Page 75 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
Tuesdays in the restaurant business aren’t typically the craziest nights of the week, but tonight is an exception. Kai is having another meltdown in the kitchen—this time over beets, of all things—we’re so overbooked two scuffles have already broken out in the bar over the availability of tables, and my shipment of wagyu beef never made it, which means I’ll be serving filet mignon—at half the profit.
But none of those things are the reason my mood is so black.
“Still no call, huh?” Bailey, trying her best not to smirk, peers around my shoulder. I quickly shove my cell phone into my coat pocket and cross my arms over my chest. The only answer I give her is a glower.
“OK, I don’t mean to say I told you so, boss, but…I totally told you so.”
I rake my hand through my hair. “Not helpful, Bailey. And shouldn’t you be working right now instead of giving me grief?”
She shrugs. “Shouldn’t you be working instead of obsessing over your booty call?”
“It wasn’t a booty call!”
Bailey chuckles. “Really? Because I thought when a woman calls you for the express purpose of coming over for an ad hoc shag, and then sneaks off in the middle of the night and doesn’t return any of your gazillion phone calls, it’s the textbook definition of a booty call.”
I say through clenched teeth, “I called her.”
She grins at me. “Which is completely beside the point, because she’s obviously pulled the infamous Maxwell Disappearing Act and you’ll never hear from her again.”
I stare at her in stony silence. “You’re enjoying this a little too much.”
Her grin is so wide I can see all of her teeth. “It’s just amusing to see the shoe on the other foot for a change. Honestly, Parker, if I had a dollar for every female you ghosted, I’d be Donald Trump.”
She turns and saunters away, leaving me fuming.
I won’t allow it. I will NOT allow Victoria Price to give me everything I didn’t know I needed, and then bolt. I drag in a deep breath, close my eyes, and count to three, marshaling every bit of self-control at my disposal to refrain from taking out my phone again and calling her. Again.
But when I open my eyes a miracle has occurred, because there she is.
My heart falters, and then takes off like a rocket. She stands near the front door, looking around, wearing a lovely knee-length white dress that accentuates her curves. When she spots me by the kitchen, she freezes. Our eyes lock. What I see in her gaze is something that catapults me across the room.
I’m at her side in four seconds. She says, “Parker—”
“Not here. Come into my office.” I gently take hold of her arm and steer her away from the door, ignoring the curious gaze of the hostess, feeling a hundred pairs of eyes on me as we walk. Victoria seems tense—her head is held at a stiff angle, her back is ramrod straight—and I have the horrifying thought that she’s come here to dump me in person.
Fuck that. She’s not dumping me.
When we’re in my office, I lock the door behind us and turn to her. “You ran away.”
“I panicked.”
She doesn’t hesitate, there’s no strange inflection in her voice, but something tells me there’s more to the story. I step closer, carefully watching her face.
“You’ve been avoiding my calls.”
“I had an emergency.”
“Did the emergency involve your cell phone dying? And your office phone dying? And every other phone within a hundred-mile radius?”
?
??No, it’s…I had to fly out of state suddenly. To California. It was a family situation. My mother…”
She looks away, and my frustration with not being able to get in touch with her and fear that our affair is over before it’s even had a chance to get going are instantly replaced with concern. I take another step toward her.
“Is everything all right? What happened?”
“She’s not well. She’s…declining.”
