’d gone on three dates. I’d slept with him on the third and then told him it wasn’t going to work out. Mostly because if I couldn’t stop thinking about electricity markets with high wind penetration during his penetration then I was calling it a fail.

  However, my concern wasn’t over bumping into a man I’d rejected. He and I had been set up by his aunt, who knew my mother. For the most part I’d avoided mingling with East Coast society during my time at MIT, much to my mother’s despair. Stephen was the one time I’d let myself slip into that world, and to be honest, it wasn’t just his lack of industry in the bedroom that made me call it quits. He relied too much on his parents’ money and was kind of a snob.

  None of that mattered now.

  What mattered was him telling his aunt I was dating ex-boxer Rhys Morgan.

  “Stephen, hi.” I flicked a wary look at Rhys who was too busy answering whatever question Fairchild had asked to notice who I was talking to.

  “It’s so good to see you.” At five foot seven, Stephen didn’t have to bend his head far to press a kiss to the corner of my mouth as I turned to him.

  I frowned at the intimacy and shuffled a little away. Stephen followed me. He’d never really been aware of the whole personal space thing.

  Oh boy.

  “How have you been? What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Go away, go away, go away.

  “I’m well, thank you. Mr. Fairchild is the CEO of the company I work for. Horus Renewable Energy.”

  “That’s great.” He raised his champagne flute to me. “My father is in business with Fairchild. He couldn’t be here tonight, so I came in his stead. My date”—he glanced around the deck—“is around here somewhere.” Stephen turned back to me, eyeing me speculatively. “Did you come here alone?”

  “No, she’s with me.” Rhys suddenly appeared at my side, his arm sliding around my back to rest possessively on my opposite hip. I felt his lips brush my forehead. “You okay, sweetheart?”

  I glanced up at him. His appearance was not good. Now Stephen would find out and possibly tell his aunt who would then tell my mother and the world would implode. So if that was true, why did I find myself relaxing against Rhys and wishing he’d take my hand and lead me out of the party to his sexy bike?

  I nodded, struck mute by the thought.

  “I’m Stephen.” The aforementioned held out his hand to Rhys. “Parker’s ex-boyfriend. You are?”

  Rhys grabbed Stephen’s hand and gave him a rough handshake that made Stephen, my so-not-ex-boyfriend, wince. “I’m Rhys. I’m Parker’s.”

  His word choice was deliberate, and I found myself desperately trying not to snort with anxious hysteria.

  Stephen raised an eyebrow as he glanced between us. “You don’t sound like you’re from around here?”

  I tensed at the snootiness in his tone.

  Rhys’s hand flexed on my hip. “Funny,” he said, his voice flat, “here I thought it was my accent they called Bostonian, not yours.”

  I smiled smugly at the answer.

  Stephen wrinkled his nose and then cut me a superior look. “Everything makes so much sense now.”

  Ugh. Snob!

  Watching him walk away, I grew tenser. What if he told his aunt about Rhys?

  “Hey, you okay?”

  I turned toward Rhys. “He’s not my ex-boyfriend,” I blurted out. “We went on three dates. Three not-very-memorable dates.”

  “Yeah.” Rhys frowned down at me and lowered his voice. “You hate it here, Tinker Bell.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “And no wonder.”

  Fairchild’s party was not a great example of East Coast society. Not everyone was as superior as Stephen or as misogynistic as Fairchild. The billionaire just drew a bad crowd. Still, I’d never been at home at this kind of event and clearly it was showing.

  “I think it’s time to go.” Rhys nudged me toward the exit.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re fucking miserable, and if Fairchild realizes that, he’s not going to be impressed.”

  True.

  “Argh,” I half-growled under my breath.

  Rhys shook his head, smirking. “Come on, Angry Tink, we need to say goodnight to our host.”

  Fairchild was disappointed to see us leave. Okay, he was disappointed to see Rhys leave. Jackson, on the other hand, looked envious of our departure. And everyone else… well, who cared about any of them.

  “Freedom,” I said melodramatically at the bottom of the boarding ramp.

  My date snorted and then led me across the lot to where he’d parked his Harley. It really was a hot bike. As he handed over my helmet, Rhys held onto it a second.

  His gaze was searching.

  I squirmed. “What?”

  He shook his head slightly. “You aren’t what I expected.”

  Truthfully, Rhys wasn’t what I’d expected either, but those thoughts were dangerous. “What?” I yanked on the helmet and straddled the bike. “Awesome?”

