I leap to my feet. “Oh my God, Tabby! How could you let me walk in there without warning me?”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t have gone?”
“Of course I would’ve gone! This is my city!”
“So you’re saying you would’ve handled yourself differently?”
“That’s not the point!”
“Dressed differently? Worn your hair differently?”
“Stop trying to smart your way out of this! I pay you to stay on top of this kind of thing!”
She says bluntly, “Then you should have told me who he was sooner. I figured if you wanted me to know, you would’ve told me. But you didn’t. And because I respect you, I think you’re entitled to your privacy even if I do know where all the bodies are buried. Besides, he wasn’t even supposed to be there that night. I checked.”
I narrow my eyes and make a low, growly noise in my throat.
She sighs. “I know. I’m fired. Moving on. Does he know it’s you? You you?”
When I flop into my chair and shake my head, she heaves a relieved sigh. “So then he doesn’t know about—”
“No.” It comes out hard and clipped, with an edge like a razor.
Tabby stands and slowly walks around the desk. Looking out the window to the bright morning light, she asks, “Are you going to tell him?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
She turns to look at me. “Then what’s this about?”
I take a long swallow of my coffee. After a moment, I say softly, “Justice.”
“In other words, revenge.”
I remain silent, thinking. I wonder if, like me, Parker has things in his past he needs to make disappear. I wonder about that gap of his that Tabby told me about, the two mysterious years when it seemed he’d vanished from the earth.
And I suddenly realize that my prior plan of getting him to fall for me and dumping him has been entirely too simple. I need to up the ante.
I need to ruin his life.
An eye for an eye, darling bastard.
“Tabby, I need you to dig deeper on him. Find out everything. Go back as far as you can. There’s got to be something there, something I can use. Look at his family, his father in particular. There’s no way he’s clean. Just get me anything I can use. Anything at all.”
“Use to do what?”
“To get us square.”
The phone starts to ring again. I glance at the caller ID and groan. “I need to take this.”
I can tell Tabby wants to say more by how reluctant she is to rise from her chair. To avoid any further conversation, I pick up the phone.
“Hola, mama. ¿Como estas?”
The stream of shrieked curses that spews from the earpiece is so loud, I yank it away, wincing. Wisely, Tabby leaps up and hustles from the room, closing my office door behind her.
She’s heard my mother’s tirades before. She knows how bad it can get.
“Mother, please,” I say in English. “Calm down.”
“Calm down?” she cries, outraged. “You tell me to calm down when I see a picture in the newspaper of my daughter kissing el diablo himself?”
I sigh, close my eyes, and rub my forehead. Here we go.
She continues in English, punctuating every few words with a Spanish curse. “You see that pendejo after all these years and you don’t chop off his pecker, you kiss him? Que chingados? Have you lost your mind? You should’ve shot that puto! Yours wasn’t the only life the hijo de puta ruined, Isabel!”
Pain. Rage. Shame. How wonderful it is to be reminded that your own stupidity was the cause of so much chaos. Of so many shattered lives.
I whisper, “I know, Mama.”
“Your father, your brother, me, Eva… We all suffered because of him! Our whole family suffered! And you most of all! How many letters did you send him, mija, how many times did you try to tell him—”
I leap to my feet and slam my fist on the desk so hard, the computer monitor jumps. “Mama! I know!”
My mother falls silent. In the stillness of the room, all I hear is the sound of my own ragged breath.
She says quietly, “Then tell me what that kiss was, Isabel. Tell me what you think you’re doing. Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re doing exactly the same thing you did when you were fifteen. Falling for a liar.”
Slowly I lower myself to my chair. My voice comes out hollow as a bell. “By accident, I found out he owns a restaurant in New York. I went for dinner, and he was there. And he didn’t recognize me.” My voice breaks. I take a few shallow gulps of air before going on. “But he seemed…he’s attracted to me. To Victoria. And I thought…”
I hear a sharp intake of breath. “You thought you could even the score.”
I don’t answer. It’s a special kind of hell, having someone know you so well.
After a moment’s pause, my mother speaks again. “Is he rich?”
“Disgustingly. He doesn’t just own the one restaurant. He owns over twenty of them.”
I can almost hear the wheels turning in her mind. “And he’s famous, obviously. Or at least infamous. The papers called him a playboy.”
My low laugh sounds ugly, even to my own ears. “Apparently he goes through women like water.”
She mutters, “Bastardo.” Then: “A rich playboy with no morals—because we both know he has no morals—must have all kinds of things he doesn’t want people to know. All kinds of things that would surely make him suffer if they came to light.”
I hear the smile in her voice when she says the word suffer. My mother would have been an excellent mafia doña.
“Exactly.”
She exhales. In my mind’s eye, I see her standing at the kitchen sink in her drab housecoat, staring out into the front yard, the long pigtail phone cord wrapped around her wrist.
In the old days, when I was a kid, this time of year the grass would be dry and brown, as would the fields beyond the yard, but the sprinkler and irrigation systems I had installed after my first book hit it big ensure that everything is green now.
Beautiful, abundant green, the color of money.
