Page 153 of Billionaire Temptations

“You’re such a douchebag, Parker.” I smiled as I walked into the bathroom.

“At least I’m not a fucker. You have fifteen minutes, Emerson. I’ll be downstairs waiting.”

“Did you take your pill?” I yelled before he walked out.

“Yes.”

“Good boy.”

As we were driving,Alex still wouldn’t tell me where we were going, but the route was all too familiar to me. Panic started to settle inside me as he turned left into a subdivision.

“Alex, what are you doing?” I nervously asked.

He looked over at me and took hold of my hand but didn’t say a word.

“Parker, I’m speaking to you. I don’t like this. Turn around!”

“Stop, Emerson,” he spoke as he pulled into the driveway of my childhood home.

I gulped as I stared at it from the car window. “I will ask you nicely one last time to please take me back to your house. Because if you don’t, I swear to God, I’ll break your balls.”

“There you go again.”

“Alex, I’m serious. This isn’t funny, and I want to leave.”

He grabbed both of my hands and stared at me. “Listen to me. I want you to calm down. This was your childhood home, and you had wonderful memories here. We’re going to go inside, and you’ll tell me about those memories. Okay?”

“How the hell are we going to get inside?”

“The realtor will be here shortly. The house is up for sale, and I made an appointment to look at it.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “How did you even know about this house?”

“I talked to Adam this morning.”

“Of course, you did. Fuck you, Parker. I’m not going inside that house.” I opened the car door and ran straight to the backyard. Why? It was a place of comfort.

As I stopped in the middle of the grass, I looked straight ahead by the oak tree that was still there and at the empty spotwhere the little house used to be that my dad had built for us. He called it “Twins Cottage.”

Alex walked up from behind and clasped my shoulders. “What are you staring at?”

“Over there by the oak tree. Emily and I always played in the cottage my dad built for us. It was our own little house. We would have tea parties when we were really little, and then, as we grew, we used it as a place to escape from our parents for a while. Emily and I would sit in there for hours and listen to music and talk about the things we were going to do. We had some amazing times in there. I even had my first kiss in there from a boy named Sam. What happened in that cottage, stayed in that cottage.” I smiled.

I walked over to the tree and examined the trunk, finding the arrow that I had carved into it. “See this spot right here?”

“Yeah.”

“This is where we buried Muffin, our dog. I carved this arrow in the tree trunk pointing down so I’d always remember exactly where she was buried.”

Alex put his arms around my waist and kissed my head.

“Excuse me,” a woman spoke from behind us. “You must be Alex Parker?”

“Yes, and this is Emerson James.”

“Nice to meet you both. Come with me, and I’ll show you around inside.”

I took in the deepest breath I ever took in my life before walking through the back door of the house I grew up in. Stepping inside, memories of my parents, Adam and Emily flooded my mind. Tears sprang to my eyes.

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