Pleasing Mr. Parker
: Chapter 31

THE CELL TONE ECHOES around the corridor. Each individual beep like another knife to my heart.

He’s blocked me.

He can’t even speak to me.

I tried the first time in the cab back to Harley’s place, even though she told me not to. The sound cut through me then, just like it has each time since.

Although, over the last two days, something else has grown with each rejected call, each bounced email I’ve tried sending him.

Rage.

A rage so strong it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Not even when Damien racked up thousands of dollars’ debt in my name. Not even when my father stole from me.

This is a rage that’s kept me up all night on Harley’s couch. Firing my determination to discover the truth.

Someone set me up.

Someone threatened my integrity. Made me out to be a criminal.

The media has had a field day, pulling up all my history and spreading it around like vomit after a night on cheap liquor for everyone to gape over.

Even going to the local store at the end of Harley’s block caused stares. Eyes that tried to penetrate the cap I wore to avoid being recognized.

I’m on every newsstand.

The headline: From Songbird to Jailbird.

My face. My past. My soul.

All there, laid bare for the world to judge.

But that’s not what’s feeding this rage. It’s not what’s accelerating it to a point that my body might explode if I don’t let it out.

No.

That’s all him.

The man I gave my heart to. Who has so easily dismissed me. Dismissed everything we had together.

Gone.

Just like that.

Like I meant nothing to him at all.

Maybe I never truly did.

I stride around the corner, my steps heavy and determined.

I wore my red dress for this. The one he seemed to disapprove of so much on my first day at The Songbird.

And I wore my hair down.

Fuck him.

I attract worried glances from some of the staff as I sail past them out of the elevator. I’m not supposed to be here. The police told me to stay away.

I don’t care about any of that right now.

Harley’s desk is empty as I approach Griffin’s door, and I’m glad. It will make this easier. She will only try to stop me. She’s told me Griffin’s thrown himself into work even more since I was arrested. Apparently, he’s barely left the office, so my chances of him being here are high.

I don’t knock.

I push the door open with such force that it bangs back against the wall; causing the blinds to shake against the glass.

He’s standing with his back to the room, staring out the window. He doesn’t even flinch when I slam the door behind me and it trembles in its frame.

I glance around.

His office is immaculate.

His suit is immaculate.

Everything about him is immaculate and screams you meant fucking nothing to me.

It took me an hour to do my make-up to cover up forty-eight hours’ worth of puffy eyes from all my tears.

He’s not even affected.

“What took you so long?”

He makes no attempt to turn around. He just lets the ice in his voice portray the hatred that’s probably burning in his eyes right now.

A cold burn that could freeze over hell.

“I have so many things I want to say to you.” My heart hammers in my chest as I walk over to his desk, surprised at how calm my voice is.

How strong I sound.

I look over his broad back. I was once wrapped inside those powerful arms. Held like the most precious thing in the world.

And then discarded like trash.

Not even given the respect of a chance to explain.

I stop on the other side of the desk, fixating on the back of his head as I continue.

“Then I realized… You’re not worth my breath.”

He bristles and then turns, his crystal eyes piercing mine, causing my heart to threaten to stop unless I keep going… Finish what I came here to say.

His face is emotionless. I can’t read him at all.

I don’t know him at all.

Not like I thought I did.

The Griffin I fell in love with wouldn’t cast me away like this.

The only reaction to me glaring at him is the slightest pinch at the corners of his eyes. The eyes that used to hold mine while he buried himself inside my body.

Inside my heart.

The eyes that are looking at me now with such detachment, I swear my soul tears clean in half. But despite the pain he’s causing, I still wish more than anything he would come to his senses.

Pull me against his chest and call me his.

How can I ever be anyone else’s after this man?

I suck my stomach in and straighten my shoulders, steeling myself for what I came to say.

I have to do this.

He doesn’t get to hurt me the way he has and not have to look me in the eye when I tell him.

I take a deep breath.

“You are so self-obsessed in your own warped little world where everyone lies to you and you can’t trust anyone that you can’t see what’s going on.”

I don’t give him a chance to speak before I continue.

“Someone has set this all up! How can you be so stupid that you don’t see it? Why would I ever jeopardize my career, my reputation, for money? If you think that’s who I am, then you don’t know me at all!”

My voice rises as I grab at my earrings, taking them out and slamming them down onto his desk. I can’t stomach seeing them reflected back at me every time I look in the mirror anymore.

Vibrant blue diamonds—two painful reminders of what’s gone.

Griffin doesn’t flinch, just holds my eyes with his icy stare.

“Just like I never really knew you,” I hiss, pulling my hand back and leaving them there, glinting. “Did it ever occur to you that there are people out there who want to see us fail? Like Todd, for example? He has the knowledge and the contacts to somehow change the supplier’s order. And he sure as hell hates you enough.”

“The emails were sent from your account, Maria.”

It’s the first time he speaks, and his deep, calm voice makes my chest tight.

