Addicted to Mr. Parks (The Park #2) (27 page)

Chapter

Twenty-Five

“My girl, you have a letter here.”

“A letter?”

Clarke was getting his briefcase ready and nudging his head towards my desk. “Peculiar, isn’t it? Anyhow, I have a meeting. I need you to type up a couple of legal documents. Pat also has a court form for you to get finished by the end of the day.”

My groan was one Clarke was used to. I dropped my bag to the floor, kicked it under my desk, then sank down into my chair and glared at Pat. My relationship with her wasn’t great, especially after I caught her slagging me off in the toilets with her cronies. I waved Clarke off and stared at the envelope on my desk. It was handwritten to the office, and for some reason it made me feel eerie. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to open it or not.

“Evey?” The smallest one of the closeted Johns was hovering over my desk. His leopard-print glasses were placed on his head, his grey moustache thick but kept neat, and his light blue eyes were inquisitive.

“Hmm?” I questioned mindlessly and began to type my password into my computer.

“Are you, or are you not,” he bent down, mouthing the next part, “fucking Mr. Parks?”

John was the nosiest bastard I ever did know. He was the office gossip queen and never could keep anything sacred. Leaning over to get closer, I humoured his actions with a pointed pencil. “Tell me, John. Are you fucking the other John?”

Clearing his throat, he recoiled. “That’s none of your business.”

“And mine is yours?” He didn’t give me an answer. “Now sod off.” I brushed him and his nosiness off my desk.

I called Steph to make sure she was alright, then for the rest of the day, I threw myself into my work, because when Clarke was absent, it was extremely noticeable. He was like my wingman. My only mate in the office. The one who sort of got me. Pat, though, was acting strange. The substantial difference in her behaviour made me feel awkward.

By lunchtime, I handed Pat her court preparation papers, and she thanked me warm and kind. I seized the opportunity to pull her up on it. “Okay, this is weird.” I pointed in the space between us.

Her greying brow shifted. “Would you explain?”

“You, acting nice to me.”

Pat lowered her brown eyes to her desk and shifted her gaze, weighing up her answers. “Look, Evey. I never did quite give you a chance when you started working here. I suppose—” her sigh was trimmed with regret, “—I looked down my nose at you.”

“You did?” I scoffed sarcastically, but I gave her chance to finish.

“And I’m sorry.” Her body language switched. Switched from being the uptight Pat the Twat to becoming just a regular old boot with quite a genuine sole. “The afternoon you caught us talking about you seemed to have cut me deep. I always looked at you as a loudmouth young woman. No cares in the world. But what I saw in you was a broken soul. Disconnected and lost. I was utterly disgusted with myself for talking that way about someone I hardly know.”

“Look…” I had to stop her midsentence, because even though her words were consoling, I didn’t want her pity in any way. “Pat, you don’t have to tell me all this. We don’t get along. That’s fine.”

“No. I was wrong. And I apologise.”

“Then I accept your apology.”

Her nod was firm with a stiff upper lip. “Thank you.”

Accepting her apology or not, she was still a twat.

Lunchtime couldn’t come quick enough. I had a lunch date with the stunning male model I had the privilege of calling my boyfriend. Jesus. I had a boyfriend. I felt twelve. And on cloud bloody nine. We were going to have lunch in his office, and I’d been excited about it all morning. Clock-watching, urging the slow handles of the cycle to move faster. Finally, though, twelve o’clock arrived, but I quickly remembered the odd letter that was making its presence undeniably known on my desk. Burning a hole through the envelope. Daring me to open it.

Bloody hell. I was being ridiculous. How the hell could a letter intimidate me? I swiped it from my desk and thumbed the opening. A pile of photographs fell out of the envelope and onto my desk. They were facedown and I couldn’t see what was on them, but I caught sight of a letter tucked up inside. My heart started to race, blood pounding through my swelling veins. A sense of dread washed over me, and for some unexplainable reason, I knew the letter was from the same person dishing out all the stalking and threats. If it wasn’t Gabe and Trevor, who was it?

My hands began to tremble, my breathing shallow. Situations that were out of my control always threatened to send me into a panic attack. But I tried to hold it together.

The letter read:

Do you know what Wade got up to last night?

It fell from my hands, my fingers instantly darting to pick up the photographs. I turned them around as I studied each one. Three altogether. Bile gradually rose in my throat and began accumulating in my mouth.

