This was what Sawyer had warned her about years ago. So long as she was with him, she’d be blind to everyone else. Her brow pinched. “If you and Evelyn have this long history, how come you weren’t at their wedding?”
“Well, there’s the fact that your brother despises me.”
“Does Evelyn hate you?”
“No,” he said with gentle confidence. “But out of respect for her, I keep my distance from her day-to-day life. I guess it’s my way of making amends.”
“For what?”
“Let’s just say that my judgment wasn’t at its best a couple years ago.”
Her gaze lowered to the table, unsure if she should be grateful for his disclosure or run in the opposite direction.
“For what it’s worth, Isadora, I don’t wish your brother any harm. He’s good to Scout. I know he loves her.”
“Why is nothing easy?” She sighed and massaged her temples.
Parker’s slouching posture mimicked hers, as if he, too, sensed the loss of an opportunity.
“I don’t know what to do,” she told him honestly.
“I know you’re probably imagining the worst, but when you grow up the way we did, you tend to guard the things you care about, like a dog protects a bone.” His voice lacked the assuredness she’d heard earlier that evening. “Falling into poverty and breaking out of it was like a backward birth. It was painful, ugly, and I lost a bit of my dignity along the way. I can mimic the rest of them and hold my own pretty well, but the truth is, I’ll never be like them.”
He plucked at his cufflink, then brushed off his fingers as if the tiny accessory was somehow offensive to the touch. The troublesome thing about tuxedos was they really did mask a whole lot. It was hard enough trusting people she didn’t know, let alone trusting them when members of her family despised them.
“If you’re using me to somehow hurt my—”
“I’m not. I swear it. I didn’t even know you were a Patras until five minutes ago. Up until then, you were just a beautiful woman I wanted to know.”
She smiled, despite her conflicting thoughts. It was nice to hear an attractive man thought her beautiful—and not for her name. “I think I need some water.”
He stood and disappeared for a moment, returning shortly with a bottle. “Why don’t I drive you home? We had such a nice night and this isn’t how I wanted it to end, but maybe you need some time to think things over. Don’t decide anything tonight.”
“This might take a while.” And it wasn’t looking good for him. No matter how much she wanted to weigh her options, she rarely opposed her family. If Lucian honestly believed she shouldn’t trust him then she should go with her brother’s instincts. His intuition had always been better than hers.
“I can be patient.” He gave a half smile. “And you have my number.”
She was in no shape to make big decisions at the moment. She wanted to hear Lucian’s side of everything before she made up her mind. And what if tomorrow Parker was just some guy who came at the right time when she needed a distraction?
Her head was a muddled cemetery of unlived possibilities and she wanted to bury the ugly moments of this day far away from where they could never hurt her again.
“I think I need sleep.”
He nodded, a polite smile masking his thoughts, as he helped her stand.
The bar was crowded now that the event across the street had ended. Parker never let go of her arm as he guided her through the crowd, his other hand protectively resting on her lower back and she didn’t object.
People trickled out of the opera house as he led her through the limos snaking down the street. “My car’s with the valet. It should only take a minute.”
She waited as he handed the attendant his ticket. They stood at the edge of the crowd as the attendant disappeared to retrieve his car.
“Isadora?”
She turned at the sound of her name and, once again, the breath knocked out of her.
“Sawyer!”
For the love of God, someone get me out of here now!
His gaze shifted over her shoulder to Parker and he gave a clipped nod. “Mr. Hughes.”
Did everyone know him?
She turned and Parker made a polite grin, the sort reserved for colleagues and semi-familiar acquaintances. “Mr. Bishop. How are you?”
“I’m well.” Sawyer’s brow pinched, his expression otherwise blank as his gaze returned to hers. “Did you enjoy the evening?”
Her heart beat erratically, her gaze fastened to his familiar eyes, but not missing the woman at his side. “It was … unexpected.”
Whose words were they? Her brain seemed to be coasting on autopilot.
He frowned and took a step closer only to pause. “Your lip…” His hand lifted as if he intended to touch her but then thought better of it. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Her fingers self-consciously covered the bruise. “I was distracted.”
“Are you heading home?” he asked and she frowned, sensing implication in his question.
She glanced at the woman at his side and he followed her gaze.
“Where are my manners? This is Cassandra Birch. Cassandra, this is Isadora Patras, a good family friend.”
Friend? “It’s nice to meet you,” she said numbly, unable to touch the woman as she clenched her own hands in her gown.
“It’s been a long time,” Sawyer commented, as though thinking out loud.
“Yes.” She couldn’t blink or push her voice higher than a whisper. “It has.”
Parker handed the valet a tip and brushed a hand over her shoulder. “Are you ready, Isadora?”
Sawyer seemed to snap out of whatever trance he was in. He cleared his throat. “Well… It was nice seeing you.”
