by Tribue,Alice
I swear I can almost feel my heart skip a beat because I know the something he’s referring to is me. And it’s the same for me. Even if the plan wasn’t to return to Savannah, I’d go with him. I’d go because Oliver feels like home to me too.
“But what will you do for work?”
“I’m an educated man. I’ll figure it out.”
“You’re serious about all this? Really serious?”
“I’m serious,” he confirms then places a kiss on my forehead. “Take the trip to London with me and then we’ll come back here, you can start school, and I’ll figure out my next move.”
“You would do this for me? You’d give up New York?” I ask, and he chuckles.
“Just tell me you’ll come with me and stop overthinking it.”
“I’ll go to London with you.” I practically squeal with excitement, throwing my arms around his neck as he laughs.
“Seems like we’re destined to live in hotels you and me,” he says with a smile. I beam down at him because I’m so happy.
“I don’t care.”
“I’ll see about finding you a kitchen to bake in,” he promises, and just like that, I know he gets me. More importantly, he wants to make me happy, and with the exception of my parents, I’ve never had that before. If it’s in Oliver’s power to give me what I want—whether it’s tickets to a Broadway show that are impossible to find or a kitchen to bake in—he’ll find a way if it means my happiness. I only hope that I can do the same thing for him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
OLIVER
The last of our bags are packed and left by the door, ready for our flight to London tomorrow morning. All we have to do is get through this re-opening party tonight, and my job here is done. Anyone who’s anyone in Savannah will be here tonight to check out the latest in the Parker Hotel lineup. And even though I hate my father, I take pride in knowing that I’m the one who delivers the finished product to the public. This hotel is what it is because of me.
“How do I look?” Riley questions as she walks out of the bathroom like a vision in pink. The floor-length gown she chose hugs her curves perfectly and the gold strappy shoes give her petite frame a nice boost.
“Stunning,” I answer honestly. It’s funny. I was so annoyed with the fact that I had to spend months in the South renovating a hotel that I knew was a run-down piece of shit, but I could have never imagined that I’d find the woman I’d fall in love with here.
“You look good too.” She bites her lower lips, and I know she’s thinking about all of the trouble we’re going to get into later. How nice it will be when I strip her out of that dress at the end of the evening.
“Shall we head downstairs?”
“Yes,” she replies, grabbing hold of her gold clutch and walking over to me. As I do whenever she’s near, I grab her. This time, I pull her to me and place a kiss on her forehead.
Together, we make our way down to the hotel’s ballroom, as I imagined hundreds of people have come out to see the transformation from the Godwin to the latest Parker Hotel.
“Wow,” Riley says quietly, taking everything in. “Everything looks beautiful.”
“Come on, let’s get you a drink.” I lead her to the bar where she orders white wine and starts chatting with a young woman who’s sitting at the bar as well. I engage them both for a few minutes, and once I’m sure Riley is in good company, I tell her I’ll be right back. Not one for making small talk but knowing it’s part of the job, I try as quickly as I can to make my rounds around the room. Talking to a few people here and there, all the while circling back around so that I can get back to Riley.
She comes to find me before I can make it back to her, sidling up next to me just as I greet a local restaurant owner.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her ear, but she just smiles at me, not bothered at all by my having to work. After a few moments, Riley excuses herself to go to the restroom, and I tell her I’ll meet her at the bar. This is exactly where I’m headed when I hear his voice.
“You did a fine job down here even coming in late and over budget.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I take a deep breath and tell myself not to stoop to his level. Only when I’m sure that my temper’s in check do I actually turn around.
“Dad. I didn’t realize you’d be here tonight,” I say. That’s all I can get out because I’m stunned at the sight of him. Standing here, head held high with another woman on his arm. She’s a tall, slender brunette, and if I had to guess, I’d say she was about Riley’s age. I’m pissed at him for being here at all, but the nerve of him to come accompanied by someone else is beyond infuriating.
“What the fuck are you doing? How dare you show up here with someone else?”
“The time for keeping up appearances is over. Your mother’s gone, so I have no reason to pretend that I still love or owe that woman anything.”
“You’re still married.”
“Not for long. Besides, nothing’s wrong with being in the company of a lovely woman,” he says, jutting his chin in the general direction of his date. “You know that all too well, don’t you? I’m pretty sure I spotted that little spitfire of yours here, while Stephanie is back in New York none the wiser.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re drunk, and you know nothing about me and my relationship with Stephanie. Don’t ever compare me to you again because I’m nothing like you.”
“You’re wrong. You’re just like me, so don’t doubt it. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to be different or better than I am,” he says, getting in close, his mouth to my ear as if he was telling me a secret.
“You think you’re some kind of hero because you stopped me from reminding your mother what her place was? You’re no hero. You’re my son, you’re a Parker, and you’ll always be a Parker.”
“I would never lay a hand on a woman,” I growl, angry at his insinuation.
“You don’t have to lay a hand on her. That girl you spend all of your time with down here? Do you love her? Is that why Stephanie is nowhere to be found?”
