If I keep telling myself that, maybe it’ll start to feel true.
“What is it, Mr. Parker?”
His eyes glitter for a second. “That went off the rails back there. We wanted to ask you if you’d attend the dedication ceremony with your father.”
“I work during the day.”
“Yes, I understand congratulations are in order on your internship. The dedication is at the end of the day. I’m sure your manager—”
My eyes narrow and I cut him off. “I’m sure you also understand I don’t want to ask for any special favors or treatment. I work until five every day. If it’s after that, I can come, yes. It takes me about thirty minutes to get to campus on the Metro.”
“Tag or Wilson could pick you up.” He shifts his gaze over my shoulder, looking out at the rolling lawn.
“Not you?” I don’t even realize I asked that out loud, because he doesn’t respond. He just stares over my shoulder. But then I hear the question, like on a weird delay, bouncing around in the air between us, and I try to take it back. Because mortifying—even before he ignored it. “Never mind. I don’t need a ride. I prefer to find my own way.”
“I know.” He flicks his gaze back to my face, and I regret wishing for it, because his attention, hot and piercing, burns me from the inside out.
“Someone inside has the details?” I edge toward the door. “Because I need to go.” Right now. I can’t handle being alone on a patio with this man. What was I thinking, asking if he’d be the one to pick me up?
If Cole Parker ever showed up at my office, I’d kick him in the shins and run as fast as I could in the other direction.
“Yes.” His eyelids drop and his lips part, drawing my attention to them. Perfectly carved from granite. Perfectly surrounded by rough five o’clock shadow that makes me shiver at the mere thought of it scraping along my skin, because the man is built for sin.
And I’m so secretly fascinated by him. By the promise of his hard, muscled body, and wicked mind. By his reputation. Whispers of his prowess have reached even me, hiding as far as I can from Washington society.
“Hailey,” he says as I turn. And later, I’ll wonder why he doesn’t just let me go. No…later, I’ll wonder why he doesn’t haul me into the shadows and kiss me until I’m begging for more, because in hindsight, it’s what we both want.
But he just shakes his head. “Don’t come to the dedication if you don’t want to.”
I hold his gaze, letting him singe me. Just a little. “It’s okay. I’ll be there. It’s the right thing to do.”
— —
God.
I shake off the memory and pace across my living room. I’d shoved that conversation away, forgetting it under a pile of dislike and resentment, because when I went to the dedication and Cole wasn’t there…I was pissed. I’d felt tricked.
That was nothing.
Now it’s so much worse. Now I’ve had him, in my body and heart and mind. And I still feel like everything between us is lopsided.
Cole has all the power. All the knowledge and control.
He could destroy me.
Because after everything that’s happened, after walking away, all I want is another moment with that hot, burnt-amber gaze on me.
—six—
Cole
Our work is done. Tonight the Metropolitan Police will be making arrests—good ones that will stick, with loads of legitimate, legally obtained evidence—in the murder of Anabeth Fletcher.
A man named Andre Beauchamp was the money. Shadowy money, and Wilson and I don’t think the buck stopped with him, but it’s what we’ve got for now. Two hired men led us to him, and all three were arrested.
I’m glad.
I’m also fucking tired.
After a while, beating people up gets old.
Especially when the adrenaline rush can’t be worked out with a good, hard fuck, which is exactly the wrong thought to have while I’m in the shower.
I tip my head back, letting the hot water hit the bruise forming on my jaw. That asshole’s head was made of fucking bricks.
Wincing, I grab the ice pack from the tile shelf and hold it in place as I turn and put my back under the steady stream.
My preferred therapy: hot, cold, and beer. I’ve already finished one bottle, and the next is sitting next to the other ice pack. I came into the shower fully prepared to stay here for a while.
But now I’ve thought of fucking, which makes me think of Hailey.
I should feel like an asshole for taking her against my office door. I just want to do it again.
Too bad she’s off-limits right now. It’s better for her if she’s insulated from this bullshit, although I’ve wanted to go to her, every single night.
I take my cock in hand, already throbbing at the memory of sliding into her without any barriers.
That was fucked up, that I didn’t even think about a condom. I’d been so sure she was going to tell me stop, and when she didn’t, I lost my mind. Standard operating procedure for me and the delicious Ms. Reid.
It’s all her soft curves and endless sweet skin. No, it was the thought of never having her again. I needed to claim her, to mark her as mine. It wasn’t enough to say it. I needed to see in her eyes that she’d heard me. Mine.
When this is all over—when I’ve fulfilled my promise to Jason, and closed the case that made me take on Morgan Reid as a client in the first place—I’m taking Hailey away from all of this. Finding that private beach we can surf and fuck and laugh on. Not a care in this world except for each other.
Hailey in a bikini. In nothing at all, just the world’s softest sand pressed to her hips and breasts and ass. I squeeze my eyes tight, holding on to that fantasy as my orgasm builds. I’m squeezing my dick hard enough it might hurt if I didn’t need that tightness.
Laughing. Her modestly covering her breasts as she stumbles through the surf, me chasing her. Grabbing her and rolling together in the waves until I find my place between her legs. Hard against soft. Tough against sweet.
