Page 130 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
“That was you in the bar today,” I whisper hoarsely, so deeply stunned it’s as if I’ve been hit with a Taser gun.
It’s Parker. He’s here. Here.
Dear God, please don’t let me have a heart attack.
“I’d ask if that was your boyfriend you were with, but I know cradle-robbing isn’t your style. Though he obviously wishes it were.”
Parker makes no move to come closer. He just keeps staring at me with this devouring look as if he’s memorizing every feature and curve of my face, burning the details into his mind.
For a long while, neither of us speaks. Then, because I can no longer bear the crushing silence, I say shakily, “God. That moustache.”
He strokes it thoughtfully. “I look like a porn star, don’t I?”
“Not even a star. Like an unpaid extra. It’s hideous.”
He nods. “Your hair is nice, too. Did you lose a bet?”
My throat is getting dangerously tight. Not sure if I’m going to laugh, sob or scream, I swallow.
Parker removes his hat, rakes a hand through his hair, and takes a step into my bedroom. The space seems to shrink.
“Do you have any idea how many Ana Garcias there are in this country?” His voice is gentle, but his eyes burn right through me. They sear me straight down to my soul.
I shake my head.
He says, “A lot,” and takes another step closer. He drops the cowboy hat to the floor.
I would move, but I’ve become a statue. Or a tree, firmly rooted in place. Paradoxically, there’s so much adrenaline coursing through my body, I’m shaking almost to the point of vibrating.
“Well.” I clear my throat. “That was rather the point.”
He nods again. So very serious. So very calm. In comparison, I’m a fireworks show that has gone horribly awry, everything exploding at once with deafening noise and blinding color, burning the bystanders with flying hot shrapnel and chunks of smoking ash.
“How did you find me?”
“Tabby.”
I stagger backward a step, my shock deepening. “She’d never—”
“She told me everything,” he interrupts softly, “after I told her everything.”
Everything. That word crashes around inside my skull, smashing and banging into things, leaving wreckage in its wake.
“She told me about your plan to ruin me. She told me that she was Polaroid, not you.” His voice drops an octave. His eyes are ablaze. “And she told me about Eva.”
A small noise escapes my lips. My eyes fill with tears.
Parker comes closer. Then closer still. When he’s standing so close I can count the long golden lashes around his lids, he whispers, “Can you ever forgive me?”
My knees decide they’ve had enough of knocking, and buckle.
Parker catches me before I fall. He swings me into his arms, strides over to the bed, and lowers us to it. He kisses me on the cheeks, murmuring passionately, “Forgive me, baby, please, please, forgive me.”
I break down and cry. “You asshole! There’s nothing to forgive! Except that moustache!”
“I left you without saying good-bye.” He tenderly kisses me on the lips. “I abandoned you when you needed me most.” He kisses me again, deeper, leaving me breathless and gasping for air. “And then, years later, I made you run away from me with the absolute worst fucking proposal of marriage in the history of mankind.”
This time when he kisses me, I feel his remorse. I feel all his anguish and sorrow and desperation, every painful, ragged inch of his despair. And all the emotions I’d bottled up so tightly over the long, lonely years since he first left me burst free.
