And there on the far side of the room, by an artfully arranged stand of potted palms, is Parker. He’s holding a drink, looking like a supermodel assassin in a perfectly cut black suit, with slicked-back hair.
Two young women flank him. One, a voluptuous bleach blonde, is leaning so close, her breasts practically rest on his arm. The other, a brunette wearing a red skirt almost short enough to pass for a belt, bats her lashes suggestively at him while she sucks on the straw in her drink.
Parker happens to turn his head and look in my direction. Across the room, our eyes lock. His smile comes on slow and heated. I lift my chin and sniff as if I’ve just smelled something bad, and then look away, mentally rubbing my hands together in glee.
“Victoria!”
I turn to the voice. My glee evaporates. With zero enthusiasm, I say to the man standing before me, “Hello, Miles.”
Otherwise known as Mr. Forty Seconds of Fury.
Shit.
He’s tall and good-looking, and a fabulous dresser. I’ll give him that. But the salacious, chop-licking look he’s giving me sends creepy crawlies up my arms. I can’t believe I had sex with this guy. He’s got all the charm of an open grave.
He steps closer, his eyes half-lidded. “You haven’t returned my calls.”
He smells like a brewery. I smile tightly, edging away. “Oh, I’ve just been busy. You know how it is. It’s good to see you, though. Enjoy your evening.”
I turn, but he grips my arm so suddenly, I’m caught off guard. He pulls me roughly against his chest and leans down to whisper in my ear. “Busy, were you? D’you know the last time I was blown off?”
I stiffen and snap, “Let go of me, Miles!” I try to pull away but can’t. He’s too strong.
Ignoring my instruction, he answers his own question. “Never. Nobody blows me off. I’m the goddamn head of a billion-dollar corporation! Nobody fucks me and then leaves me in bed without a backward glance like I’m a fifty-dollar whore. Who the hell do you think you are?”
He laughs. It’s an ugly, unstable sound that convinces me he’s drunk. Then he snickers. “Oh, that’s right. You’re a bitch.”
I want to yank my arm away and scratch his eyes out, but an older couple standing nearby is staring at us, and I don’t want to make a scene. There are reporters here. Photographers. Speculation about my personal life is in the papers enough as it is.
I say in a voice meant only for him, “You have two seconds to let go of my arm before I knee you in your tiny, useless dick. Now fuck. Off.”
His fingers tighten so hard around my arm, I gasp in pain. He snarls, “You frigid cunt.”
Then suddenly Miles is flat on his ass on the floor.
Bristling, hands curled to fists, Parker looms over him, glaring down. He says, “One more word and you’ll be waking up in the hospital. Or hell.”
His voice is calm. His face holds no expression. But oh God, his eyes. There’s murder in his eyes. It sends a thrill straight down to my toes.
Not a thrill of fear. A thrill of exhilaration, as if I’m at the crest of an insanely tall roller coaster, about to plunge over the edge and throw my arms in the air.
Why? Because he stood up for me.
He thinks he just rescued a damsel in distress, but what he really did is prove unequivocally that he’s got a hero complex, a hair-trigger temper, and a total disregard for social convention. He obviously couldn’t care less that dozens of people are now standing around gaping at us, arrested by our little melodrama. He’s too concerned with protecting my virtue.
And now I know exactly how I’m going to hook him. Knights in shining armor are the biggest idiots of all.
This will be child’s play.
I’m so excited by the thought of my pending victory that I’m physically aroused. I don’t think my nipples have ever been this hard in my life.
Miles staggers to his feet and hurls another nasty insult my way before stumbling off through the crowd.
Watching him go, I lift a shaking hand to my mouth and stifle a manufactured cry of distress. Immediately, Parker turns to me, his hand extended.
“Come on.”
Without waiting for an answer, he takes my hand and leads me away from the whispering crowd to the dance floor. I follow him, trying to arrange my face into a facsimile of trauma. I hope it’s not the face I make when I’ve had too much vodka and too little sleep, because that face is deeply unattractive. Without a mirror, I can’t really be sure.
Then we’re dancing. I have no real awareness of how it happened because I’ve been concentrating so hard on plotting and trying to look distraught, but Parker has me against his body, his hand on my bare lower back. We move smoothly through a sea of other couples as if we’ve been dancing together our entire lives.
After a few silent turns, he says, “Ms. Price.”
“Mr. Maxwell.”
“Lovely to see you again. You look wonderful. That dress is stunning.”
I sniffle but lift my chin, going for an I’m-traumatized-by-what-just-happened-but-don’t-want-you-to-know-it vibe. “Thank you.”
I feel his gaze on me. I look over his shoulder, acting like it’s too difficult to meet his eyes.
“Was he your date?”
I shake my head.
“Good.” Pause. “An ex, I take it?”
I whisper, “Just a mistake.” I produce a shaky laugh. “In business, I never make those kinds of mistakes, but in my personal life…” I inhale a long, shuddering breath and then pause as if I’m struggling for words. “Never mind that. Thank you for coming to my rescue. And now let’s never mention it again.”
His arms tighten around me, as if for added protection. He murmurs, “Of course,” and then we both fall silent.
