Darcy rises from the settee, tosses the apple into a mirrored trashcan in the corner, saunters over, and stands beside me. She crosses her arms over her chest and gives me a really formidable stink eye, one even my mother would be proud of.
“What’re you up to?”
I pretend innocence. “Moi?”
I slip into the pair of high-heeled, crystal-encrusted Alexander McQueen sandals I’ve chosen to go with my killer Balmain minidress. The dress is long-sleeved, high-necked, and otherwise demure, but so short my hoo-ha is in danger of making an unscheduled appearance if circumstances necessitate my having to remain anything but perfectly upright. I’m vaguely worried about getting into and out of Parker’s car, but have decided to deal with that moment when it arrives.
“Yes, vous,” says Darcy, still eyeballing me. “I know a setup when I see one. I grew up on the streets of N’awlins, remember, girl? If my mother taught me anything, it’s what a woman looks like when she’s about to take an unsuspecting pigeon for everything he’s got.”
I turn to my jewelry display, a column of velvet-lined rolling shelves that stretches almost to the ceiling. From one of the drawers I select a pair of drop earrings, but then put them back.
If Parker decides to nibble on my earlobes, I don’t want anything getting in the way.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say as nonchalantly as I can.
Darcy sighs. “The shitty truffle poker face is back. You’re lying again, skinita.”
She’s trying to call me skinny. Skinita is not the word for skinny in Spanish. Or any other language, as far as I know.
“Oh, just relax, Gloria. You’ll find out soon enough!”
As if on cue, the phone rings. I pick up the extension in the closet. “Yes?”
“Ms. Price, it’s Carlton from downstairs. I have a Mr. Maxwell for you?”
I freeze. He’s here already? He’s twenty minutes early!
“I see. Send him up, Carlton.” I put the phone down, trying to ignore the thunder and lightning storm that has just exploded inside my body.
Darcy, who has coordinated her pedicure with a flamboyant fuchsia caftan and a matching hair scarf wrapped so that it towers about a foot over her head, narrows her eyes at me. “You have two seconds to tell me what you’re up to before I revoke your best friend card.”
I chew a nonexistent hangnail on my thumb, buying time, but she doesn’t release me from her laser beam gaze, so I finally relent.
“Remember Captain America from Xengu?”
She snorts. “You mean the one you were sucking face with in the middle of the dance floor at Cipriani?”
I cringe. “You saw that?”
“I don’t live under a rock.”
Right. The whole world probably saw that picture. I take a deep breath. “Well, he’s the one who’s taking me on a date tonight.”
Her brows shoot up, almost disappearing beneath the edge of the scarf. “Oh, reeeallly.” Without blinking, she stares at me, waiting for me to say something else.
“And he’s here. Like, now. I have to go get the door.”
I turn and scurry away. Darcy follows hot on my heels.
“If I’m not mistaken, and I never am, this is the same Captain America you said you had a ‘past’ with?”
She’s behind me, but I know her, and I can tell she’s making air quotes around the word past. I keep walking.
“A past that didn’t end well? That he apparently didn’t even remember because he didn’t recognize you? And last week you kissed him in front of four hundred people and then slapped him silly, and now he’s here to take you on a date and you’re wearing a coochie-grazing dress, fuck-me heels, and a face like the wolf that ate Red Riding Hood’s grandma, and you have no idea what I’m talking about?”
We’re in the hallway now, headed past the sunken living room.
“You see why I didn’t want to say anything? You’re overreacting.”
She barks a laugh. “Overreacting? Girl, I know you. If I thought you owned guns, I’d be calling the police right now to report a pending homicide.”
The doorbell rings. I pull up short, my hand at my neck, a cat’s angry hiss rising in my throat. Slowly Darcy walks around to face me, a wry twist on her lips. She jerks her chin at me.
“This is bad juju, V. I can see it a mile away. Do not answer that door. Tell the Captain you fell and broke your ankle, or choked on a chicken bone, but don’t go on a date with him tonight. Or any other night. This won’t end well.”