“It’s none of your business.”
He throws his head back and laughs. It’s evil, and it’s the embodiment of everything he is.
“You think you can make her happy? You think you’ll be a better man to her than I was to your mother? You’re wrong. You’ll destroy her, and you’ll make her hate you. Then she’ll run away from you just like Carla ran away from me. Make no mistake about it.”
He takes a step back, grabbing his date’s hand and walks away, leaving me standing there with an unbelievable amount of pent-up rage. With a quick glance around the room, I spot Riley at the bar. She’s talking to the same young woman as before, but her attention is on me. I can see she looks worried, but she doesn’t want to appear to be rude and walk away from the woman. After ascertaining that she’s okay, I exit the ballroom and take the elevator back to the suite. I should have gone to her, but it’s better if I take a minute to compose myself.
I open the door, and step inside, slamming the door as I do. Running a hand through my hair, I try to control my emotions. Try to breathe through the anger that I’m feeling. It’s not helping. Nothing is going to help. I grab the first thing I can, a really expensive fucking lamp, and throw it across the room, not realizing that Riley is standing there. Her scream mixes with the sound of the lamp shattering. It explodes; pieces going everywhere but all I can see is Riley. She stands in the open doorway, looking frozen and scared. I should go to her, but I can’t. Going to her right now will only make it worse. I can’t be around her when I feel this out of control.
“Get out.”
“Oliver,” she whispers, taking the slightest step toward me.
“I said get out,” I boom, and she takes a step back, almost as if the sound of my voice is a physical force pushing her away from me. I can see the tears well up in her pretty eyes as she turns and runs out of the room.
My chest heaves in and o
ut, as I pant in anger, frustration, and realization. He’s right about everything. He just confronted me about my greatest fear, about the fact that I am his son, and as such, his traits have been passed down to me. When he spoke those words into existence, it’s as if something in me shifted. A switch in my brain was turned on, and all of a sudden, I see myself for who I really am. I heard it straight from the donor’s mouth. The way I’ve used women for years all because I was terrified of getting too close to anyone. I thought if I did, I might hurt them the way my father hurt my mother. I hurt them anyway, by treating them like a useless piece of meat.
It’s in the way I treated Riley, what I did to her. How I used her need, her mother’s need, to get what I wanted from her. I’m a monster just like he is. Just like my fucking father and now, I know it’s true. That look on her face when I threw the lamp, the fear in her eyes when she ran out of the room moments ago … is exactly the look of fear my mother had when I pulled my father off her. I will not be responsible for putting that look on her face, not ever again. The only way I can spare Riley is by letting her go. I’m not trying to be a martyr, but I just couldn’t stand to see her broken down the way my mother was. I’d never let that happen to the woman I love.
This is for the best. I’m sorry. Good luck in culinary school.
I jot the message down on hotel stationery and leave it on the desk for Riley to find. Grabbing my car keys and my bag, I make my way out of the room, out of the hotel, and out of Savannah. With pure luck on my side, I manage to catch the last flight to London. The quicker I can close out this chapter of my life, the better. Everything will be okay once I can forget Riley. The thing is … deep down, I know that I’ll never be able to forget about her. Everything about her is permanently engrained in me. I can live my life without her, though; I have no choice. I can do that if it means that she won’t have to live a life with a man that would only cause her pain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
RILEY
“Medium-high is where you want to be, and you’re looking for the butter to lighten up in color, two times lighter. You should always scrape down the bowl, and then give it another minute for good measure,” the instructor at the culinary school drones on.
“If you have lumps of butter that aren’t mixed properly at the moment when you add eggs, you’ll have lumps forever. They’ll melt, and you’ll have holes in your cookies.”
I listen intently even though she’s not saying anything I don’t already know. For the most part, I’ve loved this school. Most days, I’ve learned new techniques and tips for making my recipes even better. Things like how different levels of gluten in flour can change the texture of dough; how eggs add protein to the dough to soften it and create structure; or why using a European butter with a higher fat content makes for better sugar and egg emulsions when creaming batters. Information that might be boring to most people, but to me, it’s has made such a huge difference in my baking.
“Good job everyone. I’ll see you all Thursday,” the instructor calls out when the class comes to an end.
I don’t wait around to talk to anyone because I’m not in that kind of mood today. Grabbing my things, I rush to the parking lot and get in my car and out of there as quickly as possible.
These past months have been some of the hardest of my life. One minute, I was the happiest I’d ever been, and the next, the rug was pulled out from underneath me. A simple note left behind in a hotel room shattered my heart irrevocably. After searching for Oliver all over the hotel with no luck, I went back upstairs to the room we’d shared. I walked in to find a shattered lamp, his luggage gone, and a note that gave away nothing. No explanation and no clue as to why he would walk away from me the way he did. Just a half-assed and unnecessary apology.
