Page 115 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
Contained in that sentence I hear a clear but unspoken threat; if I out him, he outs me.
So there you have it:
Checkmate.
He adds with cold finality, “And we’re not breaking up. We belong together; we’re so much alike it’s scary.” He pauses, and then says more gently, “When we get back to New York, we’ll pick out a ring.”
Ah, the sheer romance. Doesn’t every girl dream of being trapped into marriage? Can’t think of anything better, really. All my dreams have come true.
I don’t say anything, because there’s nothing more to say.
Parker turns my head and kisses me on the lips. The kiss begins tenderly but quickly turns ardent. Soon we’re both naked, doing what we do best.
Even though I’m empty, though inside I feel as if I’ve been hollowed out by knives, my body responds to him the same way it always does, with desire and desperation. He is, and will always be, the center of my universe, the axis on which everything else turns.
Afterward, lying sweaty and sated in his arms in the dark, I think of all those women again. My fans. I see them staring at me en masse, their faces accusing, their eyes so disappointed. The image of the woman in the front row quoting my own words haunts me.
“You always have the power to say, ‘This is not how my story is going to end.’”
I’m their idol, the person they wish they could be, confident and successful, unyielding, strong…and here I lie, letting someone else write the ending to my story. I’m cornered. Giving in. A kitten thrown to the wolves.
The funny thing about me is, if you throw me to the wolves, I’ll return leading the pack.
For the first time since I arrived at Casa de la Verdad, my lips curve into a genuine smile.
My mother was right, in a way; I did commit suicide. I killed Isabel Diaz with my own two hands. Then, like a phoenix, I rose from her ashes and created something new, something better: Victoria Price.
I listen to the rain pounding the rooftop and wonder if perhaps it’s time for Victoria Price to be laid to rest as well. Time for me—the real me, whoever she is—finally to have a chance to live.
* * *
Later on I’ll realize I was simply in shock. My emotions were too chaotic. My brain had shut down, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. But at the moment—coerced, cornered, optionless—it seemed the most perfect solution in the world.
I waited until Parker was sleeping deeply, and then I crept from the bed, quietly dressed, dashed off two notes on the pad by the kitchen phone, made my way through the dark house and out into the storm, and took the wooden stairs down to the sea.
THIRTY-FIVE
Author and Entrepreneur Victoria Price Missing, Presumed Dead
Early Saturday morning police were called to the vacation home of Parker Maxwell, CEO of Maxwell Restaurant Group, to investigate a report of a missing woman. Mr. Maxwell and Victoria Price, bestselling author of the Bitches Do Better series of women’s self-help books and life coach to many A-list celebrities, had arrived at his home on St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands the evening prior. They planned on spending the weekend at his residence. Mr. Maxwell told police he awoke to find Ms. Price gone, and an apparent suicide note on his kitchen counter.
Local police confirmed that several items of clothing belonging to Ms. Price washed up on the beach south of Mr. Maxwell’s residence, indicating she might have drowned herself. No body has been recovered, and the investigation is ongoing.
Mr. Maxwell was not available for comment.
THIRTY-SIX
~ Parker ~
Eight days after the second-worst night of my life, I exit the Rolls-Royce I bought for Victoria and am immediately beset by a hostile, jostling crowd of reporters screaming questions into my face.
I shoulder through the crowd, head down, teeth gritted, unresponsive to their shouts of, “What did the suicide note say?” and “Were you fighting?” and “Did you have anything to do with her disappearance, Mr. Maxwell?”
Connor, walking beside me, has to grab me and physically restrain me from lunging at the leering fat guy who asked that last one.
“Keep your shit together, brother,” he mutters, easily pushing men with cameras out of our way with wide sweeps of his muscle-bound arm.
I am, in fact, having a severely difficult time keeping my shit together. Over the course of the past week, I’ve been interrogated by about two dozen different detectives and investigators from both the St. Thomas and New York City police departments, been alternately vilified and canonized in the press, slept a total of maybe twelve hours, and developed an extremely unhealthy relationship with Johnny Walker Blue Label scotch, which is quickly turning into a full-blown addiction. If it hasn’t already.
