by Ali Parker
“How so?” I asked. I was genuinely curious. I’d always wondered what Harriet’s marriage was like and how any man could have married her. It never occurred to me that she might have been someone entirely different before she became my agent.
“I realized I’d become my work,” she said simply. “My identity became being an agent. I was in business mode twenty-four seven. I lost all sense of intimacy and softness and became the person I thought I needed to be to be successful. The lines between home and work were blurry. I was pushing Chris away without even realizing it and even though he was trying to work his way back to me we couldn’t connect properly or like how we used to. But…” She trailed off and shook her head. “The rest is for me, Wes. I guess what I’m saying is if you’re good with me getting off your back a bit, I’m good with it too. I could use the time to spend with my family.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m happy for you, Harriet. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do now.”
“And you know you deserve this, right?”
She nodded. “I’m coming to terms with that, yes. And you deserve more free rein. Just please, for the love of God, don’t drop the ball and make me regret this.”
I threw my head back and laughed.
“I mean it, Wes.”
I flashed her a devilish smile and a wink. “No promises, boss.”
After the elevator spat us out, we crossed the lobby and went opposite directions outside on the sidewalk to our cars parked at the curb. There was one person I wanted to celebrate the news of my book being published with, and that was Briar. I gave her a call but she didn’t answer. I knew she was at work, possibly drowning in frothed milk and espresso, so I decided to drive to her side of the city and say hello. Maybe I could hang around until she closed the shop and we could grab a bite to eat after.
And after that?
Well, my bed sheets were ready for her to come spend the night again.
Chapter 25
Briar
Kelly Green handed me a ten-dollar bill after I rang up her skinny latte. Over the course of the entire transaction, she watched me with a steady smile that never touched her eyes. She was here because she wanted something and she had the look of a woman who wouldn’t stop until she got it.
The milk steamer hissed as Callie started steaming milk for Kelly’s latte.
“Do you have a minute to sit and chat with me?” Kelly asked. Her voice was pleasant, almost melodic, but it didn’t put me at ease.
“I’m on the clock,” I said. “I’m sorry but I don’t have any breaks left.”
“That’s fine, I can ask you questions while you work,” Kelly said.
“I don’t think—”
“Can you tell me how you know the author, W. Parker?” Kelly asked.
I blinked.
The journalist pulled a notebook out of the bag hanging off her shoulder. There was a pen tucked in the spine of the notebook. She pulled it out and held it over the page while staring expectantly at me.
“Can you tell me how you know W. Parker?” Kelly asked again.
“Um,” I stammered. “I can’t do this right now. I’m working and I’m new at this job and this is really unprofessional for me to indulge this on the clock.”
“It’ll only take a few minutes,” Kelly insisted. “How do you know W. Parker?”
Frustrated, I shot her a dark look. “I don’t know him, okay? Where did you get that anyway?”
Kelly’s eyes lit up. She scrawled something on her page. “Him?”
Oh. Fuck. “What?” I asked sharply.
“You said him. Nobody knows whether Parker is a man or a woman.”
“I don’t either. I just assumed he is. I always have.”
Oh God, she’s on to me. How could you be so stupid? Don’t let it out of the bag! Don’t let it out of the bag!
Kelly’s eyes slid back and forth between mine as she considered my words. She thought I was lying. I could tell clear as day by the expression on her face that she didn’t believe a word I’d just said.
“Do you have an intimate relationship with Mr. Parker?” Kelly asked.
“No.”
“Plutonic?”
“I don’t know what that is, so no.”
Kelly arched an eyebrow. “Have you been to his home?”
“I need you to leave,” I said. “This is inappropriate. I’ve made it clear I don’t want to speak with you and you’re blatantly ignoring my requests. Get out of our store.”
Kelly tapped her pen on the top of the spine. Then, to my surprise, she smiled. “These are all just innocent questions. Readers want to know who Mr. Parker is. They’re already going to be delighted to learn he is in fact, a he.”
Callie, who’d been busy with customers, perked up at Wes’s name. She lifted her head and looked over at us. “Oh, are you two opening up about your relationship?” she asked innocently.
Kelly’s pen scribbled across her page.
“There is no relationship,” I said.
Callie rolled her eyes and laughed at me. “Oh, come on now, Briar. You’ve been seeing him for a couple weeks and we all know how well it’s going.”
“Callie,” I said firmly. “Stop.”
This was bad. This was really, really, really bad.
How could I have been so foolish? I never should have told Callie about Wes and me. He wanted his privacy for a reason and now here I was, bringing the rats like Kelly Green up out of the woodwork to hunt him down and plaster his name all over her magazine for publicity and copy sales.
“I would like you to leave,” I told Kelly once more.
“And I would like my latte,” Kelly said.
“Callie will have it for you on the other side of the bar.”
Callie seemed to have picked up on the tension now. She came over to us with the skinny hazelnut latte in hand and set it down for Kelly. “Here you go,” she said. “Sorry, Briar, did I overstep?”