I look at her. “I know it won’t, Darcy. I’m counting on it.”
“Victoria—”
“There are some people who deserve everything bad that happens to them. And he’s one of them. Trust me, he’s one of them.”
She examines my face in silence for a moment and then sighs. “I believe you. But you know the old saying.”
“Which old saying?”
“‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’”
I can feel how vicious my smile is. “One for the upper half of his dead body and one for the lower?”
She blinks. “You’re planning on sawing him in half? Shit, girl, what did he do to you?”
Without thinking, I say vehemently, “He broke me, Darcy. He not only broke my heart, he broke my soul. And that was before all the other bad stuff he’s responsible for.”
The doorbell rings again. Darcy and I stand staring at each other in silence, until I begin to turn away.
“Wait.” She rests a hand on my shoulder.
When I pause and look at her, she shakes her head as if she can’t believe what she’s about to say.
“Let me answer the door. If we’re gonna roll this pigeon, we might as well do it right.”
Excited to have her help, I clap. “I knew I could count on you! What do we do?”
She glances at the door. “You go back to your room. Let me have a few words with him before you come out. Give me five minutes. That’s all I’ll need.”
“What’re you going to say?”
She glances back at me with a dry smile. “There are only two things a man really needs from a woman, girl. One is affection. The other is admiration. But since you’re not the simpering, flirty type—and you’re about as warm as an igloo in Antarctica—we’re gonna have to make him think it’s all a big show. That underneath the permafrost there’s an actual human being. And that he’s the only one who can melt all that ice.”
I beam at her. “We’re totally on the same page! That’s exactly what I was doing Friday night!”
“Great minds think alike,” she mutters.
It doesn’t sound like a compliment.
When the doorbell rings a third time, Darcy snorts. “Well, whatever you’re doing is working, because judging by his patience level with that damn doorbell, Captain America has a serious boner for you.”
I give her a quick, hard hug, and then I’m off. I trot back down the hall but don’t go all the way to my bedroom. I hide in the powder room instead, with the door cracked an inch so I can hear. There’s a short silence, and then I hear the front door open, and the sound of low voices.
Though I strain to hear, I can’t make out the words.
Shit.
Well, she can tell me exactly what she said later. I look at my watch. Five minutes.
I sit on the toilet, tapping my toe against the marble, chewing my thumbnail, feeling like a herd of wild stallions is thundering across an open plain inside my chest. When finally the time is up, my heart is beating so fast, I’m a little shaky when I stand. I look at my reflection in the mirror. What I see there doesn’t help me feel any better.
My face is red. My eyes are wild. I look like I just shot something into a vein.
I hiss at my reflection, “You’re a badass bitch, and nobody fucks with you! Now get your shit together and focus!”
Instantly I feel better. Maybe next time I’m on the phone with Katie Couric, I’ll try that line on her
.
I open the bathroom door, put my shoulders back, take a deep breath, and walk slowly down the hallway, my head held high.
When I get to the living room, Darcy and Parker are nowhere to be seen.
I stop, frowning, but then hear voices coming from the kitchen. Why the hell are they in the kitchen?
The kitchen is my second-favorite part of my home, aside from my bedroom. It’s all white marble and glass, like the rest of the place, but there’s a built-in fireplace that separates it from the dining room, which I have lit most every night of the year, lending it a warm, homey feeling. And it’s usually a little messy. I often stand over the sink to eat and leave the dishes and a mess for the housekeeper. And I read the morning paper with my coffee at the breakfast table, which is usually strewn with other papers and magazines, some mail, my vitamins, my medicine…
My medicine.
Dear God. Darcy’s just walked el diablo right into the most personal space in my home.
I sprint toward the kitchen. My heels clatter against the marble. All the blood drains from my face. I round the corner and stop short, because there they are.
