His last hope had been that Frannie had lied. But here was the proof. The house was sold. Holly had made her choice, and clearly, her “love” for him had been as nebulous as the promises Frannie had once made to him.
Slapping one hand against the steering wheel, he told himself he should be glad. Should be happy as hell he’d escaped unscathed. But the problem was, he hadn’t. He was hurt. His heart was more battered now than it had been when his marriage had dissolved.
His jaw tight, his gaze furious behind his dark glasses, Parker knew he’d never be able to put all this behind him until he talked to Holly face-to-face.
“And by God,” he whispered, “she’s going to have to look me in the eye and admit that it was all a lie.”
He threw the car into gear and stomped on the gas pedal. It was Friday, which meant she’d be singing at the Hotel Marchand tonight. He could wait a few hours. But when she took her break, he’d be talking to her in her dressing room. Didn’t matter if her personal guard was there or not.
Nobody was going to keep him from talking to Holly tonight.
“GIRL,” TOMMY SAID as he walked Holly to her dressing room for a mid-set break, “you sure you’re feeling well enough to do another set?”
“I’m fine, honest.” She forced a smile she knew he needed and took a long, deep breath. “I’m not sleeping very well, is all. I just need to sit for a bit, then I’ll be raring to go again.”
“I don’t like this.”
“I know.”
Tommy and Shana both had been at their wit’s end since she’d told them about the baby a few days ago. But once the shock had passed, they’d rallied to her side, just as they always had. The two people in the world Holly knew she could count on had come through for her again.
“You know I’m no big fan of Parker James,” Tommy said, seeing her into her dressing room and watching while she sat. “Still think it was a big mistake to get involved with his kind in the first place.”
“His kind?” she asked, smiling.
“You know what I mean. He’s rich. Born rich. They’ve got different ways of looking at things, Holly. Different ideas on how things should be.”
“He’s not like that,” she said, though her heart wasn’t really convinced.
Maybe Parker was the kind of man Tommy believed him to be. He’d shut her out the minute she’d admitted to loving him. He’d sent his estranged wife over to her home to scare—or buy—her off. What kind of man would do that?
Certainly not the man she’d thought she had known.
“Doesn’t really matter one way or the other,” Tommy said quietly. “My point is, whatever the hell kind of man he is, he’s got a right to know about his child.”
“Tommy—”
“I mean it, little girl. A man’s going to be a father, he’s got a right to be panicky about it.” He cupped her cheek in his palm and looked down into her eyes with love that surrounded Holly like a warm blanket on a cold night. “He might do nothing. Might not give a good damn, and if he doesn’t, then he’s even worse a man than I believed him to be.”
She sighed.
“But…” Tommy insisted, “he’s got the right to know. And you’ve got the obligation to tell him.”
“I’ll think about it. I promise.”
He nodded slowly and straightened. “That’s the best I can ask for right now, so I’ll take it.” He turned toward the door. “Now you sit and rest for a while. I’ll have Leo send you some tea.”
FIVE MINUTES LATER Holly sipped at her tea and thought about what Tommy had said. Maybe she did owe Parker the truth. If nothing else, she could thank him for the child she already loved desperately.
Then she could truly move on with her life.
Her stomach did a quick spin and lurch, and she took another slow sip of tea. The moment she’d realized she was pregnant, her stomach seemed to have turned on her. Not just morning sickness, this was all-day nausea. A constant reminder that her life was changing. That nothing would ever be the same again.
And she was grateful.
Amazing, really, how different a baby no bigger than a grain of rice could make a person feel. The skies looked bluer, the future looked richer and the present, despite the pain of Parker’s loss, was filled with possibilities.
Parker.
She stared into the mirror over her dressing table and whispered, “It’s okay, baby. We’ll be fine. You’ll see. I promise I will love you so much you won’t even miss having a daddy.”
Swallowing hard, she ran a brush through her hair and checked her makeup. She only had fifteen minutes left on her break and she had to be ready for her second set.
When a knock sounded at the door, she assumed it was Tommy and called, “Come on in.”
In the mirror, her gaze locked with Parker’s as he stepped into the room and stopped. Over his shoulder, she glimpsed Tommy’s concerned expression before Parker closed the door quietly.
How could she be both happy to see him and so furious she wanted to kick him?
“Parker.” Just saying his name again sounded bittersweet. “What’re you doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
“I don’t think so.” She spun around on her chair and looked up at him. “I think we’re all real clear on where we stand.”
“I need to hear it from you.” He practically ground out the words.
“And why should I care about what you need?”
“Damn it, Holly—”
“Don’t you curse at me, either,” she snapped, and stood. If the world at the edges of her vision went a little wobbly, she wouldn’t let him know it. “Blast you, Parker. If you didn’t want me in your life, all you had to do was say so. You think I couldn’t see for myself that you weren’t interested in me saying I love you? You think I didn’t see the panic in your eyes?”
“Still can’t believe you bothered to say it,” he muttered.
“Well, I’m kicking myself for it now, trust me,” she pointed out.
