I look at her. “I know it won’t, Darcy. I’m counting on it.”
“Victoria—”
“There are some people who deserve everything bad that happens to them. And he’s one of them. Trust me, he’s one of them.”
She examines my face in silence for a moment, and then sighs. “I believe you. But you know the old saying.”
“Which old saying?”
“‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’”
I can feel how vicious my smile is. “One for the upper half of his dead body and one for the lower?”
She blinks. “You’re planning on sawing him in half? Shit, girl, what did he do to you?”
Without thinking, I say vehemently, “He broke me, Darcy. He not only broke my heart, he broke my soul. And that was before all the other bad stuff he’s responsible for.”
The doorbell rings again. Darcy and I stand staring at each other in silence, until I begin to turn away.
“Wait.” She rests a hand on my shoulder.
When I pause and look at her, she shakes her head as if she can’t believe what she’s about to say.
“Let me answer the door. If we’re gonna roll this pigeon, we might as well do it right.”
Excited to have her help, I clap. “I knew I could count on you! What do we do?”
She glances at the door. “You go back to your room. Let me have a few words with him before you come out. Give me five minutes. That’s all I’ll need.”
“What’re you going to say?”
She glances back at me with a dry smile. “There are only two things a man really needs from a woman, girl. One is affection. The other is admiration. But since you’re not the simpering, flirty type—and you’re about as warm as an igloo in Antarctica—we’re gonna have to make him think it’s all a big show. That underneath the permafrost there’s an actual human being. And that he’s the only one who can melt all that ice.”
I beam at her. “We’re totally on the same page! That’s exactly what I was doing Friday night!”
“Great minds think alike,” she mutters.
It doesn’t sound like a compliment.
When the doorbell rings a third time, Darcy snorts. “Well, whatever you’re doing is working, because judging by his patience level with that damn doorbell, Captain America has a serious boner for you.”
I give her a quick, hard hug, and then I’m off with a giggle. I trot back down the hall but don’t go all the way to my bedroom. I hide in the powder room instead, with the door cracked an inch so I can hear. There’s a short silence, and then I hear the front door open, and the sound of low voices.
Though I strain to hear, I can’t make out the words.
Shit.
Well, she can tell me exactly what she said later. I look at my watch. Five minutes.
I sit on the toilet, tapping my toe against the marble, chewing my thumbnail, feeling like a herd of wild stallions is thundering across an open plain inside my chest. When finally the time is up, my heart is beating so fast I’m a little shaky when I stand. I look at my reflection in the mirror. What I see there doesn’t help me feel any better.
My face is red. My eyes are wild. I look like I just shot something into a vein.
I hiss at my reflection, “You’re a badass bitch and nobody fucks with you! Now get your shit together and focus!”
Instantly I feel better. Maybe next time I’m on the phone with Katie Couric, I’ll try that line on her.
I open the bathroom door, put my shoulders back, take a deep breath, and walk slowly down the hallway, my head held high.
When I get to the living room, Darcy and Parker are nowhere to be seen.
I stop, frowning, but then hear voices coming from the kitchen. Why the hell are they in the kitchen?
The kitchen is my second-favorite part of my home, aside from my bedroom. It’s all white marble and glass, like the rest of the place, but there’s a built-in fireplace that separates it from the dining room, which I have lit most every night of the year, lending it a warm, homey feeling. And it’s usually a little messy; I often stand over the sink to eat and leave the dishes and a mess for the housekeeper. And I read the morning paper with my coffee at the breakfast table, which is usually strewn with other papers and magazines, some mail, my vitamins, my medicine…
My medicine.
Dear God. Darcy’s just walked el diablo right into the most personal space in my home.
I sprint toward the kitchen. My heels clatter against the marble. All the blood drains from my face. I round the corner and stop short, because there they are.
Parker is seated at my breakfast table, in my chair, drinking a glass of what I know is my most expensive scotch, because the crystal decanter is sitting on the table in front of him. Leaning back in the chair with a satisfied grin as if he’s king of the hill, he’s looking up at Darcy, who stands over him with her hands on her hips and a look of maternal affection on her smiling face.