Parker is seated at my breakfast table, in my chair, drinking a glass of what I know is my most expensive scotch, because the crystal decanter is sitting on the table in front of him. Leaning back in the chair with a satisfied grin as if he’s king of the hill, he’s looking up at Darcy, who stands over him with her hands on her hips and a look of maternal affection on her smiling face.
Her traitorous, backstabbing face.
Why the hell is she smiling at my sworn enemy?
“Well, isn’t this cozy,” I say, too loudly and without an ounce of warmth.
They both look over at me. Parker’s smile dies. His burning gaze rakes over me. Slowly he sets his glass of scotch on the table.
Darcy says brightly, “Oh, there you are! I didn’t think you’d be ready so soon. We were just talking about my review of Xengu.” She laughs. “I told him it won’t be published until Monday, but he can rest easy, because other than the truffles, he gets an A-plus.”
An A-plus. She’s giving the man who ruined my life an A-fucking-plus? What’s going on here? Bristling, I take a step forward.
An open bottle of my medicine is not six inches away from Parker’s hand, sitting on the lazy Susan in the middle of the table, naked and vulnerable to any curious, prying eyes.
My voice cold and controlled, I say, “Really? How interesting. I don’t think you’ve ever given any restaurant such a great rating.”
Her eyes flash. It’s a warning or a message of some kind, but I’m too busy being furious to try to decipher the meaning.
Parker rises. He’s wearing a navy dress shirt with no tie, open at the throat, a pair of beautifully cut charcoal-gray slacks, and a chunky platinum watch I recognize as a Patek Philippe. It probably cost upward of a hundred thousand dollars. Countering the elegance of his clothing is his hair, which is a little tousled, as if he’s been running his hands through it, and the glint of copper along his jaw. He hasn’t shaved.
He looks like a Ralph Lauren ad.
Bastard.
In a gravelly voice, the bastard says, “Victoria.”
Nothing else, just my name, but he says it as if he’s just thrown me facedown across the table, hiked up my dress, yanked off my panties, and buried himself inside me.
All the blood that had left my face floods back into it. My ears go throbbing hot. Through clenched teeth, I say, “Parker.”
Hearing my tone, Darcy’s expression turns smug.
It’s official. I’m going to kill her.
“Well, I gotta go! Great seeing you again, Parker. And I’ll see you later, girl.” Darcy sashays over to me and plants a kiss on my burning cheek. When she pulls away, she winks, leaving me completely confused. Then she’s gone.
The devil stands on the other side of my breakfast table, staring at me as if all the mysteries of the universe can be found inside my eyes.
“You’re angry.”
I turn away, smoothing a hand over my hair. When he adds, “She said you would be,” I spin around and stare at him.
“What?”
Has she told him our plan?
Slowly Parker moves out from behind the table and approaches me. His gaze never leaves mine. When he’s an arm’s length away, he stops. A smile teases his lips. “Because I was early. She said you hate it when people are early even more than you hate it when they’re late. You don’t like to be caught off guard. She also said that you’d freak out that I was in your kitchen—because you never have men in your kitchen because it’s like the heart of the house, and therefore like your heart—and that she liked me and knew you did too, and the only way I was ever going to be able to climb that ivory tower you’ve constructed to keep out anything that hurts is with the help of your best friend.”
A small, astonished breath leaves my lips.
That evil, brilliant witch! She not only played him, she played me! She did something that would evoke a real emotion in me, which would be much more convincing than any act, and then told him the truth about why I’d be angry, and then tied it all up with the preplanned lie we’d agreed on. I’m so relieved, I feel light-headed.
She’s still got flack coming about that bullshit A-plus, though.
Parker says, “She also said I should kiss you as soon as I could,” and moves a step closer.
My heartbeat accelerates. I clear my throat. “Well. She certainly said a lot, didn’t she?”
He moves even closer. When I glance up at him, there’s fire in his eyes. He whispers, “Yes,” and reaches out and touches my face.
