Page 17 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
I smile, leaning back in my chair. “A crowbar would’ve performed better than that. You’re running for Vice President and you don’t prepare for an interview with America’s Sweetheart?” I shake my head. “Palin should have hired me.”
“You’d have agreed to work with her?”
Tabby seems surprised, which surprises me. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“She’s just so…Republican.”
I raise my brows. “And?”
“And you’re not.”
“You know very well I’m not a member of any political party, Tabby. Or religious party, for that matter. All that divisiveness is bad for business. Now, enough chatter. Sit down and tell me what you found.”
Dutifully, Tabby plops her slight frame down into the chair across from my desk. She flips open the iPad she’s carrying, taps the screen, and then begins to read aloud.
“Parker Jameson Maxwell, age thirty-four. American restauranteur and philanthropist, owner of over twenty restaurants in the US, including his extravagant flagship in Las Vegas, Bel—”
“Philanthropist?” I interrupt. “Please don’t tell me he founded a fair trade coffee organization called Maxwell House.”
Tabby laughs, swiping at her bangs. “No. He founded The Hunger Project, a charity that provides school meals for forty thousand underprivileged children in the South. He also gives millions every year to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.”
A knot of pain appears beneath my sternum. Then, like a flower, it begins slowly to bloom. “Muscular dystrophy?”
Tabby glances up at me. She nods. In typical Tabby fashion, she then provides a dictionary definition that she no doubt memorized in one glance.
“It’s a group of diseases that cause progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass, eventually leading to the death of muscle tissue, and possibly to the loss of the ability to walk, breathing problems, heart problems, and, in severe cases, even death. You know it, I’m sure?”
Oh, I do know it. I know all about it. I know MD like I know my own face in the mirror. Unable to sit any longer, I stand and move to the windows that form the east wall of the room. In the glass, my reflection is as pale as a ghost.
Accustomed to my inability to sit still for any length of time, Tabby continues reading. If she notices my sudden pallor and tension, she doesn’t let on.
“Born in Laredo, Texas, to Bill Maxwell, the import-export mogul, and his wife, Dorothy, a homemaker, Parker was named after jazz great Charlie Parker, one of his mother’s idols.”
But not his father’s.
Unlike Parker’s father, his mother held no prejudice against anyone for the color of his skin. She had a generous, open heart, but also was as tough as nails. If she said her child would be named after a black musician, that’s what was going to happen, no matter how much her husband screamed.
And scream he did. And retaliate, in his own petty way. Bill Maxwell never once called his son by his given name. It was always “Boy.”
I ruthlessly smother the memory of what Bill Maxwell always called me.
“Though the family was wealthy, his mother insisted that Parker go to public schools, which he did until his senior year. He then moved to England and attended Oxford University. Did so well he finished his degree a year early.”
The air takes on a distinct chill. I close my eyes and wrap my arms around myself.
England. So that’s where you went.
Tabby muses, “That’s a weird transition. The public school–educated son of a Texas business tycoon goes to college in England? Do Texans even know where Oxford is?”
Old Bastard Bill was a bigot, but he wasn’t dumb.
“Excuse me?” Tabby says.
I realize that last thought was spoken aloud. I turn from the window and wave my hand. “Nothing. Sorry. Go on.”
Looking at me strangely, Tabby hesitates for a moment before continuing. “After graduation, Parker moved to France, where he met world-renowned chef Alain Gérard via a car accident. Parker was riding in a taxi that hit Gérard’s car, and though he was injured himself in the crash, he came to the aid of the older man and administered CPR. They became extremely close friends, with Gérard even inviting Parker to live with him at his home in Paris, which he did for a year while nursing the chef back to health.”
I roll my eyes at the window. “Barf.”