Her traitorous, back-stabbing face.
Why the hell is she smiling at my sworn enemy?
“Well, isn’t this cozy,” I say, too loudly and without an ounce of warmth.
They both look over at me. Parker’s smile dies. His burning gaze rakes over me. Slowly he sets his glass of scotch on the table.
Darcy says brightly, “Oh, there you are! I didn’t think you’d be ready so soon. We were just talking about my review of Xengu.” She laughs. “I told him it won’t be published until Monday, but he can rest easy, because other than the truffles, he gets an A-plus.”
An A-plus. She’s giving the man who ruined my life an A-fucking-plus? What’s going on here? Bristling, I take a step forward.
An open bottle of my medicine is not six inches away from Parker’s hand, sitting on the lazy Susan in the middle of the table, naked and vulnerable to any curious, prying eyes.
My voice cold and controlled, I say, “Really? How interesting. I don’t think you’ve ever given any restaurant such a great rating.”
Her eyes flash. It’s a warning or a message of some kind, but I’m too busy being furious to try to decipher the meaning.
Parker rises. He’s wearing a navy dress shirt with no tie, open at the throat, a pair of beautifully cut charcoal-gray slacks, and a chunky platinum watch I recognize as a Patek Philippe. It probably cost upward of a hundred thousand dollars. Countering the elegance of his clothing is his hair, which is a little tousled, as if he’s been running his hands through it, and the glint of copper along his jaw. He hasn’t shaved.
He looks like a Ralph Lauren ad.
Bastard.
In a gravelly voice, the bastard says, “Victoria.”
Nothing else, just my name, but he says it as if he’s just thrown me facedown across the table, hiked up my dress, yanked off my panties, and buried himself inside me.
All the blood that had left my face floods back into it. My ears go throbbing hot. Through clenched teeth, I say, “Parker.”
Hearing my tone, Darcy’s expression turns smug.
It’s official: I’m going to kill her.
“Well, I gotta go! Great seeing you again, Parker. And I’ll see you later, girl.” Darcy sashays over to me and plants a kiss on my burning cheek. When she pulls away, she winks, leaving me completely confused. Then she’s gone.
The devil stands on the other side of my breakfast table, staring at me as if all the mysteries of the universe can be found inside my eyes.
“You’re angry.”
I turn away, smoothing a hand over my hair. When he adds, “She said you would be,” I spin around and stare at him.
“What?”
Has she told him our plan?
Slowly Parker moves out from behind the table and approaches me. His gaze never leaves mine. When he’s an arm’s length away, he stops. A smile teases his lips. “Because I was early. She said you hate it when people are early even more than you hate it when they’re late; you don’t like to be caught off guar
d. She also said that you’d freak out that I was in your kitchen—because you never have men in your kitchen because it’s like the heart of the house, and therefore like your heart—and that she liked me and knew you did, too, and the only way I was ever going to be able to climb that ivory tower you’ve constructed to keep out anything that hurts is with the help of your best friend.”
A small, astonished breath leaves my lips.
That evil, brilliant witch! She not only played him, she played me! She did something that would evoke a real emotion in me, which would be much more convincing than any act, and then told him the truth about why I’d be angry, and then tied it all up with the preplanned lie we’d agreed on. I’m so relieved I feel lightheaded.
She’s still got flack coming about that bullshit A-plus, though.
Parker says, “She also said I should kiss you as soon as I could,” and moves a step closer.
My heartbeat accelerates. I clear my throat. “Well. She certainly said a lot, didn’t she?”
He moves even closer. When I glance up at him, there’s fire in his eyes. He whispers, “Yes,” and reaches out and touches my face.
I freeze. Like a rabbit pinned in headlights, I stare motionless at Parker’s face as it moves closer to mine. When his lips brush my mouth, I make a small, wordless noise of pleasure.