I freeze. Like a rabbit pinned in headlights, I stare motionless at Parker’s face as it moves closer to mine. When his lips brush my mouth, I make a small, wordless noise of pleasure.
He snakes an arm around my waist and pulls me against his body. The hand on my face moves to my neck. He tangles his fingers in my hair. He moves his mouth slowly along my jaw, skimming my skin, and then says into my ear, “But I want you to ask me for it.”
My hands are pressed flat against his chest. I feel his heart pounding through his shirt. My own heart is keeping pace with his, hammering against my breastbone almost painfully.
“And why, might I ask, would I do that?”
He noses my hair aside. Lightly, using his teeth, he tugs on my earlobe. An involuntary shiver runs through me.
“Because you want me to.”
I laugh a little breathlessly. “No, I don’t. I’m angry, remember?”
He gazes down at me. A vein throbs in his neck. “Because I want you to, then. Because I didn’t give you an opportunity to say no last Friday night. Because I don’t want to scare you away before I’ve even had a chance.”
His mouth hovers inches from mine. The heat of his body warms me through my dress. I feel electrified. Electrocuted.
“A chance to do what?”
What he says next makes my heart stop beating altogether, but he doesn’t even blink.
“Make you fall in love with me.”
I can’t look away. I don’t want to. It’s a primal, undeniable urge to witness the carnage, almost like driving by a fatal car wreck, craning your neck to see the bodies and blood.
“Parker—”
“Ask me.”
“We agreed on just one date, remember?”
“Victoria. Ask me.”
Instead, I ask a question I already know the answer to. “Are you always this stubborn?”
He ignores that. Staring deep into my eyes, he orders, “Ask me to kiss you, Victoria.”
I make a sound of exasperation.
He leans so lose to my face, his lips brush mine when he speaks. “You like the way I taste, remember? Now ask me. And then, after I’ve kissed you, I want to see if there’s anything else you’d like to ask me for.”
Oh, the dark promise in that tone. The spine-tingling, blatant sexuality of it. My nipples harden. My breath quic
kens.
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
I lick my lips, take a fortifying breath, and whisper, “Parker, please ki—”
He crushes his mouth to mine.
11
Victoria
It’s the first day of high school, and I’m sick with nerves. This is a new school for me. One much larger and farther from home than the middle school I left in the spring. I have to take the bus, which is stifling hot and smells like vomit.
I’m hopelessly lost as soon as I step off the bus. The campus seems endless. I have a map and my list of classes in my backpack, along with my books and my brown-paper-bag lunch. Trembling with anxiety, I kneel on the grass of the quad and tear open my backpack. I’m going to be late. I pull the map out so fast, I tear it in two. Two senior girls walk by, look at my lunch bag and my glasses and my secondhand clothes, and snicker. They walk on. With shaking hands, I fit the map halves together, trying to locate Building B.
“You need help finding your class?”
Startled, I look up. A boy stands over me. He’s beautiful. He’s also smiling, a smile more dazzling than the morning sun haloed around his golden head. I have the fleeting thought that he might be an angel. I’m so surprised, I can’t speak.
“Here, let me help you.” The golden boy kneels beside me on the dewy grass. I hope he doesn’t get stains on the knees of his perfectly ironed, expensive-looking trousers.
“Where’re you supposed to go?”
“B-Building B,” I stammer, red-faced and sweating. I push my glasses farther up my nose.
The boy looks at me. Even his eyes are smiling. “I’m going there too! C’mon, I’ll walk you.” He stands. When I just stare at him stupidly, he laughs and holds out his hand. “C’mon, we’ll be late!”
I put my hand in his. He gently pulls me to my feet. He says, “I’m Parker. What’s your name?”
“Isabel,” I whisper, looking at my shoes.
“Pretty name for a pretty girl,” he says.
When I look up at him sharply, already hurt, I’m shocked to realize he isn’t teasing me, or just trying to be kind to the awkward mousy girl in the thrift store dress. He means it. This boy named Parker has just called me pretty. For real.
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