“You’re fine,” I said. “We’re not talking about this right now. Ms. Green was about to leave.”
“It’s Mrs. actually,” Kelly said.
A pulse started at my temple and I could have sworn my eye twitched. “I don’t care.”
“You’re hiding something,” Kelly said.
“I’m a small town girl just trying to make it in New York City. Nothing more. I don’t know anything about W. Parker. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell a vulture like you.”
Callie grabbed my elbow. “Briar.”
I pulled my arm free. “You said I had the right to refuse service. Well, I’m refusing it. Please don’t come back here, Mrs. Green. You’ve made me very uncomfortable and continuously ignored my request to leave the store. I won’t be talking to you about anything.”
“Please, Briar, just hear me out,” Kelly pressed. “There is a lot to gain from sitting down and having a conversation with me. I can make things—”
“I don’t care,” I hissed. “Get out!”
Kelly drummed her nails in three rapid successions on the counter.
“Fine,” I growled.
With a string of muttered curses, I tore my apron off, threw it down on the counter, and stormed out from behind the bar. Callie called after me but I didn’t turn back around. I’d have to explain this another time. Right now, my loyalty was to Wes, not the job. I knew that might have been a mistake in the long run. I might have been flushing my income straight down the toilet and blowing the best opportunity this city had to offer someone with no skills and a short resume.
But I didn’t care.
I’d fucked up by telling Callie I was seeing Wes. Somehow that news had gotten around to someone like Kelly Green, who clearly didn’t give two shits about how this made me feel or the position it would put me in to talk to her.
The bitch followed me out of the cafe.
“I just need three minutes of your time, Briar, and then I’ll leave you alone.”
“Fuck off!” I picked up my
pace and brushed past strangers on the sidewalk. Luckily for me, a cluster of pedestrians had just crossed the street corner up ahead. I used them to disappear into, and when I emerged on the other side, I spied a familiar, sleek, luxurious car coming around the corner.
Wes.
I rushed to the curb and threw my hand in the air. He didn’t see me, so I stepped off the curb into the street, after which Wes slammed his brakes and watched me with wide eyes as I rushed to the passenger door and pulled on the handle.
It was locked.
I tapped on the passenger widow. “Let me in!”
Wes hit his power locks.
I yanked the door open and slid inside. It smelled like new car, leather, and his pine cologne. “Drive!”
“Briar, what the hell is going on? Why are you—”
“Just drive, Wes!”
He checked his mirrors, hit the gas, and pulled away. I kept my head down and hid my face behind one hand, hoping and praying like hell that Kelly hadn’t seen me get in his car. What would it mean if she saw his face?
What would it mean if she wrote down his license plate?
I could feel Wes’s eyes on me.
“Briar? Are you okay? Talk to me.”
“I’m fine.”
“You just ran out in front of my car like a crazy person with a death wish. Do you know how reckless it is to step out into traffic in New York like that? I could have hit you!”
“But you didn’t.”
“That’s not the point.”
I sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I just… I need you to drive. I need a minute. Okay?”
He licked his lips and continued to glance over at me out of the corner of his eye. “Okay.”
How the hell was I supposed to fix this? What would my oversight cost Wes?
What would it cost me?
I felt like a terrible person from having that thought. This wasn’t about me. Wes was the one who had more to lose. He was the one who’d dedicated so much time and energy to keeping his identity a secret so he could live a normal life on his terms. In the two weeks I’d been here, I’d managed to singlehandedly blow all of that out of the water.
He’s going to hate me.
How easy would it be for Kelly to find me again? Would she keep showing up at my work? Was Mare going to stand for that or would she let me go so she didn’t have to deal with that bullshit? I wouldn’t blame her if she did. I was new, after all, and still well within my probationary period.
Would Callie forgive me for running out on her and leaving her to close the store by herself?
I owed a lot of people some serious apologies.
Wes reached over and put a hand on my knee. He gave it a gentle and reassuring squeeze, like he wanted to let me know he was there and ready when I needed to talk.
His kindness only made the guilt cut deeper.
Chapter 26
Wes
We passed several blocks in silence.
Something was wrong. That was obvious. I wanted to ask her what had happened and I wanted to make sure she was okay, but she didn’t seem like she wanted to talk. Briar stared out her passenger window and chewed on the inside of her cheek until I couldn’t take it anymore. Starting to worry that something was seriously wrong, I pulled off the road and into a parking lot not too far from Briar’s apartment.
I put the car in park and took my seatbelt off.
Briar glanced over at me. She looked pale. The color was gone from her face. Her bottom lip was fiery red from gnawing on it for the last ten minutes.
“You’re starting to worry me,” I said. “What happened, Briar? You can talk to me.”
She swallowed and looked down at her hands in her lap as the cloudy afternoon broke. Sunlight streamed through a patch of blue sky and poured in through the windshield. It immediately warmed the car up, so I rolled the windows down halfway.
“I just had a really bad customer, that’s all,” Briar said softly.
I frowned. “All this over a bad customer? How bad were they?”