That’s the part that turns me on the most about her. More than how sexy she is, it’s her fucking sweetness. I’ve never had anyone like Hailey in my life before. You don’t have her now, asshole. No, right now I’ve let her go, but I’m still watching her. Still aware of her, constantly.
She’s alone right now, in the bed I want to be in more than I want my next breath. In the morning she’ll get up and go to work. In a few days, she’ll have her Vanity Fair interview, and I should be there with her, but I can’t be.
One day, I’ll be good enough for her. One day, I’ll be able to be in the same room with her and not threaten the fragile goodness she’s constructed around her.
I jerk myself more roughly now, so close to release. Regret morphs to something less-definable, leaving an angry edge on the usually simple feelsfuckinggood of masturbating. There’s nothing simple about my fantasy of Hailey. Nothing easy or possible about getting the woman of my dreams alone, safe, and all mine on a beach in Hawaii. Fuck, I can’t even have her in an apartment in Washington for more than a few hours.
And even that was perfect. Hailey begging me for more. Fucking her face. Spanking her pussy. Fuck me. I need her. Need to spread her legs wide and feast on her wet, swollen cunt. Drive deep and blow my load inside her.
Fuuuuuck.
I fall forward, wincing as my palm slams against the shower wall, some of the cuts on my hand screaming in protest. With my other hand, I slow my strokes, milking my cock as the last spurts fall to the drain below.
With fantasies like that, I need to stay as far away from Hailey Reid as I can get, for as long as I can.
We both know it won’t be forever. I’m not that strong.
—seven—
Hailey
I didn’t have any doubt that something would slam Cole and me back together.
I just assumed it would be another mistake. Another scandal in my family.
Not something even darker. Totally r
andom. And utterly terrifying.
— —
Two weeks after Cole was arrested, the Metropolitan Police Major Case unit executed a raid on a condo near The Hill and arrested two men for the murder of Anabeth Fletcher, and at the same time, a simultaneous warrant was being served in Virginia on a third man, whose name never made it to the papers.
I was dying to ask Wilson about it.
I didn’t.
Not when he came over the next day to do my prep for the Vanity Fair interview, and not three days later when he showed up twenty minutes before the reporter in case I had any last minute questions.
Instead, I made him knit me a scarf.
“You’re getting pretty good at that.” I peer over his shoulder. Only two dropped stitches that row. “You can give that to Jason for his birthday.”
“I don’t know when Jason’s birthday is.”
“Seriously?”
“Correction. I don’t care when Jason’s birthday is.”
“How about Cole’s birthday?” I’m not sure why I bring that up. I walked away. I don’t care about him. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
“June tenth.”
I freeze. Somehow Cole having an actual birthday—a date on which he was born, once helpless and small and probably very cute—makes him more human. “How do you know that off the top of your head, but not Jason’s?”
He ducks his big, blond head and stares at his knitting.
“Wilson?”
“I thought you might want to know. I can also tell you his favorite foods, total net worth, and the results of his last physical.”
In broad strokes, I think I know the answer to the last point. I don’t care about the middle one. But the first… “Uhm, okay. What kind of food does he like?”
Wilson twists his head and looks at me. “If I tell you, can I stop knitting?”
“Nope. It’s going to impress the reporter, and if I’m lucky, distract her. The ladies love a man who’s good with his hands. Maybe if you’re lucky she’ll want to nip the interview short and drag you back to her hotel room.”
“I think she’s married.”
“Too bad for you.”
“Too bad for you.” He shoves the world’s ugliest scarf attempt back into my knitting basket. “Why did you agree to this interview if you don’t want to do it?”
Because I don’t like to be selfish. “I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.”
“Pretty sure ‘my life isn’t for public consumption’ is a perfectly acceptable reason.” He stands, filling the space beside me, and for a second I think he’s going to hug me. That would be weird, but he doesn’t. Instead he skirts around me and pulls his computer out of his backpack. “Do you remember what I told you the other day?”
“From her previous stories, you think she really wants the hint of taboo. She’s going to keep coming back to Taylor and the Vice President.” I nod. I can do this. “But instead I’m going to give her the estranged sister story.”
It’s not a lie, and it’s a part of my life I don’t mind sharing. I won’t make Taylor look bad, but it’s to my advantage that the world knows we aren’t close.
“And if you can find a way to talk about sexual assault on campus…” he trails off as I snap my gaze to meet his. I’m scowling, because we’ve been over this. “Okay, fine. I’m just saying, it’s a sexy story.” He turns a faint shade of red. “Jesus. Not sexy, that’s not what I mean. Sensational. It’ll sell magazines.”
I roll my eyes and head into the kitchen to make tea.
“I’m really the wrong person to be doing this with you,” he calls after me.
Too bad I’ve banned the right person. Cole would just get my boundaries without these awkward conversations, but he’s off-limits because if he helps me with this, we’ll end up naked in my bedroom before the interview is over.
No, Cole is not an option.
