Page 486 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
Crab cakes?
I didn’t care about crab cakes.
He was treating me like we were strangers—like we hadn’t had our tongues in each other’s throats. Like I hadn’t had him in my throat. Like all the adventures we’d had in the past two weeks hadn’t happened at all.
I closed my eyes and turned to the window as they burned.
Crying was not an option. I had to hold it together. This was my fault, nobody else’s. He was just giving me what I’d said I’d wanted.
Space.
He’s doing too good a job at it, too.
The night wore on. Chadwick and his father and I took to the stage to announce raffle prize winners. We congratulated people, shook hands, gave out gift cards, auctioned off spa days and travel vouchers, and tallied the event’s earnings at the end of the night. Chadwick announced that the gala had earned a whopping forty-six-thousand dollars, eight thousand more than last year, and he thanked everyone for their generosity.
After that, he left the stage on the opposite side of me and disappeared into the crowd.
Even though I wanted nothing more than to chase after him, I went to the bar, sat down on a corner stool, and ordered a Manhattan.
It went down far too easily, so I ordered two more over the course of the hour.
CHAPTER 32
CHADWICK
Mrs. Holiday laughed in earnest as she told me all about her son’s travels abroad this past summer. She’d been good friends with my mother, and her son and I spent a lot of our childhood together at the estate. She and my mother would sip chilled wine on the patio in August or spiked coffees in December, and Ben and I would chase each other through the grounds or through the house.
Now he was a travel writer with an unquenchable thirst for adventure.
“He always liked to live on the edge,” I recalled after she told me about his latest base-jumping experience in Venezuela.
His mother shuddered. “He sent a video. Crazy boy filmed the whole thing. May you be blessed with children who aren’t thrill seekers, Chadwick. The older you get, the less your heart can take. Let me tell you.”
I smiled.
“Do you think children are in your future? I’m sure your father would love to become a grandpa someday,” she said.
“There’s no timeline, but it’s not out of the question.”
Her eyes glittered. “For what it’s worth, I think you would make a wonderful father. Your mother thought so, too. She always saw how fiercely protective you were of Ben when you two were younger. Those instincts will come back to you in fatherhood.”
I chuckled. “We’ll see, we’ll see. Go pressure Ben about it.”
“Ben?” She waved her hand dismissively. “He still wants to travel and write. A child isn’t suited for that life. Maybe fatherhood will find him, maybe it won’t. Either way, all that matters to me is that he is happy, and I think he is.”
“Too bad his happiness causes so much stress to you,” I said.
She patted my shoulder. “All in a mother’s work, my dear. All in a mother’s work.”
“Sir!”
I groaned. Hugh’s hurried footsteps came before he did. He slid three feet across the marble floors and bumped into me. After offering Mrs. Holiday an apologetic smile, he leaned in close to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Um, sir. I just wanted to let you know that it might be wise to quickly and discreetly collect your elf from the bar.”
I frowned. “What?”
Hugh leaned to the side, pointed across the ballroom to the bar, and grimaced.
I saw her.