I must have called him a hundred times that night. My heart pounding in my chest, my eyes stinging with unshed tears, and my silent prayers that it had all just been a misunderstanding. It wasn’t. And after spending hours in that empty room wondering what had gone wrong, all I could do was change out of my dress, grab my bags, and get as far away from that hotel as I could. I spent the entire night alone and crying in my room, thankful my mom happened to be out for the evening. I didn’t have it in me to give her any explanations, especially since I didn’t have them myself. When I finally did get around to telling her what had happened, it took a lot of convincing for her not to quit her job. She said she didn’t want to work for a man who could break my heart so easily.
Those first few days, I barely got out of my bed. I couldn’t. I was heartbroken, and that kind of despair is indescribable. It’s crippling, debilitating, and nothing and no one could have helped me through that. No one except for Oliver, the one person who had the power to make things right again. But it never happened. He didn’t come back, call, text, email, nothing. No contact, no real reason why.
Now, six months have passed, and though I’m functioning, the pain is still there. The hollow feeling that Oliver left behind hasn’t been filled. I don’t believe it ever will be. It’s just as real today as it was then. I had to move on, though; there was no other choice. After a week of crying, I got out of bed, went to the admissions office at the culinary school, and begged them to let me into an earlier session. I knew that the only way for me start to heal again would be to do something that would take my mind off Oliver. Now, the culinary program is about to end, and I’m still just as heartbroken as I was when I started.
Every day, I wonder about Oliver. Every. Single. Day. It takes all I have not to pick up the phone and try just one more time to call him, to get through to him, to find the closure that I’m sure I’ll never get. Did he go to London without me? Is he back in New York? Still working for his father? Is he in love with someone else? These types of questions that drive me crazy, they torment me and keep me awake at night. I’ll probably never find peace where Oliver Parker is concerned.
My phone chimes with the familiar sound of a text message coming through. I come to a red light and quickly check my phone.
Mom: Meet me for lunch at 125 East Broughton Street - 12:30
I glance at the clock on the dashboard and shake my head in annoyance. She gave me a whole ten minutes to get to a location that will probably take me twenty minutes to get to.
Me: On my way.
I head downtown, thankful traffic is light today, and I’m able to get to the address Mom gave me in under fifteen minutes. Parking my car around the corner, I walk up the street trying to find the restaurant. I look at the street numbers in confusion. There’s an old hotel on the corner, some eateries, and shops, but 125 looks empty. I send Mom a text to verify the address, and she confirms that I have the right place and instructs me to go inside.
What the hell?
I approach the building, pull the door open, and walk in. Taking a look around, I see that my suspicions are confirmed. It’s empty, no signs of life, nothing.
“Hello?” I call, taking a few steps in.
“Mom?” I call, but there’s no response. I turn around to face the exit, looking out on the street to see if maybe she’s outside, but there’s no sign of her.
“Riley.” At the sound of my name, my entire body freezes. The deep tone of his voice strikes me like lightning. I know it. I’d know it anywhere. I’ve been dreaming of this voice for six long months.
Taking a deep breath, I force myself to become unstuck, slowly turning around until we’re face to face. He’s right there, within reaching distance. His hair is shorter than I remember, but he has the same soft stubble on his face and perfectly tailored suit. The only thing that’s missing is his confidence. He looks unsure of himself, nervous, scared even. I don’t worry about that, though, because I can’t get my thoughts in order.
For the briefest of moments, I’m happy to see him. He looks so good, and he appears to be okay. I want to run to him, throw myself into his arms, and pepper his perfect face with kisses. Then I realize that something’s not right, and it’s me, not hi
m. My reaction is wrong. He’s standing there looking completely intact, handsome, and all right. The same man who left me with no word, and he’s standing across from me as if nothing ever happened.
That happiness is quickly replaced with fury, so much so that it’s nearly blinding. I will not stand here and break down for him to witness. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I just stare at him with what I’m sure is an obvious amount of loathing on my face. He gets it; I know he does because he looks down, breaks eye contact, and lets out a sigh.
“Say something,” he says when he finally looks up at me again.
“Blackmail any poor unsuspecting women lately?”
“Riley.” He says my name softly, remorsefully, but I don’t care. He hurt me, and now, I don’t really have it in me to spare his feelings.
“Did you fall and hit your head? Were you in a coma somewhere? Temporary amnesia? Catatonia?”
“I can see you’re angry,” he says, taking a step closer.
“You can see I’m angry? You can see that I’m fucking angry?” My voice rises with every word I speak. “Are you for real right now? Did you seriously just say that?” I’m rambling; I know I’m not making any sense right now. I’ve never felt so out of control in my whole life. I’m barely keeping it together.
“I just need a minute to talk to you. To explain I ...” he says, but I interrupt him not wanting to hear what he has to tell me.
“I don’t want your explanation. I don’t need your contrived and fucking false explanation. What I need you to do is disappear again because that’s what you’re good at, but this time, do me a favor and stay gone,” I yell, at the same time turning on the balls of my feet and marching toward the exit. I almost make it too. Almost. His strong hand grips my bicep pulling me with enough force to swing me back around to smack right into him. The feel of him against me, touching me, is too much for me; one touch is all it takes to muddle my head.