Well, outside I’m silent. Inside, there’s some kind of rave party going on involving a lot of hallucinogenic drugs and death metal music.
I’m very certain of the path I’m about to go down, of my commitment to make him suffer for what he did to me, but it’s difficult to reconcile my bloodlust for revenge with my hormonal response to Parker Maxwell’s proximity. He’s just so…masculine. Yes, he’s manly, in that way that can’t be learned or faked, or even really explained. The way he moves and speaks and holds himself, even his damn smell, all seem designed to make a woman’s ovaries start producing eggs overtime.
Because I can’t deny that I’m still profoundly physically attracted to him, that the electric connection I felt when I was a clueless little girl still remains, I hate him all the more.
I close my eyes. When I open them again, Parker is smiling down at me.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re an enigma, Ms. Price. A puzzle.”
“Oh?”
He nods but doesn’t elaborate. I prompt, “In what way?”
His smile fades. The intensity in his eyes is breathtaking. “In every way. I can’t seem to figure you out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out, Mr. Maxwell. What you see is what you get.”
“No. You’re a very good liar, Ms. Price, but what you see is definitely not what you get.”
My breath catches. What does he know about me? Has he discovered something, who I really am?
But he couldn’t. I’ve been too careful. I’ve covered all my tracks. Fifteen years, a new face, a new name, a biography scrubbed clean of any damning detail… I’m not that unsophisticated country girl anymore, that girl who loved with all her heart and soul.
That girl is dead. There’s only this girl left, the one made of ice and vengeance.
“Do you like puzzles?” I ask quietly, holding his intense gaze.
Parker lowers his head. Into my ear, he whispers, “They’re my favorite thing in the world.”
The tip of his nose skims the rim of my ear. This time when I shudder, it isn’t faked.
“Did you get my flowers?” he asks.
I have to take a steadying breath before answering. The way his hand is drifting down my spine is s
upremely distracting. “Oh…were those from you?”
Chuckling, he lifts his head. “And she’s back.”
“Who?” I ask innocently.
“Xena, Warrior Princess.”
In the most coquettish move I can manage without making myself vomit from the sheer sugar overload, I tilt my head back and peer up at him from beneath my fluttering lashes. This is far more difficult than romance novels make it sound. I worry he might think I’m about to suffer from a fainting spell. I’m sure I look utterly ridiculous, but I forge ahead anyway.
“Why Mr. Maxwell, I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He throws his head back and laughs, causing several couples nearby to look at us, startled. “That was terrible. You should never try to be coy. Xena is much better than Scarlett O’Hara.”
I smack him on his tailored lapel. “It’s rude to call a lady out.”
“Then it’s good you’re not a lady, isn’t it?” His grin is so dazzling, a woman gliding by with her partner trips over her own feet.
My mouth is in danger of breaking into a huge grin to match his, but I don’t want him to know I’m having fun, so I scowl at him instead. “And you, Rhett Butler, are no gentleman.”
He stares at me. I stare back at him. After a beat of silence, we both begin to laugh.
“All right, now that we’ve got that established, let’s move on. What are you doing here?”
I shrug. “The same thing you are. Supporting a worthy cause.”
“How disappointing. I thought you might be trying to run into me while giving the impression it was accidental.”
Bye-bye Superman, hello cocky bastard. Making matters worse is that he nailed it. I say acidly, “Not even you are worth twelve thousand dollars a ticket, Mr. Maxwell.”
He smirks. “Oh, but I assure you, I am.”
“Ha! Egotistical much? Are you always this smug?”
He appears to give it serious thought. “No. Sometimes I’m just right.”
I laugh again. He twirls me around, moving us neatly out of the path of a man weighing more than the two of us combined, and his wife, a sweating, red-faced dowager who looks in imminent need of a doctor. Saved once again.
“So tell me, Mr. Maxwell—”
“Please, call me Parker.”
For some reason, he looks pained. I think of how he’d said at the restaurant that Mr. Maxwell was his father. I remember his face then. It’s the same expression he’s wearing now, almost…ashamed. I feel a brief flicker of pity for him, but strangle it.
“All right. Parker. Tell me, will your date be angry you’re dancing with me and not her?”
His brows arch. “What makes you think I have a date?”
“Excuse me. Dates, plural.”
“If I had any clue what you’re talking about, I’d gladly answer, but unfortunately I don’t.”
“No? Because your brunette friend over there by the potted palms is staring at me like I’m her arch enemy from beauty school, and your other friend, the blonde with the alarmingly large boobs, has just sent me her third scalding voodoo glare. I think she’s about to go to the ladies’ room and make a wax figurine of me to stick some pins into.”
Laughing, he spins me away and then pulls me back against his chest. He tightens his arm around my waist and flattens his big hand over the small of my back. That hand feels even more scalding that the blonde’s glare. We whirl around and around, until I feel a little dizzy.
“I came here alone, Ms. Price. Those are just two mistakes I saw coming a mile away.”
Heat rises in my cheeks. I’m embarrassed I told him Miles was a mistake. It was the truth, albeit calculated, aimed at trying to get him to feel sorry for me, but now I feel exposed by it. I feel the most awful, terrifying thing in the world, something I never thought I’d feel again.
