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The entire drive home is spent arguing with myself over the urge to go to Parker’s apartment and seeing if I just can’t fuck her into wanting to be with me.
My condo is too quiet when I get there, and I know it’s just my imagination. I’ve always lived alone. I’ve not come home to a flourish of activity, never been greeted at the door with the smiling face of someone eager to see me because I’ve been missed.
Wren suggested last week that I create accounts on dating websites. I shot him down of course. How fair would it be to anyone else when I only have one woman constantly on my mind?
He reminded me that women on hookup apps didn’t care who you were thinking about, just that they got off.
I don’t know if he was actually pushing me to move on or if he was trying to force my hand into realizing what I felt for Parker. He doesn’t know, however, that my feelings aren’t relevant. I wasn’t the one fighting a relationship. I’m just the one who refuses to get tangled up with a woman who could never care for me.
I sigh as I strip out of my tux, opting to skip the evening shower and just drop to my bed in my boxers. I try to focus on stupid games on my phone, but my mind keeps replaying the sight of Parker walking down the aisle and the kiss I stupidly stole from her like it would make a difference.
Then my phone rings. As if thinking of her magically forced her hand, Parker’s name lights up my screen.
I should send it straight to voicemail. Hell, I should probably delete her number and block her, but I haven’t built that much strength against her yet.
“Parker,” I say into the phone as soon as I connect the call.
I want to taunt her. I want to make her feel like a fool for calling me when less than two hours ago she slapped my face for kissing her. I want to tease her about her obsession, turn all of my need and anger into a way to hurt her.
I do none of those things. I wait, letting silence fill the line.
“I just wanted—” She sighs, the sound of her breath through the phone enough to send a wave of need traveling down my spine.
How can I taunt and tease her when I’m the weak one? I’m the one who has been avoiding her because I know how easy it will be to land right back in her bed.
“God, Jude. I don’t even know where to begin. I think I made a mistake. I want—Oh, God. What are you doing here?”
“Parker?” I snap, sitting up in bed. “Parker!”
I’m pulling on clothes in the next breath.
“Baby, talk to me. What’s going on?”
She doesn’t answer. The phone call ends, and when I try to call back, it goes straight to voicemail.
Chapter 32
Parker
I waited too long to call him.
He presented me with the perfect opportunity earlier tonight when he kissed me, but I slapped him, overcome with too many emotions to just wrap my arms around his neck and give in to exactly what I’ve been wanting for weeks.
Now, I may never get the chance.
My phone is snatched from my hand and thrown against the wall. I hear rather than see it fall to the floor in many pieces, because I won’t pull my eyes from the man in my apartment.
“Surprised to see me?” my half-brother spits, his body so close to mine that I smell the scotch on his breath.
“Wh-What are you doing here?” I ask again.
My mind races with what I should be doing, how I can escape, but I come up empty. I have no doubt he’ll be able to catch me before I can even make it over the threshold of my apartment and out in the hall. If I scream, I know he’ll do whatever it takes to shut me up.
“Does it make you happy to know you’ve ruined a wonderful woman?”
I internalize his question, feeling completely destroyed for what I’ve done to myself recently, but I don’t think he’s talking about me.
“Who?” I ask instead, knowing this man doesn’t give a shit about what I’m going through in my personal life.
He huffs a humorless laugh.
“Just like a whore to ruin lives without consideration for anyone else.”
“Look I’m not—”
“There has already been enough lies, don’t you think? Let’s not keep up the pretenses tonight. It’s only going to postpone the inevitable.”
“I’m not sleeping with Weston Lewis,” I say, the words coming easier now than the time he confronted me in the lobby of this very building.
I spoke those words to Deacon and Gaige at the Blackbridge Security office, and Deacon’s assurance that my mother’s mistakes were not my cross to bear have been sinking in slowly over the last couple of weeks. Coming to the realization that not all men are pieces of shit like my bio-dad has been a slow process, but it’s also the reason I’ve been texting Jude and showing up at his place. If there’s a man the opposite of my father, it would be Jude. He’s honorable and has proven it over and over by not being a man who was down to just sleep with me. Not that there’s anything wrong with causal sex, but a man willing to turn down just that because he wants more is commendable.