“You must be careful, mija.”
“He’ll never know it’s me, Mama. I’ll get close to him, find out what I need to know, and then ruin him. In and out. Quick and deadly.”
“No, mija. I don’t mean that. You’re smart. I know you can find out what you need to know. You must be careful of something else.”
The quiet tone of warning in her voice alarms me. “What?”
“That you don’t get hurt again.”
Scalding heat flashes over me. “I’m not a child anymore, Mama,” I reply indignantly. “And you just said I was smart. Why would you think I’d let myself get hurt by him again?”
There’s a weighty pause. Finally, she says, “Look at the picture of the two of you, Isabel. Look at it long and hard. Look at your face. Then tell me why you think I might be worried.”
Before I can say anything, she hangs up.
I put the phone back in its cradle. I pick up the newspaper and look closely at the picture of Parker and me. Specifically, I examine my face. And then I see exactly what my mother was talking about.
The woman in the picture isn’t a ruthless businesswoman with years of professional bitchery under her belt. She isn’t hard. She isn’t calculating. She isn’t, at the moment of the kiss, the mastermind of a wicked plot for revenge.
She’s undone.
She’s pressed against the man as if her life depends on it, clutching him, her arms flung around his shoulders, her fingers digging into his suit, his hair. She wears an expression any fool can see is one of utter pleasure, of utter abandon, as if the world itself no longer exists, as if there is only her mouth fused to his, her body pressed to his.
I mutter, “Damn,” and toss the paper aside. I sit for a while, thinking, trying to decide on the best course of action.
Then I call Tabby back into the room and tell her to get me Parker’s cell phone number.
It’s good I talked to my mother. It was hard, but it was also a necessary reminder of everything that’s at stake, of everything he needs to pay for. Now I’m even more determined than before.
Even if I have to burn the whole world to the ground to do it, that bastard is going down.
9
Parker
The call comes at exactly the right moment. If I have to endure Elliot Rosenthal droning on for one more minute about current margins versus historical sales data, I’ll be forced to slit my own wrists.
I fish my cell from my coat pocket. It’s a number I don’t recognize, which makes me frown. No one I didn’t personally give it to has this number.
“This is Parker Maxwell.”
“And this is your dance partner, with hat in hand.”
The throaty voice takes me so thoroughly by surprise, I stand without thinking. My executive team, seated around the conference table at my corporate headquarters in Vegas, all look at me. Even Elliot Rosenthal pauses to see what’s going on.
“Excuse me a moment,” I say to Victoria Price and then put the phone to my chest. “Continue without me.”
I bolt out of that boardroom so fast their heads must be spinning.
I stride down the hallway, find an empty office, and go inside, closing the door behind me. I put the phone against my ear. “Sorry about that. I’m back.”
“Is this a good time? I can call back later—”
“No, your timing’s perfect. I was in the most boring meeting ever held. In fact, you’ve just saved me from opening a vein and ruining an old and expensive handwoven Turkish rug.”
Her husky laugh gives me chills. Jesus, this woman sounds sexy even when she’s laughing.
“Well, good. We’re even, then.”
“How so?”
“You saved me from a gorilla attack, now I’ve saved you from suicide.”
“I’d rather have you still owe me one.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because then I could negotiate how you might pay me back.”
I’m a little surprised by how forcefully that came out. Judging by the short silence on the other end of the line, so is Victoria.
Finally, she says, “Oh, I’m more than willing to pay you back. In fact, technically I do still owe you one, since our last meeting ended on such a…strange note.” Just to disarm me completely, she adds softly, “I’m so sorry about what I did. The slap. It’s just that…well, that was probably the hottest kiss I’ve ever had in my life.” Her voice turns flirtatious. “And I do have a reputation to protect, you know. The Queen Bitch can’t be seen with her panties melted off by the kiss of a beautiful stranger, now can she?”
Two things happen in quick succession. The first is that I laugh. I can already tell she’s going to give as good as she gets, and I love it. The second is that I picture her naked, standing in front of me with her panties melted in a puddle around her feet, and my cock acts as if it’s just heard the call to arms and springs to attention.
I walk slowly to the office windows and gaze out at the hazy desert skyline, trying to ignore the throb beneath my zipper. By now, I could give zero fucks about the board meeting I ideally won’t be returning to, because I never want this call to end.
I match her flirty tone. “The hottest kiss you’ve ever had, hmm?”
She makes a girlish noise, part shy laugh and part embarrassed groan, and it’s so unexpectedly erotic, I almost groan myself. What the hell is she doing to me?
She’s getting under my skin, is what she’s doing to me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her, not since the moment I laid eyes on her. And then that kiss. Jesus. It’s probably the hottest kiss I’ve ever had too.
It was definitely worth the slap. In fact, if she said the only way I’d be able to kiss her again is if she tied me up and played Fifty Shades of Grey with a leather belt across my ass, I’d beg, Yes, please. Now, please.
I had such a raging hard-on for so long after she left me high and dry on the dance floor, I thought I might have to consult a doctor.
Victoria asks in a teasing voice, “Is someone fishing for a compliment?”