“That’s what it all boils down to, isn’t it?” he asked wryly. “Trust.”
“Ha!” Setting her iced tea down on the table behind her, she glared up at Parker and again fought the urge to kick him. “You’re talking to me about trust?”
“Don’t see why you’re so mad. You got everything you ever wanted, didn’t you?”
“You don’t see why I’m mad?” Her voice hit a note she was pretty sure only dogs would be able to hear, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from shrieking.
“What the hell are you yelling about?” he demanded.
“Your amazing gall, that’s what.” Holly paced three quick steps before turning in the closet-size room and walking back to stop in front of him. “You speak to me of trust when you send your bitch of a wife to my home? To my home?”
“What?” His brows pulled together and pure confusion was etched into his features.
It was, Holly thought, a damn good act. If she hadn’t already known the truth, he might have convinced her. But she did know and she didn’t have a problem reminding him what had happened.
“She hired a detective, Parker. She paid a stranger to dig into my life. To turn it over and give it a good shake.” The thought of Frannie discussing her life with Parker was unbearable. “Did you two have a good laugh over it? Did you enjoy reading about me being arrested? Make you feel superior? Well, I make no apologies for my past, Parker. Not to you. Not to any of your rich friends, either.”
“Yeah?” He countered, grabbing her hand and holding on to it. “You think I give a good damn about you being arrested on Mardi Gras? Or when you were a kid? I don’t. So how about an apology from you for selling me out to Frannie? Feel up to that?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“She told me.” He let her go, shook his head and stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. “She told me all of it. How she offered to buy you that big old house if you’d just stay away from me. And she told me just how fast
you accepted the offer.”
“That’s crazy.” Confusion rippled through her. What was going on?
“Is it?” he demanded. “I told myself she was lying until I went by the house today. There’s a big sold sign hanging on the gate.”
“Of course there is,” Holly snapped. “I just bought it.”
“And all you had to do to get it was sell me out. If you needed money that badly, you should have asked me. There was no need for all the romance. No need to deal with Frannie.”
He looked as cold as his soon-to-be ex-wife. His eyes were frosty and his tone was harsh. Was he hurt? Or just angry? Hard to tell.
“You’re crazy,” Holly said flatly. “I told you before, I never wanted your money. I didn’t want anything from you.”
“But you were willing to take money from Frannie?”
“I wouldn’t take a glass of water from that woman if I was on fire in the pits of hell,” Holly said hotly. Spinning around, she rummaged through the stuff piled on the only other chair in the little room until she came up with her purse. Rummaging inside it, she finally found her checkbook, flipped it open and thrust it at him. “Here. Look for yourself. I wrote a check to the escrow company myself yesterday.”
He took it, studied the neat figures written in black ink for a long moment, then looked at her again. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m getting that. Take a good look at the balance left. I used almost every dime I had to buy that house,” she snapped. “You think I’m so small I’d take a bribe from a woman I wouldn’t trust to tell me the time of day? You think I would sell myself, my body, for a chance at your bank account?”
She stuffed the checkbook back into her purse. When she spoke, her voice was cold. “Well, let me tell you something, Parker. I don’t need you. And I don’t whore myself for anyone or anything. I’ve worked like a dog for the last ten years, saving every penny I could round up. I’ve got a down payment on that house. Barely. But I did it myself. I didn’t need your money, Parker.” All of the air left her body in a rush. “I thought I just needed you.”
He looked into her eyes for a long minute before finally whispering, “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?”
She smiled wistfully. “I’m surprised you recognize it.”
“God,” he muttered, shoving both hands through his hair. “I’m an idiot.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”
Parker wiped one hand across his face and looked as miserable as a man could be. Shoulders slumped, he thrust both hands into his pants’ pockets and braced his feet wide apart.
“I kept pulling back from you, Holly,” he admitted. “Every time you got a little too close, I shut down. Told myself to keep my heart out of it. To enjoy what we had but not look for anything more.”
“I know that,” she whispered, heart breaking. “What I don’t know is why.”
“Because I’m an idiot,” he said, sounding confused. “All I knew for sure was that Frannie and I made each other miserable. I wasn’t interested in getting that involved again. I wanted to avoid feeling too much—to risk the kind of hurt and disappointment I’d already lived with.”
“Oh, Parker,” Holly said, reaching out one hand to lay it against his chest. Beneath her palm, she felt the strong, sure beat of his heart and knew that it was finally time to tell him the truth. To tell him what she’d seen the night before his marriage.
“You know,” she said softly, “I’ve wondered over the years if I shouldn’t have told you this before you married Frannie. Maybe things would have been different for you.”
“Told me what?” Confusion clouded in his eyes.
She took a breath and said, “The night before your wedding, I showed up at the reception hall to drop off my music and to—” She waved one hand in the air and admitted “—doesn’t matter why I was there. The point is that I wasn’t alone.”
“What’re you trying to say?”
“I walked in on Frannie and her lover—making love on a tabletop.”