She couldn’t say the same. “Goodbye, Sawyer.”
Parker held her door and she awkwardly pulled her skirts into the car, some type of sleek white coupe. The door closed and she willed herself not to look back, shutting her eyes to avoid the view in the side mirrors as her heart pounded.
The driver’s door opened and Parker climbed in beside her. “Was that him?”
Jarred that he had somehow noticed something everyone else overlooked after only thirty seconds of seeing her in Sawyer’s presence, she swallowed thickly. She debated lying for a moment, but the evening seemed to be doomed, with one disaster after another, so she figured why bother?
“Yes. He knows you.”
“He used to be my boss.”
Opening her eyes, she stared at him. “You worked at Leningrad?”
He nodded. It must have been after she left. Otherwise, she would have read his application.
How had he gotten a job with such animosity between him and Lucian? “Patras owns a portion of that company.”
“I know.”
It seemed everyone knew everything. She was the only one in the dark. At this point she honestly didn’t care to figure out what made men act like boys. “Please take me home.”
He eased into traffic and she gave him her address as he plugged it into the car’s navigation system. Once he had an idea of where he was taking her, he turned the volume down. “He’s a lot older than you.”
“Twenty years.”
“How long were you together? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“We started seeing each other when I was twenty-three.”
“And how long since you’ve dated him?”
“We broke up less than a year ago.”
“So you were together for almost a dozen years?”
Impressed he’d figured it out so quickly, she nodded. “Give or take.” Although they spent years apart, her heart had never moved on.
“That’s a long time.” The GPS told him to turn and gave a few other instructions about mileage for the upcoming exit. “That makes you what, thirty-five?”
“Thirty-six.” She thought about the young boy on the television. “How old are you, Parker?”
“Twenty-six.” He
was silent for a moment. “Does that bother you?”
It bothered her that age played such a great role in dictating her life, stifling her happiness in the name of propriety, deeming something beautiful as inappropriate until it almost seemed shameful when it never was. “No. Age is just a number.”
“I agree.”
He didn’t seem to have any more questions, but she had the urge to keep talking. He’d been very open with her after the confrontation with her brother and she didn’t want secrets between them, even if this was the last time she’d ever see him.
“No one knew—about Sawyer and me. We never told anyone.”
He glanced at her in the darkness then returned his focus to the road. “No one? For over a decade?”
“We weren’t together the whole time. I went to school. He did his thing.” She shook her head. “At first, we kept it a secret because of our age difference and his association with my father, but then… Those things stop mattering once you reach a certain age.”
“But you still kept it a secret?”
She nodded. “Some days I liked that it was ours, something that belonged to us that no one could take away, because they didn’t know it existed.” But in the end it was Sawyer who stole it from her. “Other times I resented feeling like a shameful secret.”
“Why didn’t you just tell people?”
“My father would have reacted badly, possibly threatened his position with the company. My brother was a close friend to Sawyer’s son.”
“Slade?”
Again, she was startled by how familiar he was with the players in her life. “Yes. There was a falling out of sorts between Slade and Lucian, so the timing never seemed right to tell my family about Sawyer.” She gave a small, humorless laugh. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Do you still love him?”
If she didn’t, she’d be perfectly fine now, but she wasn’t. “Part of me will always love him, but he doesn’t love me.”
“Are you sure? The way he looked at you…”
“He doesn’t love me.” Maybe if she kept saying it out loud it wouldn’t hurt so much over time.
The rest of the ride to her house was quiet. Parker seemed to be in deep thought. When he pulled into her driveway, she hesitated, unsure if she’d ever talk to him again.
“Isadora, I have to tell you something and it might make you angry.”
Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t handle any more surprises tonight. “What is it?”
“The falling out between Slade Bishop and your brother… I had something to do with it.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “It’s a long story, but … your brother hated me and when Slade offered me a job he was furious.”
She scoffed, somewhat relieved by his explanation. “Despite what he might believe, Lucian doesn’t control the universe. He can’t forbid people from hiring who they want.”
It had been that sort of attitude that ruined their relationship with the Bishops.
“If one of my friends betrayed me the way Slade betrayed Lucian, I’d have been just as angry. It was wrong and I knew it the moment I accepted the position. I just didn’t care at the time.”
“Did you take the job to purposely hurt my brother?”
He didn’t hesitate to give her the truth. “Yes.”
This was all very worrisome. Not only was he wrapped up in some old rivalry with her brother, he was remotely tied to the Bishops. She pressed a hand to her forehead where it started to ache.
“I understand if this is too much for you.”
“It’s a lot,” she sighed, overwhelmed. “I’m still trying to process all the ways you know the people in my life and, to be honest, none of them seem to be singing your praises.”
Well, except for Evelyn. She seemed fine around him.