Vulnerable.
His look sharpens when he sees my discomfort. “I’m not judging you. I know it’s harder for a woman than a man…especially one as famous as you, as successful… It can’t be easy for you to have a relationship…”
When I blink, surprised in equal parts that he’s being not only nonjudgmental but also understanding, he sighs and shakes his head.
“Jesus, I’m fucking this up. I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to throw that in your face. Sometimes I open my mouth without thinking.”
“Well, I envy you that. I can’t remember the last time I spoke without thinking.”
I pause, shocked. Actually, I can remember, because I just did.
Parker looks at me for a long, silent moment and then murmurs, “So she can tell the truth, after all.”
A feeling starts in my stomach, slow to spread at first, then going everywhere at once. Part dread, part astonishment, part pure, unadulterated joy, it makes all my limbs feel weightless, and my heart beat a million miles per hour.
I have just been seen. Not looked at, but seen.
I glance away, desperate to regain control of myself, desperate to hide. Parker slows and then stops, until we’re standing still in the middle of a sea of dancing people. When he takes my face in his hands, it’s so unexpected, I freeze.
In a voice unaccountably raw and dark, he says, “You don’t have to hide from me.” His gaze drops to my mouth. He bends his head toward mine.
Oh God. What’s happening?
He’s kissing me. I’m being kissed by the man I hate more than anyone else on the planet, and holy fuck does it feel good.
It feels so good, I break away, breathless, and tuck my face in the space between his neck and shoulder. I smell him, skin and musk and a hint of spicy cologne, the scent of memory.
The scent of a long-lost home.
One second or a hundred years later, I hear a flurry of fast mechanical clicking. Light flashes beneath my closed lids. When I open my eyes and look around, I’m staring at a group of photographers.
I come back to myself as if a bucket of ice water has been dumped over my head.
I jerk out of Parker’s arms. He simply stares at me, his eyes shining. The cameras sound like gunfire. The photographers jostle and swarm. I do the only thing I can think of.
I slap his face. Hard.
Then I turn and walk stiffly off the dance floor, managing not to break into a flat-out run, but only just.
8
Playboy and Ice Princess Take Off Gloves at Charity Gala
Friday evening at Cipriani, the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s annual fundraising gala was held. In past years, the event has hosted some colorful entertainment, but nothing compares to this year’s fireworks show provided by Victoria Price and Parker Maxwell. Guests were shocked when Mr. Maxwell shoved Miles Campbell, CEO of Global Oil, and sent him tumbling to the floor after apparently exchanging heated words with Ms. Price. They were even more shocked when Ms. Price later shared a passionate kiss with Mr. Maxwell in the middle of the dance floor and then slapped him across the face.
No word yet if Mr. Campbell will be filing charges for assault, but this unlikely love triangle has everyone’s tongues wagging and our editors at the Post salivating for more.
As it’s been doing for the past several hours, the phone on my desk is ringing. As I’ve been doing for the past several hours, I ignore it. I toss the newspaper aside and lean back in my chair. The beginning of a monster headache pounds at the base of my skull.
It’s Sunday morning, and the shit has just hit the fan.
Tabby hands me a much-needed mug of coffee. “I told you it was bad. I’ve already fielded calls from your literary agent, four of your clients, and TMZ.”
I sip the hot liquid gratefully for a moment and then sigh. “It’s not really bad until my mother calls.”
Tabby perches on the edge of the desk, swinging one long leg back and forth. “Maybe she won’t see it.”
We both know that’s wishful thinking. My mother religiously scours every newspaper, magazine, and trash-talking rag for any mention of my name. When she sees my name nex
t to Parker’s, it’s going to be World War III.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she hunted him down and put a bullet through his head.
“Well, you looked amazing, anyway. That dress was kick ass.” Tabby pauses. “So are you going to see Mr. It’s Not Personal again, or was the slap an actual fuck-you and not just your usual warm and fuzzy way of thanking a man for flowers?”
I massage my temples. “Can you please wait until after I’ve had my coffee to be clever? I can’t deal with clever without caffeine.”
“Sure.” She checks her Hello Kitty watch. “I’ll give you three minutes. That’s as long as I can hold off the clever. There’s so much of it, it tends to come bursting through.”
I drink my coffee. The phone on my desk stops ringing, and then, after a momentary pause, begins to ring again.
Tabby waits until it stops to say, “You know, when I was doing my research on him, I thought it was really interesting that he’s originally from Laredo, Texas. Like you. And he went to J.B. Alexander High School. Like you.”
Shit.
You have to tell her. She has to know what to stay on top of. Your name has now been linked with his in the press, and if there’s anything that could be unearthed—
“It’s him.”
Tabby blinks, asks innocently, “Him? Him who?”
I lower my head and look at her. “Him.”
There’s a suspicious pause. “Oh.”
I say incredulously, “You already know?”
She makes a face like she’s afraid what I’ll do if she admits the truth. “Um. Sort of?”
“Sort of? Are you kidding me? Wait—did you know he owned Xengu before I went in with Darcy?”
She pulls her lips between her teeth and stares at me.
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