And I refused to have Jason do it. I’m furious with him, even more so than with Cole. Because you’re not really mad at Cole. No, I’m just trying my best to move on from an ill-advised fling. But Jason, on the other hand—I saw the way he looked at me, like I was a problem that needed to be dealt with. I get enough of that bullshit from my family. I don’t need it from their hired muscle, too.
I lift my voice. “Why are you here if you don’t like stuff like this? Didn’t Tag volunteer? He likes pretty reporter ladies.”
“He did. Cole wanted me to do it.”
You’re mine. His words roll unbidden into my mind, and I stare blankly at my tea cupboard before grabbing four random boxes and sticking them on a tray with a tea pot of hot water.
Now I’m grumpy, because how can I move on when he’s all but here in person?
I set the tray down a bit harder than necessary on the coffee table.
“You didn’t need to make tea if it’s pissed you off.”
I shoot Wilson a death look.
“Oh. Not the tea?”
“No, not the tea.”
“Me?”
“Shut up.”
“Ah. Cole?”
I sigh and sit down. “I’m not mad at him.”
He hesitates, then looks at his computer before talking again. “But you were.”
“Yes. No. I wasn’t mad. I was scared.” And I still think Cole came perilously close to using me. But I’m not going to tell Wilson that. It feels like a betrayal to even think it when Cole’s actually been pretty steadfastly on my side.
Again, I think about asking Wilson about the arrests. I go half-way there. “He’s okay, then? Not under investigation for…anything?”
“He’s fine. Kind of pissed, still. Stomping around like a hungry bear.” That makes my heart ache, that Cole is out of sorts and I can’t soothe him, and Wilson must see that on my face, too, because he shakes his head. “I’m not helping, am I?”
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
“It would be best if you forget him.”
“We’ll put that on the long list of things that would be best for me. Right below having a different family and moving to another state.”
“Why don’t you?”
“You’re all full of questions, today, Wilson.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Why?”
“Good for you to get this shit out now, realize it’s all there on the tip of your tongue.”
I stare at him. “You’re doing this so I don’t say it to the reporter.”
He blushes, which is weird. The more I learn about Wilson, the more I’m using that word. “She’s going to be a pro at pulling this shit out of you. That level of honesty would sell a lot of magazines. So when she gets here…you need to know where you might go, so you can not go there.”
“You’re evil.” I take a deep breath. “Okay. I won’t get tripped into talking about why I still live in Washington.”
“What about dating?”
“I date. I’m young. I’m not looking for anything serious.”
“Good. Career plans?”
“I love the non-profit sector, and consider it a real honor to work hands-on with people who are working hard to get ahead in the shadow of all this wealth and power.”
“Great.”
He takes me through ten more questions before the reporter arrives, then excuses himself to the kitchen to give us privacy. Ha. Like he can’t hear everything from ten feet away.
She introduces herself and tells me to call her Leanne. I make the same request for her to call me Hailey and she sets a voice recorder next to the tea.
She starts with easy questions, letting me orient her to my life.
When she finally asks about Taylor, I spill my guts about going in different directions in high school, and slide in honest praise for my sister’s creativity and social prowess. I talk about my little sister and my brother, too, all approved talking points, and the whole time she nods and smiles. On the more dangerous points, I keep to the canned answers, and after a few runs at me from different directions, she gives up trying to get mor
e.
After an hour, I’m pretty sure we’re done. Wilson moves closer, and I think he’s going to shut her down when she leans forward. I can hear the shift in her voice, and it scares me, because I don’t know where she’s going with what she asks me next.
“Did your father ever sexually abuse you, Hailey?”
I gape at her, speechless. No. I hate my father. He’s an asshole, and now that I’m an adult, I’ve come to understand him as a sleaze. But if he’d ever touched me inappropriately, I’d have…God. I can’t even imagine what I’d have done. Stabbed him in his sleep, probably.
Wilson joins me on the couch, but he doesn’t stop the interview. “Are you okay?” he asks quietly.
I nod. “No, my father didn’t abuse me.” I say the words slowly, staring at the reporter. “Really, he didn’t. Why are you asking me that?”
I want to know if Alison said something in her interview. I can’t remember if that’s happened yet. I can’t think clearly about anything, actually, and all of a sudden I want both the reporter and Wilson out of my apartment.
I want to call Cole. And then I want to call my sister and make sure everything is okay.
Because even though my father never touched me, a cold realization slithers through my gut that I can’t entirely rule out that he didn’t touch one of my sisters. I can’t say he’s not capable of that.
“Do you know Gerome Lively?”
I shake my head. Beside me, Wilson doesn’t move—and that’s a big tell, because he’s actually a pretty twitchy guy. Constantly in motion, even as he’s hunkered down behind a computer. His head bobs and his fingers tap. But right now, he’s an ice giant.
“Have you ever been to a private resort in the Bahamas?”
I turn to Wilson and silently ask him with my eyes if I can answer that.
“Have you?” he mutters, his brows drawn tight.
“No.” My mind is racing as I turn back to the reporter. “What is this about?”
Hate F*@k: The Complete Story Page 12