He snakes an arm around my waist and pulls me against his body. The hand on my face moves to my neck. He tangles his fingers in my hair. He moves his mouth slowly along my jaw, skimming my skin, and then says into my ear, “But I want you to ask me for it.”
My hands are pressed flat against his chest. I feel his heart pounding through his shirt. My own heart is keeping pace with his, hammering against my breastbone almost painfully.
“And why, might I ask, would I do that?”
He noses my hair aside. Lightly, using his teeth, he tugs on my earlobe. An involuntary shiver runs through me.
“Because you want me to.”
I laugh a little breathlessly. “No, I don’t. I’m angry, remember?”
He gazes down at me. A vein throbs in his neck. “Because I want you to, then. Because I didn’t give you an opportunity to say no last Friday night. Because I don’t want to scare you away before I’ve even had a chance.”
His mouth hovers inches from mine. The heat of his body warms me through my dress. I feel electrified. Electrocuted.
“A chance to do what?”
What he says next makes my heart stop beating altogether, but he doesn’t even blink.
“Make you fall in love with me.”
I can’t look away. I don’t want to. It’s a primal, undeniable urge to witness the carnage, almost like driving by a fatal car wreck, craning your neck to see the bodies and blood.
“Parker—”
“Ask me.”
“We agreed on just one date, remember?”
“Victoria. Ask me.”
Instead, I ask a question I already know the answer to. “Are you always this stubborn?”
He ignores that. Staring deep into my eyes, he orders, “Ask me to kiss you, Victoria.”
I make a sound of exasperation.
He leans so lose to my face, his lips brush mine when he speaks. “You like the way I taste, remember? Now ask me. And then, after I’ve kissed you, I want to see if there’s anything else you’d like to ask me for.”
Oh, the dark promise in that tone. The spine-tingling, blatant sexuality of it. My nipples harden. My breath quickens.
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
I lick my lips, take a fortifying breath, and whisper, “Parker, please ki—”
He crushes his mouth to mine.
ELEVEN
It’s the first day of high school. I’m sick with nerves; this is a new school for me. One much larger and farther from home than the middle school I left in the spring, so I can no longer ride Buttercup. I have to take the bus, which is stifling hot and smells like vomit.
I’m hopelessly lost as soon as I step off the bus. The campus seems endless. I have a map and my list of classes in my backpack, along with my books and my brown paper bag lunch. Trembling with anxiety, I kneel on the grass of the quad and tear open my backpack. I’m going to be late. I pull the map out so fast I tear it in two. Two senior girls walk by, look at my lunch bag and my glasses and my secondhand clothes, and snicker. They walk on. With shaking hands, I fit the map halves together, trying to locate Building B.
“You need help finding your class?”
Startled, I look up. A boy stands over me. He’s beautiful. He’s also smiling, a smile more dazzling than the morning sun haloed around his golden head. I have the fleeting thought that he might be an angel. I’m so surprised I can’t speak.
“Here, let me help you.” The golden boy kneels beside me on the dewy grass. I hope he doesn’t get stains on the knees of his perfectly ironed, expensive-looking trousers.
“Where’re you supposed to go?”
“B-Building B,” I stammer, red-faced and sweating. I push my glasses farther up my nose.
The boy looks at me. Even his eyes are smiling. “I’m going there, too! C’mon, I’ll walk you.” He stands. When I just stare at him stupidly, he laughs and holds out his hand. “C’mon, we’ll be late!”
I put my hand in his. He gently pulls me to my feet. He says, “I’m Parker. What’s your name?”
“Isabel,” I whisper, looking at my shoes.
“Pretty name for a pretty girl,” he says.
When I look up at him sharply, already hurt, I’m shocked to realize he isn’t teasing me, or just trying to be kind to the awkward mousy girl in the thrift store dress. He means it. This boy named Parker has just called me pretty. For real.
No one has ever called me pretty before in my life.