Parker blinked. “Her lover? She was with someone the night before we got married?” He gave a harsh laugh. “Well, hell. That explains a lot, doesn’t it? She had no intention of trying to make the marriage work, did she?” Shaking his head as if to clear his brain, he demanded, “Who was he?”
“Wasn’t a he at all, Parker,” Holly told him with a wince. “Frannie was with her maid of honor. Justine DuBois.”
“Justine?” He didn’t look as surprised as Holly thought he might. “I never knew…I should have, I guess. All those shopping trips they used to take together. The long phone calls. The whispered conversations.”
“Parker, you were willing to give your marriage a try, to make it work,” she reminded him. “It’s not your fault that you were with a woman who could never love you the way you wanted her to.”
“Why’d she even go through with it?” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “Was it just for the money? The prestige?”
“I don’t know,” Holly said. “Maybe she doesn’t even know.”
“Man, I feel like an idiot,” he said, a rueful smile on his face.
“Maybe I should have told you back then,” she admitted.
“Water under a broken bridge, Holly.” He shrugged. “Besides, I might not have believed you. Back then, I was convinced that Frannie and I could make a go of it.”
Pulling his hands from his pockets, Parker cupped her face between his palms.
“But I’m not that man anymore. I’m seeing things clearly now. Maybe for the first time in my life. I’m so sorry, Holly,” he whispered, hoping to make her see all that he was feeling. All that he was now no longer hesitant to share. And dear God, he prayed that he wasn’t too late. That he hadn’t lost the chance at something amazing because of his own fears.
“It’s hard to admit,” he said, “but I was scared by all you were making me feel. You opened up a need in me I didn’t even know I had, but I was too leery to risk doing anything about it.”
She reached up and covered his hands with hers. Tears glimmered in her warm, gray eyes, but didn’t fall. “Parker, I felt the same way. I didn’t want to care because I couldn’t believe that you would ever really want me in your life.”
“God, Holly…”
“And when you pulled away that last time, I knew it was because you realized I would never fit into your world.” Before he could protest, she hurried on. “I’m a nobody, Parker. I know that. In New Orleans society, you’re a king and I’m a peasant.” A smile twitched at her mouth. “Not that I mind being a peasant. I think it sounds a lot more fun than being a queen. But I don’t have the kind of pedigree a man like you needs in a woman.”
Parker laughed and shook his head. “We are a perfect match, Holly. You’re an idiot, too.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He grabbed her close, gave her a hug fit to break her ribs, then pulled back and kissed her until both of them were breathless.
“Don’t you get it? Holly, if I want a damn pedigree, I’ll go to the American Kennel Club. I want you. I think I always knew on some level that you were the one woman I was born to love. It was only my own fears that kept me from saying so.”
“Parker…”
“I love you, Holly. Completely. Desperately. I love you so much, I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving that to you.”
She gulped. “What do you—”
“I’m asking you to marry me, Holly. Just as soon as Frannie’s out of my life forever, I want to start a new life. With you.”
Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out and Parker laughed again.
“Who knew I could actually make you speechless?”
Shaking her head, she managed to say, “I do love you. Know that. Believe that.”
“I do.”
“But, Parker…”
“No buts.”
“This is a big one, so think about it before you answer.”
“Okay,
” he said, still not letting go of her. Not daring to let her out of his reach now that he finally had the chance to keep her in his life forever.
“If I marry you, I’ll still want to live in that big ol’ house I just bought. I’ll still want to take in foster kids. That dream won’t change.”
“It doesn’t have to,” he promised, already loving the image of a house full of kids. “We’ll get contractors out to start on the house as soon as escrow closes. And the minute we’re married, we’ll sign up for the foster program and we’ll take in as many kids as they’ll allow—though I warn you going in, I’m going to want one or two of our own kids, too.”
She smiled up at him, and Parker felt as though he’d just climbed the highest mountain and was taking in a breathtaking view.
“Just—please.” He dipped his head, kissed her again. “Say you’ll marry me.”
“I’ll never be the high-society wife you might need, Parker James,” Holly said, leaning into him and cuddling close. “But I swear to you, I will love you forever.”
“Honey, all I’ll ever need is my jazz singer. You’re the only world I’m interested in.”
She pulled back and smiled up at him. “And the big house.”
“And the big house.”
“And the dog.”
“A dog?” He grinned. “Deal.”
“And the foster kids.”
“And the foster kids.” Parker dropped a kiss on her forehead.
“Plus the one we’ve already got cookin’.”
“Plus the one—” Parker stopped. He felt his jaw drop. He looked into her eyes and saw the deep well of love and pride and joy shining back at him. “You’re pregnant?”
“I am,” she said, taking one of his hands and holding it to her belly. “We are.”
He swallowed hard and realized just how closely he’d come to losing everything that was worth living for. If he hadn’t come to see her, he would have lost Holly. And in losing Holly, he would have lost his child.
And he might never have known.
That thought was enough to terrify him.
But as he looked into gray eyes that held a world of love for him, Parker knew he had dodged that particular bullet—making him the luckiest man alive.
Bourbon Street Blues Page 15