  With a grunt of amusement, his gaze flickering over my legs, Rhys got on the bike. “That wasn’t the adjective I was looking for, no.”

  “Boo!”

  He glanced over his shoulder, his expression incredulous. “Did you just fucking boo me? First a shoo, now a boo?”

  “Your lack of deference required a boo.”

  “You know what requires a boo? I forgot to kiss you in front of all those pricks.”

  I shivered at the thought. “There was no need.”

  Rhys huffed. “You might not have noticed but there were assholes eyeing you as soon as Fairchild told them you were my woman.”

  “Boo to that too. Misogyny at its finest. ‘A woman is only as interesting as the man who dates her.’ Where’s a bucket to vomit in when you need it?”

  “Don’t you be vomiting anywhere near my baby.” He patted his bike before craning around to look at me again. “Seriously. Next time we’re around these people, you’re going to have to let me kiss you and do it without swooning like it’s our first time.”

  I wrinkled my nose in the face of such cockiness. “I think I can manage not to swoon over a kiss. Even if it is granted by the all-mighty Rhys Morgan.”

  “Oh, Tinker Bell, you’re making my ego swell.” He reached for his helmet.

  “If it swells any bigger, it’ll explode all over your sweet ride.”

  “You think my ride is sweet?”

  “I can’t confirm that until I research its emission levels.”

  I felt his body shake with laughter. “Of course you can’t.”

  And then his helmet was on, the engine started, and the bike purred between my legs as Rhys drove us away from the yacht. With every second, I felt myself relaxing more and more into him as he took me away from a world I’d never fitted into.

  Seven

  Parker

  * * *

  Staring across the bistro table at my little sister, I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. She would ask me about Rhys because surely Stephen Chancer had told his aunt about meeting the boxer on Fairchild’s yacht last week. His aunt would have immediately called my mother to ask me about the relationship and my mother would set Easton on me.

  Why else would my little sister come into Boston for the weekend?

  I winced inwardly at my own paranoia.

  Easton visited me often in Boston, so her appearance wasn’t suspicious at all.

  All the lying was making me crazy.

  “You seem tense.” Easton didn’t look up from the breakfast menu. We were at one of my favorite little cafés around the corner from my building.

  “I’m not tense.” I was so freaking tense.

  My sister sighed and lowered her menu. “I think I’ll have the omelet.”

  “Mmm,” I agreed distractedly.

  He
r dark eyes narrowed. There was no denying Easton and I were related. Although there was a four-year gap between us, we were much alike. We had the same dark eyes, dark hair, olive skin, and petite build. The only difference was Easton had a far more interesting face. Her eyes were slightly more tip-tilted than round, her nose a little sharper and character-filled, her mouth wider.

  And while my preferred style was “quirky preppy,” Easton almost always looked like she’d just come from the office, in a very stylish, expensive way. Today she wore a red silk blouse, the top buttons opened to reveal a little cleavage, and it was tucked into a gray pencil skirt. Her dark hair was styled in soft waves and the only jewelry that adorned her were a pair of diamond studs in her ears, a classic steel Jaeger watch, and the massive diamond ring on her engagement finger.

  “It’s because of this, isn’t it?” Easton said, waving her left hand with the knuckle-duster on it. “Are Mom and Dad putting pressure on you because of this?”

  If you called longing looks thrown my way whenever Easton’s engagement came up pressure. “Not really.”

  “Not really, as in they haven’t said anything but there are enough lengthy pauses and meaningful looks to make you feel like you’re disappointing them?”

  My goodness, my sister knew me, and them, so well. I shrugged. “I’m happy for you. They’re happy for you. That’s all that matters.”

  And it was true. Easton had stumbled across a unicorn. Her fiancé, Oliver Bowen, had inherited a wealth borne from the fruits of a cocoa-bean empire. He was a human rights defense lawyer and was involved in so many philanthropic ventures; you couldn’t hate the guy if you tried.

  There was nothing to hate.

  He was a prime example that not all East Coast socialites were prinkles.

  Argh, I couldn’t even curse in my head!

  I frowned. Since when did I want to? Cursing was blech and unnecessary. Or was that just my mother talking?

  Rhys Morgan, damn you. He was infiltrating my headspace.

  “Yes, I’m very lucky,” Easton said, dreamy-eyed. I felt a prickle of envy as I remembered how it felt to love someone like she loved Oliver.