* * *
Gasping, I break the kiss and turn my head sharply, my vision blurred with memories. I try to push Parker away, but he holds me tighter, his muscular arms like a vise.
“Easy,” he says. “Just sit with it for a minute. Don’t run away yet.”
His tone is the one my father used to quiet the horses during a storm. He’d always go out to the barn to be with them when the weather was nasty, to stroke their sleek necks and murmur reassurances in a loving, soft voice, crooning over and over, “Tranquilo, mi amor. Estoy aqui.”
My brother and I were left to cower alone in our beds in the dark.
I keep my eyes squeezed shut because I don’t trust myself to look at Parker. I don’t trust what he might see in my eyes.
He presses the softest of kisses to my cheek. “So I was thinking we’d get a bite to eat first, somewhere quiet, and then see where the evening takes us. Maybe hear some music—I know a great jazz club—or take a walk in the park.” He pauses. “Although those shoes you’re wearing don’t seem like good walk-in-the-park shoes, so maybe we’ll skip that. What do you think? Sound good?”
He’s being light, casual, letting me know he isn’t going to say anything else about my near-meltdown. About how I just disappeared inside that kiss, how I drowned in it, and came back up for air shaking and gasping.
I nod.
“Great. Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably tell you that this dress of yours, which is really more like visual Viagra than a dress, is going to cause an ocean of drool among all the poor bastards you’ll be passing tonight, so I’m going to have to stick very close to you in order to be ready to lend a gallant hand when you slip on said drool. Which is inevitable, considering the sheer amount of it we’ll be dealing with. So.”
I laugh a little shakily. “So be prepared to have a Parker barnacle?”
He nods seriously, though there’s a gleam of laughter in his eyes. “Yes.”
“Duly noted.”
I take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Parker eases his arms from around me and takes a step back, eyeing me warily as if I might change my mind and bound away like a deer fleeing a guy in a neon vest who’s toting a loa
ded rifle. But I’m better now. More steady on my feet.
It occurs to me that I need to find a way to deal with kissing this man if I’m going to make him fall in love with me so I can dump him, and then ruin his life. There will probably be a lot of kissing involved. I might even have to sleep with him.
Realization hits me with such force I stop breathing.
I’m probably going to have to sleep with him!
How is this only occurring to you now? The howl of laughter inside my head is Darcy’s.
“You have the most interesting internal conversations,” says Parker, watching my face. “Someday I’d love to be in on one of them.”
I blurt, “I was just thinking about sleeping with you.”
He stares at me. I’ve never seen such a look of hunger. Softly, he says, “Go on.”
“I…cannot believe I just said that out loud.”
Parker hasn’t blinked. His pupils are dilated. I wonder if mine are, too.
“Seriously, let’s just pretend I didn’t say that, OK? Rewind. Erase. Press play again.”
Aware that I’ve begun to babble, I snap my mouth shut. We stand in silence, looking at each other, until Parker lifts his hand and brushes his thumb over my lower lip.
“OK. We’ll pretend you didn’t say it. Please ignore the churro in my pants, because he’s not quite as good at pretending as we are.”
My gaze involuntarily drops to Parker’s crotch. And there, in all its glory, is one large and determined-looking bulge.
“I just said ignore it, Victoria, not stare at it. Show some mercy, woman.”
I press my lips together to keep from smiling. Mercy is the one thing he’ll never get from me.
Gazing up at him, I capture his thumb lightly between my teeth and nip it playfully. “I can’t help it. Remember I told you how much I love churros? Your churro looks particularly big and yummy.”
He exhales, hard. “Jesus. I can’t decide if I should laugh, kiss you, or bend you over the counter and have my way with you. That was just evil.”
I giggle. “Evil’s my specialty. You’ve been warned.”
He clasps my face in his hands and plants a firm, potent kiss on my mouth. In a husky voice he says, “If we’re going to dinner, we better get to it, because we’ve got only about thirty seconds left before Mr. Big Yummy Churro takes control of the rest of my body and I rip off your dress. With my teeth.”
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