Page 25 of Desirable
“Miss Carlisle. Do you need any assistance?”
“No, Jacoby. What I need is for you to figure out how to take the painting back from my house.”
He stumbles for a moment before he recovers and holds the elevator for me to take me to Parker’s office. “Of course, Miss Carlisle.”
When I’m announced at Parker’s desk, he hollers for me to enter, and I do, dragging the suitcase with me.
“If you’re going to ghost me after fucking me, the least you can do is have Jacoby let me know that’s the case. I could have made other plans for last weekend.”
Parker looks up from his desk, his face carefully impassive. It’s almost too blank, but I’m too mad to read into it. I’m tired of having to make sense of the modicum of emotions he actually manages to show.
“I wasn’t aware, as my employee, that you need such notice.” He nearly chokes on the word employee, but I’m not sure if that’s just because he’s thinking in terms of lawsuits right now.
Oh, I wish I had something I could hurl at him for that comment. Instead, I stalk to the couch and throw my suitcase on it.
“If you want to treat this as transactional, then you can keep all this shit. I’m not your call girl. You don’t get to send me things and order me to post about them online.”
I’m angrily unzipping the suitcase, pulling dress after dress out of it.
“You and I had an agreement. Part of that agreement was that you would give the impression to my sister that we’re in a serious relationship. That meant posting about my gifts and being grateful for them. I don’t understand why you’re throwing a temper tantrum like a brat.”
“Because we had sex. You ghosted me like a C-class fuckboy and didn’t have the decency to answer a single fucking text message I sent you. You sent me a gift with a note that read like, ‘Thanks for the fuck, now do your job,’ and then you show up on the arm of some other woman at the event that I was supposed to go with you to. If we’re supposed to be a couple, that’s really not going to sell it. Even your sister stopped liking my shit, and she usually slides into my DMs with every post I make.”
He’s close, too close, and I’m breathing heavily now that my rant is out in one angry push. I was so lost in my tirade that I didn’t even notice him get up from behind his desk and approach me.
“Is that your problem, Holly? Are you jealous?” He nearly sounds delighted by the idea. He doesn’t deserve that truth from me. He lost the right to know how hurt I was when the web alert popped up, talking about the gorgeous woman on his arm.
I stand up, affronted. “No, Parker. You’re giving me fucking whiplash with what you want from me, and I’m tired of these games. I’m tired of feeling like I’m the only person actually in this.”
“In what? This is nothing more than what it started as, a job. Don’t confuse sex with feelings.”
Maybe I just want to believe that he wouldn’t be so callous, maybe I just want to believe that there is no way I could fall for a man who would so easily pull the wool over my eyes, but I shake my head at him. His expression is guarded, not looking at all like the man who held my hand as he told me about his family. It’s telling that he won’t meet my eye, but I can’t give any more of myself to him.
“What happened in Paris and what was happening before then was something. It was the beginning, sure, but I know that it wasn’t nothing.” I’m trying to keep the pleading from my voice, but I can’t help it. I don’t want this to be happening, but it is, and I don’t understand why.
Parker’s jaw tenses. “You’re wrong. All you did was prove that money will get me anything I want.”
I don’t hesitate to slap him. I want to do so much worse than that, like curse him with a flaccid penis for the rest of his life, but right now this is my only outlet for this frustration. He takes the hit, his eyes glued to some spot behind my head.
“You’re a fucking asshole, Parker Worthington.” I refuse to cry in front of him. “Keep your money. Just lose my number.”
Parker doesn’t try to stop me. He just lets me walk out of his life.
CHAPTER12
Ialmost tear my planner apart whenever I see a reminder for an event I should be attending with Parker. So many dinners and flights I need to white out; so many other little reminders linger in my apartment that I need to get rid of.
Jacoby is ignoring my emails regarding the removal of the painting, so I did what any reasonable person would do. I took it down and tried to hide it in the back of my closet.
“He sounds like a rotten asshole,” Tamsin tells me over video chat as I stare at my planner. This weekend is Parker’s sister’s shower in Boston. I was supposed to take the train up there and we were going to go for oysters and lobster rolls. I wanted to convince him to do a whale watching tour with me.
“He is.”
Tasmin is out and about so I’m trying not to look at her because it’s making me dizzy. “I’m going to come visit you, and we can do fun New York City summer things, like walk the High Line and go to a beer garden. I’m almost out of the truffle salt from that place in Chelsea Market.”
“It’s your first free weekend in I don’t know how long. Don’t you have life things to do, like, I don’t know, grocery shop?”
“I would much rather take care of my big sis. Besides, Rodney was able to quit his second job. So, we both have a ton more time.”