“Definitely. Hit me.”
“Well… Okay.” Her voice grows husky. “I really like the way you taste.”
Fuuuuuuuuck.
I blow out a hard breath and adjust myself. “You’re not playing fair. I do have to leave this empty office I’m in at some point and return to the real world, you know. I’d rather not do it with a conspicuous bulge in my pants.”
“Speaking of bulges, was that a churro in your pocket last Friday night, or were you just happy to see me?”
“I don’t know what a churro is. I hope it’s something enormous.”
She laughs. “Oh, it is. It’s a delicious, thick, long, fried dough pastry covered in sugar.” She pauses. “It’s my favorite thing to eat.”
I burst out laughing. Deep, belly-shaking laughs, the kind I can’t remember the last time I had. “Why, Ms. Price, are you trying to have phone sex with me?”
She giggles. “I don’t know, Mr. Maxwell. Would you mind if I were?”
Instantly my laughter dies. “No. I’d fucking love it.”
The pause that follows is so filled with sexual tension, every nerve in my body starts to tingle.
She says, “I know your reputation with women.”
Her voice has lost all its humor, all its lightness. It’s gone totally dark. I instantly recognize that we’re done joking around. She’s laying something out on the line now. She’s testing me.
This is one test I’m determined not to fail.
“And I know your reputation with men. But I don’t care about anyone else you’ve been with, or anything else that happened before we met. All I care about is getting to know you better. Getting to know you—the real you, beneath the beautiful. I want to know the woman I saw on the dance floor, the one who comes out only when she thinks no one’s looking. The one with the sad eyes, who hides and plays make-believe and kisses like it’s her last two minutes on earth.”
I hear her inhale a low, shaky breath. With crossed fingers and a pounding heart, I wait for her to speak.
“I don’t do relationships, Parker. I don’t do the connection thing. The getting-to-know-you thing. I don’t know how.”
“Me neither. I’m not asking for any guarantees. Just a chance.”
Silence.
“How about a date?” I ask. “One date, nothing more. No thinking beyond that.”
More silence.
“You did say you still owed me one,” I remind her. “Consider it payment. If you don’t enjoy yourself, all bets are off. I promise I’m not a stalker.” I pause. “Unless you like stalkers.”
I’m gratified to hear her soft laugh.
“Not particularly.”
“It’s a deal, then?”
After a moment, she relents. “One date.”
Though inside I’m cheering, I pretend to be hurt. “Don’t sound so enthusiastic, Victoria. It’s not like you’re being led to the gallows.”
Her “hmm” doesn’t sound convinced.
I check my watch. “I can be back in New York in four hours. What time should I pick you up?”
“Wait, you’re not in New York? Where are you?”
“Vegas. Not that it matters. If I was on the moon, I’d find a way to make it back for our date tonight.”
Now she laughs with a little more gusto. “Tonight? I never said anything about tonight! It’s a Monday, pal. I’ve got work to do tomorrow!”
I grin. “Tomorrow night, then.”
“No, no way. I’m booked this week. I might be open Saturday night, but I’ll have to check my schedule and get back to you—”
“Don’t say no to the man with the delicious churro in his pants, Victoria,” I growl.
Her answering laugh is so genuine and free, it makes my grin grow until my face hurts.
“Fine. I’ll tell you what. There’s a cocktail
party I’m supposed to go to on Friday, but this person gives the worst parties, and I suppose I can blow it off. Just this once. For the man with the delicious churro in his pants.”
The flirtatious tone is back. Along with it comes an overpowering feeling of triumph, like I’ve just scored the winning touchdown.
“Friday, then. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
She agrees, and we say our goodbyes.
I stand in the empty office for another ten minutes before heading back to the conference room, a big shit-eating grin on my face.
The span between a Monday and a Friday has never been so long.
10
Victoria
“How do I look?”
“The same as you always look.”
“Which is how, exactly?”
Darcy, lounging barefoot on the tufted leather settee in my expansive walk-in closet, crunches into an apple and then chews thoughtfully for a moment. “A brown chick in a white outfit that cost more than my first car.”
I turn from the mirror I’ve been fretfully examining myself in front of, and rest my hands on my hips. “A confidence builder, you’re not. Seriously, Darse, how do I look?”
I execute a slow turn. She purses her lips, eyeing me up and down.
“You look hot, girl. What do you want me to say, I’m in love with you? Please let me have sex with your vagina?”
I throw my hands in the air. “You’re hopeless.”
She stretches out her legs and examines her hot-pink pedicure, lurid as a bloodstain against her dusky skin. “Since when do you need me to tell you how you look, anyway?”
“Since I’m going on a date with el diablo,” I mutter.
“What?”
I wave a hand at my reflection. “Nothing. Forget it. If this doesn’t do the trick, nothing will.”
Darcy cocks her head and pins me in a one-eyed stare. “What trick is that?”
I don’t answer.
It’s Friday night. Parker is due at my house in twenty minutes. I’ve invited Darcy over for some moral support, but have told her only that I’m getting ready for a date. Not a date with whom.
I don’t want her to try to talk me out of it.
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