The thought of someone being so cruel and irate with Briar over coffee made me want to pull out of the parking lot and head back to the coffee shop to give them a piece of my mind. She was a strong woman. I knew that for a fact about her. What had someone done to push her over the edge like this to the point where she felt her only viable option was to run?
Briar shook her head and looked away. “It was dumb. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Briar, I—”
“Please, Wes?” Her voice was desperate, and when she turned back to me, her eyes were as well. She was pleading with me to leave this alone.
But something told me I couldn’t.
I’d never seen her distraught like this.
“What did this customer say to you?” I asked.
She sighed. “Nothing. It’s hard to explain.”
“I’m a good listener.”
“Please,” Briar said. “Stop being so nice to me right now.”
None of this was adding up. I was missing something.
I reached for her, but she pulled away.
Frustration rose up inside me. What had I done that was making her recoil from me? Had I said something? Done something? Would she have preferred I just keep driving in tense silence knowing full well something was wrong? I couldn’t do that.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I don’t deserve it,” she whispered.
“You’re not making any sense.”
She pinched her bottom lip between her teeth and lifted her eyes to meet my gaze. There was pain behind her eyes, and for a moment, it looked like she might start crying.
She didn’t.
Instead, she said, “I did something really stupid, Wes.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I do stupid shit all the time. I was signing some of my books to send to fans and I spelled my own name wrong. I mean, that’s about as stupid as it gets.”
My little shot at humor did nothing to lighten the mood.
Briar massaged her temple with two fingers so hard her fingertips went white. “You’re going to be mad at me.”
“I doubt I could ever be mad at you.”
She laughed bitterly. “Hear me out and see if you still feel the same way.”
My stomach rolled over with nerves. “Okay. What’s this about, Briar?”
No more pussyfooting around it. She needed to spill. I didn’t appreciate being strung along like this.
She swallowed, licked her lips, and continued to stare at her lap as she started speaking. “A journalist came into the coffee shop this afternoon.”
I waited for her to say something else.
She didn’t.
“All right,” I said slowly. “And?”
“She was there to ask me questions.”
Again, I waited. And again, she stalled.
I was beginning to get frustrated. “Briar, I need you to just come out with it. Stop dangling this like a carrot in front of me and making me ask questions to pull it out of you. I can take it. I’m a big boy. What happened?”
Briar sniffled. “She wanted to talk to me about you.”
“About me?”
“About W. Parker.”
“Why would she come looking for you to talk about that?”
She glanced at me. Her eyes were glassy. “I accidentally slipped up with a co-worker last week. I told her that I’d met you. Not you, you, but W. Parker. I told her we were seeing each other. I didn’t tell her anything personal,” she added hurriedly. “I didn’t tell her what you looked like or where you lived or anything like that. I didn’t even do it on purpose. I’ve never dated someone I had to keep a secret before and I—”
“And this co-worker of yours told a journalist?”
Briar went quiet for a minute. “I’m not sure how she found out.”
“Your co-worker talked. That’s how she found out.” I hadn’t meant for my tone to be so sharp, but it was.
> Briar flinched. She drew inward, tucked her chin, and sniffled again. “I’m sorry, Wes. I wasn’t thinking. Everything was so fresh and new and I was thrown into this life that felt almost magical. I let it get to my head. I shouldn’t have said anything about you. I know how important it is for you to have anonymity and I—”
“Walked right over that.”
She didn’t say anything.
I turned off the ignition and rested my wrists on the steering wheel as I stared out at the cars in the parking lot. Sedans, crossovers, luxury SUVs. “You’re only telling me because you got caught.”
“I messed up. I never meant to—”
“How could you do this to me?” I twisted in my seat to face her. “I’ve worked my entire career to keep my personal life and my career separate. It hasn’t been easy. There’s been pressure from my agent and my publisher. I’ve sacrificed a lot. Relationships included. It made it hard for me to get close to people. And then I finally let someone in and you demolish everything I’ve worked for all so you have some hot gossip for a co-worker?”
Briar paled even more. “No, Wes, that’s not it at all! I never said it because I thought it was gossip. Or because I thought it—”
“Then why did you say it?”
“I wasn’t thinking!” Briar hung her head and hid her face in her hands. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I did want my co-worker to think I was cool. I don’t know. It’s not easy trying to adjust to a whole new life. But I shouldn’t have used you to gain a friend or—”
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
“Wes, I—”
“Are you only with me because I’m W. Parker?”
“What?” she breathed, looking genuinely horrified by the question. “No! Absolutely not! I’m with you because I care about you, Wes. I love every minute we spend together. I swear, I had no ulterior motives.”
Words were easy. I would know. I made a living off them.
“Do you just want the reputation and attention?”
Briar searched my eyes and leaned away from me. “No.”
“Has any of this been real?”
“Any of what?” she asked darkly. Her expression had shifted. Where she was apparently grief stricken moments before, now she looked angry. Her brows were together and her jaw was tight. There was a sharpness in her stare that hadn’t been there moments before. “Any of what, Wes?”