“I’d like to say it’s just a case of being the new kid on the block, but I have to take some accountability for my actions. I’m not proud of the things I did during that time of my life. If I could take back some of my choices I would, but sometimes our mistakes lead us to the right place.”
When he said things like that, sounding so genuine and open, she found it hard to believe he hid a mean streak. “Your history doesn’t match the person I met tonight.”
“People change. I’m proud of the man I am today. It took a lot for me to get to a point where I can say that and mean it. A lot can change in two years, Isadora. I’m not that guy anymore.”
She shut her eyes, exhausted. “What guy are you, Parker?” He openly admitted to showing people what they wanted to see and hiding behind a façade.
“I’m still trying to figure that out. But I know when a shoe doesn’t fit, and I’ve tried on enough in my life to know not to toss away something that feels … right.”
Was he talking about her? Was she a shoe? “I need time to think.”
He nodded. “Take as much as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
A light flashed on and she suspected Toni had spotted them. “Thank you for driving me home.”
“My pleasure. I’m really sorry for knocking you down and…”
She smiled. “I forgive you.” But she didn’t know if the rest of his character could be redeemed.
He waited until she made it inside the house before pulling away. She’d barely stepped out of her shoes when her sister’s voice echoed down the steps.
“Ooooh, Lucian is mad at you. He was steaming the entire way home.”
And so it began.
Chapter Two
“I think you are wrong to want a heart.
It makes most people unhappy.
If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart.”
L. Frank Baum
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The following morning Isadora ignored several calls from Lucian. She was tired of thinking, so she tried reading, but her brain wouldn’t shut off. Around eleven, a door slammed, followed by heavy footsteps.
Operation Avoidance was over.
She shut her book and took a calming breath, waiting for the accusations to fly.
“You don’t know how to answer a phone?” Lucian barked the second he stepped into the den.
“Good morning, Lucian.”
He scowled. “I called you over a dozen times.”
“I know. I was busy.”
“When did you get home?”
She stood and put her book on the table. After righting the pillows, she walked past him toward the kitchen. It was almost lunch and she was in the mood for a salad.
“Isadora.”
“Yes?” she called, making her way to the fridge.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?”
She pulled out some lettuce, tomatoes, tuna, and—ooh, peppers. “No.”
Setting the cutting board on the granite countertop, she withdrew the serrated knife from the butcher block. Lucian continued to scowl.
“I’m sorry, did you want some?” She gestured to the food with the knife.
“I didn’t come here to eat.”
“I know. You came here to badger me for information. Unfortunately, all I can offer is tuna salad. The details of my personal life are off limits.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Am I? Hmm, I wonder what that’s like.” She shrugged. “I’m pretty sure I’m due.”
“What the hell has gotten into you? This isn’t you. You’re the sensible one.”
She shrugged, scooping the chopped tomatoes into the bowl. “People change, Lucian.”
He scoffed. “You don’t.”
She put down the knife and stared at him—insulted. “Why can’t I change? I’ve always done everything everyone expected of me and I’ve never asked for anything in return. You and Toni got everything you wanted and now you’re both out of this house, living the lives you’ve chosen, and I’m stuck here wondering where my place is. Something has to change, Lucian, because I can’t go on living like this
. I’m not satisfied that this is as good as it gets. I want more.”
“I’m not saying you can’t have a life, Isa. I want you to be happy. But Parker Hughes is a manipulative little—”
“Hey!” She pointed the knife at him. “I understand he’s not your favorite person, I can even sympathize with some of your reasoning—though I don’t know all the details—but he’s someone I’m still trying to figure out. Respect me enough to let me draw my own conclusions.”
“Whatever he told you, I’m almost positive it’s all bullshit. The kid’s a liar.”
“First, he’s not a kid. Second, what he told me did him no favors, so I wouldn’t be so sure he’s lying.”
“You wouldn’t trust him if you knew who he really was.” He followed her to the table.
“Really? Is he not the man who tried to steal Evelyn away from you? The same man who took a job at Leningrad, causing a huge fight between you and Slade, which in turn ruined our lifelong friendship with the Bishops?”
He blinked at her for a solid ten seconds. “And knowing all that you still want to associate with him?”
“People make mistakes, Lucian.”
“Jesus Christ, Isadora, why are you being so stubborn about this?”
“Because!” She paused, then admitted, “I like him.” Saying it out loud felt really good.
“God help me…”
“Look, I’m not saying I’ll see him again. I may not even talk to him again, but last night… Something terrible happened to me. Then I ran into Parker and he … helped me. He was an absolute gentleman until you showed up.”
He frowned. “What happened last night?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.” She wiped her mouth. “I’m just saying—”
“What the hell happened to your face?” His eyes darkened and he growled, “Is that a bruise?”
She rolled her eyes. “I bumped into something and fell over. I’m fine.”
“Were you drunk?”
Queen of the Knight (Surrender Games Book 2) Page 2