So many memories I wish I could erase. So many memories that hurt too much right now.

“I lost my ID on the filming day. Anyone could have snuck in that day and not been detected. There was so much going on.”

“Funny, you never reported it to security.” His voice bleeds sarcasm as he keeps his steely gaze on me.

He’s thought about this. He’s really fucking thought about this.

And he still thinks I’m guilty.

“I didn’t think. Will found it minutes after I realized it was missing. I thought I must have just dropped it. But maybe it was gone longer.”

“It was a woman who phoned the suppliers to authorize the change.”

Griffin takes his hands out of his pockets and places them on his hips. I can’t help glancing down at them. I swallow away the memories the sight of them provokes.

All these fucking memories.

That’s all they will ever be now.

In the past.

“So is half of the world! Almost four billion other women! That proves nothing and you know it! You’re just far too quick to believe what you want to!”

I lean over the desk toward him, and he shifts on his feet, inching closer to me.

“And what is it I want to believe, Sweetheart? You tell me, seeing as you can read my mind so fucking well,” he hisses.

My breath catches in my throat, and it burns.

Oh, it burns!

“Sweetheart.”

That one word that carried so much weight. Now used against me. The most painful ammunition.

He’s made himself judge, jury and executioner.

I look into his eyes and know I’ve lost him for good.

No matter what I say.

No matter what I do.

Griffin Parker has shut me out of his heart.

Forever.

“Fuck you,” I whisper. “You think you have to push people away to survive? You think I would really do this to you? You know nothing, Griffin. You’ll die a lonely old man, trusting no one.”

The corners of his mouth turn down and his nostrils flare as he leans toward me, his face inches from mine. His eyes fall over my hair briefly before he looks back into my eyes, locking me in place.

“Don’t you worry your pretty head over me. I won’t be lonely.”

My eyes sting as I hold his and picture him with someone else.

His arms around someone else. His hands on their face. His body driving into theirs.

Maybe he’s even been there already. Erased me physically, the same way his eyes tell me his heart has closed to me, too.

I force myself to ignore the warm mint of his breath, the scent of his skin.

That clear air after a storm.

“Oh, you’ll be lonely, Griff.”

His eyes flash as I attempt to wound him with my choice of words, the same way he did to me moments ago.

“You’ll be lonely. Because no matter what you do, or who you meet. You’ll never trust anyone. And that means you’ll never truly be whole. I know what that’s like. I’ve been there. But I still chose to trust you.”

I search his eyes, my anger making way for something else.

Sadness.

Overwhelming, consuming sadness that this beautiful, infuriating, complicated man will always be a slave to his closed off mind.

A man who can love with so much passion that he’d steal the breath from the entire world.

If only he would allow himself.

“You’ll never trust anyone,” I say again. “You’ll always be that one step away from true happiness. No matter what lies you tell yourself.”

“You’d know all about lies,” he hisses, looking back into my eyes.

I wish more than anything I could lean forward and brush my lips against his. That this wasn’t happening. That we weren’t here like this.

How did we even get here?

I sigh, grief settling in my chest. Grief for what we could have had. For what we so nearly did have. It pulls me down with a heaviness that I will try my whole life to shake off after today, and probably never succeed.

I look at him as my heart dims, like someone blew the candle out.

Puff. Gone.

“I will prove to you I didn’t do this. I’ll replace evidence. Because that’s what you need. My word, anyone’s word, will never be enough for you. And if that’s what it takes to help you, then I’ll do it. Because despite what you think, Griffin, every second that we spent together was real to me. None of it was a lie. None. And you know what?”

His pupils dilate as he looks at me, and I swear there is the tiniest crack in his armor. Beneath it, the tiniest fragment of who I know he is fights to shine through. The man underneath the suit, behind the corporate desk.

The man he’s showed to me.

The man I wish would come back to me.

“You’ve destroyed my heart. You knew they were going to arrest me, and you did nothing. You packed my things and gave them to Harley. You shut me out without even giving me the respect of seeing me and telling me to my face that you believe I did all those things they’re accusing me of. But despite all of that… I wouldn’t change a thing. Because for me, what we had was real. I trusted you in a way I haven’t trusted anyone in years. And I’m grateful to you for that.”

I search his face one last time, my chest burning with emotion, my legs somehow still holding me up.

“So, thank you,” I whisper.

Then I turn and walk out of his office before he has a chance to reply.

I walk until I reach the elevators.

Until I reach the main hotel door.

I don’t stop walking until my final tear dries, and by that point, I seem so far away from where we once were that I know…

I’ve just walked myself out of his life.

And I don’t think there are any paths that lead back.

I look up at the gray sky and pull my cell phone out of my bag, taking a deep breath as I wipe my cheeks dry with the heel of my hand.

I dial and wait for it to connect, a small smile of hope on my lips as she answers.

“Harley? It’s me. Listen. I need your help. I need everyone’s help.”