Page 98 of House of Desire

The walls of my living room are a cream. Charlie hated the choice, but I thought it allowed for the architecture of the space to really shine. The mahogany-colored beams stand out, adding warmth. The deep leather of my couch matches, while the chairs Lorelei picked out are a forest green fabric and amazingly comfortable. The raw edged wood coffee table is made from a large tree my dad had removed from the backyard of my family home. It’s the one piece I’ve taken with me throughout the years.

“I saw you on House of Deceit. You should have been the winner. That Charlie girl never would have lasted if not for you. But, then again, you weren’t always the best observer of the people around you, huh?”

The dig lands, but I control my facial expression.

“The right person won,” is all I say.

“Do you remember how we’d watch that show every week?”

“Yup.”

“Did you think of me when you applied?”

“Once or twice,” I tell her honestly, “but my time there has no connection to you.”

She scoots back on the couch, laying one arm on the back as she takes a deep drink from her beer.

“When I saw you announced as a contestant, I almost swallowed my tongue. My Parker all grown up and on the show we always said we’d apply to.”

“I’m not ‘your’ anything.” I realize I don’t want to go down memory lane with her. I want to be with Anastasia and finish our date.

“Don’t you want to know where I’ve been?” she asks.

“I figured if you wanted me to know where you were, you wouldn’t have left in the middle of the night and would have called at some point.”

“I went dream chasing. After everything, I felt like I had a second chance at life. I had to take it while I could,” she tells me with a smile.

“You couldn’t’ve waited until the sun came up and told me you were going?”

“You never would have let me leave. I would have died in that town without doing anything.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” I say, shrugging my shoulder.

My fingers itch to pull out my phone and text Anastasia and check on her, followed immediately by an emergency request to talk to Sharon tomorrow. I keep my hands still. Calm. Keep everything in. Just like I always have.

“She’s beautiful,” she says, trying to bait me in a new way.

“She is.”

“You wouldn’t have an issue pulling a beautiful woman. I mean, look at you. I’m sure you have people falling at your feet constantly,” she says with a sly smirk and I know she’s watched at least the first episode of House of Desire. “It’s so funny you picked her. Considering you met her in the same way you met me. I guess we really do repeat our pasts, don’t we?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, not wanting to play her mind games.

“Don’t you remember? You told Charlie about how we met, after all. You plowing into the cheerleading pyramid and knocking us over? You like to be the hero, dusting the dirt off the damsel in distress.”

I snort. “Anastasia wasn’t in distress.”

“Wasn’t she? I don’t know. I saw a lot of distress on her face tonight.”

I squeeze the beer bottle in my hand, as the need to call Anya nearly overtakes me. To check and make sure she’s not going to leave me, too. All because of the woman sitting across from me that destroyed my heart all those years ago.

“Why are you here?” I ask through gritted teeth.

“I know I messed up with you, how great you were, and I’m hoping, maybe, we could pick up where we left off?”

I stare at her.

“You have got to be shitting me.”

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