Page 478 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
I still didn’t know what this was about, but I knew right now wasn’t the time for questions, so I just held her and let her cry.
I tightened my grip around her and rested my chin on her head. “I’ve got you. You’re all right.”
Tinsely got herself under control. Soon her sobs became sniffles, and I picked her up and carried her through the snow. Her shoes were open-toe, and she was cold enough as it was. She let me help her into the passenger seat and buckled herself in while I cranked the heat and aimed the vents on her.
Once I got behind the wheel and started driving, she finally stopped shivering.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I… I didn’t know who else I could call.”
“You can always call me. Any time. For anything.”
She nodded weakly and held her hands in front of the vents in the dash. I said nothing about how I’d begun to sweat in my suit.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked as we waited at a red light.
She shook her head, sighed, and then shrugged, struggling. “I was stupid. I knew I shouldn’t have let him drive me home and that he was a jerk, but I… ugh. I don’t know. I didn’t want to stay at the party and he gave me an easy out when he asked if I wanted a ride, so I ignored my gut and said yes.”
I didn’t like where this was going. “Who offered you the ride?”
She gazed out the passenger window. “That Armie guy. Bishop, or whatever.”
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the steering wheel. I clenched my teeth so hard my back molars ached.
“What did he do?” I managed.
She either didn’t hear the fury in my voice, or she ignored it. “At first it was fine. He asked me about my job and if you were a good boss, and then he put his hand on my knee. I pushed it off and told him I didn’t want to know him like that. It was just a ride home. He… he didn’t want to listen, and he pulled the car over and tried to kiss me.”
My pulse thundered in my skull like a steel drum beating a furious rhythm.
That fucker.
“I slapped him,” Tinsely said, “and he lost his mind. So, I got out of the car and told him I was calling you. He called me some choice names. He said he thought I’d be up for a night of fun with him since I seemed to be willing to with you. Then he drove off.”
I wasn’t sure if my vision was turning red from rage or if it was just the reflection of the stoplight on the wet asphalt.
“Chadwick?”
The light turned green. I had to deliberately coax myself into relaxing behind the wheel so I could drive. My jaw hurt and my pulse still thundered in my head.
“Chadwick? Say something.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She looked down at her lap. “I shouldn’t have got in his car.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said again. “Armie Bishop is a foul little shit. He’s grown up thinking he can have something simply because he wants it. I should have warned you about him.”
Tinsely chewed the inside of her cheek. “You didn’t need to. I knew he wasn’t kind. He said some things about you that should have been red flags.”
I didn’t give a damn what Armie had to say about me. What I did give a damn about was how he thought he could not only cross boundaries with Tinsely even after she told him no, but how he could abandon her on the side of the road in the dead of winter in nothing but a strapless cocktail dress.
What if she didn’t have her phone on her?
What if the wrong person happened to drive by and saw her there, helpless?
What if she hadn’t gotten out of his car?
We turned onto her street and I parked at the curb in front of her townhouse. I put the Rover in park and ran my hand down my face. She stayed in the passenger seat, watching me.
