Page 100 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
“Men hate being told what to do. When a wife gives her husband a command, to him it feels like he’s being scolded by his mommy. Even if it’s something as innocuous as telling him to take out the trash, he’ll feel emasculated if you ask in the wrong tone, or word it the wrong way. The best way to get a man to do anything is by motivating him to do it himself.
“So don’t mention that shelf to your husband ever again. What you should do the first chance you get is go ask the most attractive man in the neighborhood if he would be so kind as to assist you with fixing your shelf, because, and I’m quoting what you should actually say here, ‘You’re so much better at these things than I am.’ Then, when the neighborhood stud shows up to fix your shelf, watch how fast your husband moves. He’ll have built you a new shelf and probably an entire new laundry room in thirty minutes. Nothing motivates a man more than competition.”
When Claire says, “Oh my God, I know exactly who I’m going to ask,” the room erupts into laughter.
“Good for you, Claire! OK, next question.”
I point to a mousy woman sitting quietly in the front row. Unlike the other women in the audience, she hasn’t smiled, laughed, or clapped once during the entire seminar. I’m surprised she’s participating now; she’s looked as if she’s been in pain all day.
“Yes, lady in the front.”
She stands. The assistant hands her the mic. She holds it for a moment, looking at the floor, and then raises her eyes and drills me with them. “When I told my boyfriend I was coming to this seminar, he tried to kill me.”
The entire room falls silent. Goose bumps march like fire ants down my spine.
“He said that you’ve done more to ruin relations between men and women than anyone else since Eve took the apple from the serpent.”
Oh, boy. Religious nut job alert.
“I guess that makes her the original bitch.”
My attempt at a lighthearted joke falls flat; everyone is waiting nervously to hear what the woman is going to say next. Wondering if I’m about to get tied to a stake and roasted alive, I look nervously stage left, trying to catch the eye of the burly security guard standing in the wings, but am stunned to see Parker there instead.
He’s unsmiling, standing with his arms crossed over his chest, watching me. When our eyes meet, a strange tingle of premonition zips through me.
How long has he been standing there? And what is that look in his eyes?
The woman continues. “But I remembered what you’d written in the afterword of your first book, Bitches Do Better. You wrote, ‘The beautiful thing about life is, you always have the power to say, “This is not how my story is going to end.”’ I remembered that when he had his hands around my throat. I decided that wasn’t how my story was going to end. So I fought back. And I got away. And now he’s in jail and won’t be able to hurt me again. So I guess I don’t really have a question. I guess I just wanted to say…you saved my life, Victoria. You literally saved my life.”
My throat is closing up. A large, invisible fist squeezes my windpipe. After a long moment, I manage, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
The woman answers, “Jennifer.”
I look
to the audience. With a little hitch in my voice, I say, “Can we all please give Jennifer a round of applause for being so fucking awesome?”
The roar that explodes from the crowd is like nothing I’ve heard before. It sounds like a rock concert. Jennifer blushes and looks down. Before she can sit, I jump off the stage and engulf her in a bear hug.
The crowd goes wilder. Suddenly there are ten women around us, then twenty, then who knows how many more, all of them hugging and clapping and hollering, patting me on the back, the shoulders, my hair. Jennifer and I break apart, grinning at each other. She tells me I’m her hero, I tell her she’s mine, and then I have to run away because there’s water pooling in my eyes and I’d rather have a colonoscopy with no anesthesia than be seen crying in public.
I throw a final wave to the crowd before disappearing off the stage, where I bump right into a solid, unmoving bulk that turns out to be Parker.
He grasps me by the upper arms. Blinking, I look up at him. When he sees my expression, his face softens.
“You’re just a big marshmallow under all that titanium armor, aren’t you?” He pulls me against his chest, and I bury my face in his coat.
“Don’t make me tell you to go fuck yourself.”
That makes him laugh. He winds his arms around me and nuzzles his nose against my ear. “I wouldn’t care if you did. There’s nothing like a woman with a brilliant mind and a filthy mouth.”
“Don’t forget the high-maintenance pussycat.”
He presses his lips against the pulse in my temple. I can feel by the curve of his lips that he’s smiling. “How could I possibly forget? She’s all I’ve been able to think about for the past forty-eight hours.”
Relieved that we’re joking, I peek up at him with an eyebrow cocked and pretend to frown. “A one-track mind, I see.”
“It’s my finest trait. That and being smart enough to take out the trash before Fabio shows up to beat me to it.”
