Page 41 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
He stops stirring and looks at me. “The woman described by Time magazine as the ‘Heartless Wonder’ takes medication for a weak heart? That’s probably the most ironic thing I’ve ever heard.”
Anger rears up inside me, spitting fire. This bastard is calling me out? I feel my face do something strange. My stomach twists like a pretzel. With ruthless coldness, I say, “I might be a heartless wonder, but at least I haven’t ended anyone’s life.”
Yet.
Parker stares at me silently for a moment, and then refocuses his attention to the cheerfully sizzling garlic. “I suppose I deserve that.”
He squeezes his hand around the back of his neck and closes his eyes, and it’s all I can do not to reach out to him and apologize. Which isn’t like me at all.
Which is why I decide to go with it.
If I’m going to convince this son of a bitch that I really do have a heart, I’m going to have to start acting like it.
I take a breath, put my game face on, and try my best to sound contrite. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”
He stills, glancing at me.
“I…very few people know about my heart condition. Three people, to be exact. I hate…I don’t like admitting weakness. It’s embarrassing. And what you said before…well, it just doesn’t seem like something that could be possible for a man like you. It doesn’t fit with what I know of your character. I suppose I’m just shocked.”
I look away, pretending to be confused and emotional, when what I really am is dying for a bottle of Listerine so I can wash the taste of all this hideous truth from my mouth.
Slowly Parker reaches for the knob that operates the burner’s gas. He turns it off. He folds his arms across his chest and hangs his head, staring at nothing. “It was years ago. A lifetime.”
I don’t dare say anything. I stand in silence with bated breath, waiting for more. Waiting for the helpless little fly to wriggle and flail and get himself stuck even deeper in my web.
“She was the only person I ever loved.”
Which means, contrary to what he told me time and time again, he never loved me. The bitter bite of bile rises in the back of my throat. “What happened?”
He shakes his head, struggling for words. “She shot herself.”
Disappointment cascades over me as if a bucket of cold water has been dumped atop my head. I want to scream. I want to throw something. I want to rage and shout and put my hands around his throat, because he dangled such a tantalizing, ruinous skeleton in front of my face, and now it turns out he didn’t kill anyone at all.
“But you said ‘I once killed someone.’”
“I didn’t pull the trigger, but it was my fault. If not for me, she’d still be alive.”
I close my eyes, sick with defeat. This moron isn’t a murderer. He’s just riddled with guilt over failing to stop some lame-brained bimbo from offing herself! How the hell am I going to ruin his life with that?
I don’t want to hear any of the ridiculous details, so I say, “This might sound terribly harsh, but you can’t take credit for another person’s suicide. She had to be very depressed in the first place, or at least mentally unstable, to even consider doing something like that. It isn’t your fault, no matter what happened between you. People go through awful breakups all the time and don’t do anything nearly as drastic.”
His smile is probably the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “That’s kind of you to say. But it is my fault. She wasn’t depressed. She wasn’t unstable. She was perfect. We were perfect. And then I fucked it up. What she did is because of what I did. Cause and effect, simple as that. Her death is on me. And I have to live with that knowledge for the rest of my life.”
She was perfect. We were perfect.
I’m going to puke.
I don’t know what Parker sees on my face, but whatever it is, it causes him to unfold his arms and close the short distance between us. He reaches for my face, but thinks better of it and lets his hand drop to his side.
He says hoarsely, “I’ve never told anyone that story.”
Well, goody for me. Aren’t I special?
I look demurely at the buttons on the front of his shirt. “And I’ve never told anyone my story. So I guess we’re even.”
“That’s technically not true.”
I look up at him.