“No,” I gasped to myself. He wouldn’t. The photos were of Parks and another woman, naked and in a dark room. There was one of them having sex, one where he was using a whip across her backside, and another with her tied up. I couldn’t help but study them carefully, even though my heart was heaving, my fingers a trembling mass of nerves. My erratic thoughts ran like wildfire. No. No way. He would never do something like that to me.

Would he?

After a couple of minutes remaining immobilised, my feet sprung into motion, taking me out of the room and almost running to the lift. I needed to get to Parks.

Bolting out of the lift when I arrived to the top floor, I ran past an alarmed Joanna and pushed my way through the glass doors.

Parks rushed to his feet from behind his desk about to greet me, but his smile faded when he spotted the horror on my face, which his own face quickly mirrored. “Princess, what’s wrong?” Urgently, he rounded the desk and took my shattering body by the shoulders. I pushed him away, shoving the photos against his chest.

“What are these?”

Blinking and taking a step back to support the shove I gave him, he pulled the photographs out of my hand. The instant his eyes focused upon the images, his complexion paled.

“Where did you get these?” His voice was a threatening whisper.

“Someone sent them to me. Was this what you were doing last night?”

His gaze shot up to mine, a deep and unforgiving frown dominating his forehead.

“Excuse me?”

“Look.” I pushed the note into his face, making him read it hastily. He snatched it from my hands and ripped it up along with the photographs.

“Do you have any idea who sent you these?” he barked, an angry vein pulsating in his neck.

“No. But you’re not answering the question.”

He caught me by my forearms, speaking clear and wounded. “Don’t you ever question my devotion to you. Ever. Do you understand?”

I wasn’t sure as to why I questioned it. Deep down, I trusted Parks with every inch of my being. However, seeing him in those private and explicit circumstances with another woman made my judgment take flight for a mere moment.

“Yes,” I breathed, almost on the verge of tears.

Parks plunged into his pocket and took out his smartphone. “Get me Nixon,” he barked, then hung up.

“Nixon?” My voice was hoarse as I tried to push words past my swollen throat. “The guy who came to the club with you?”

“Yes. The man I employ to take care of all this shit. He and I are going to be having words.” Taking my hand, he quickly fired off questions. “Princess, who gave you that letter?”

“Clarke. It arrived this morning.”

“Did he say who from?”

“No.”

“Where is he now?”

“In a meeting.”

“Shit.” He ran a firm hand through his hair. His agitation got me panicking because he was normally so calm.

“Are they from an ex? Is that who’s been following me?”

He gasped. “Following you?” His eyes hardened. “You’ve had someone following you?” I nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I could deal with it. Never mind that. Is there some kind of psycho ex I should be looking over my shoulder for?”

His eyes passed mine and focused on someone coming into the room from behind me. I followed his gaze.

“Sir.” A mountain of a guy come into view. Tall, stocky, with a dark goatee and a serious look on his face. It was Nixon. I just never really took notice of him the last time we met.

“Evelyn, Cleaver is waiting for you downstairs.” Parks moved forwards, edging me out of the door, but I dug my heels in.

“Don’t I get an explanation? I just asked you if it was an ex.”

His jaw clenched at my defiance. “No. I don’t think so.”

I hated that he was acting shifty. “It’s either no or you don’t think so.”

“Sir,” Nixon quickly butted in, “may I ask who this woman is?”

Parks glared at Nixon, silently warning him they were going to be having words.
It’s not the poor bloke’s fault.

“Raquel,” Parks told him quietly. “Explicit photographs.”

Nixon nodded, sure of himself. “Then the woman in those photographs wouldn’t have sent them to you because—”

“Because?” Parks questioned, and Nixon glanced at me, asking silent permission from Parks to continue the conversation in front of me. Parks nodded coldly. “What’s happened to her?”

“She committed suicide two weeks ago, sir.”

“What?” I gasped, not having a clue who this woman was or what was troubling her so much that she had to take her own life. “Then how did they happen to land on my lap?” I questioned Parks.

“I don’t know, and neither do I know how many copies of these are flying around,” Parks barked. “But I intend to get to the bottom of this.”

Parks took my hand, marching me out of the room. “Cleaver is waiting to take you home.” He punched the Call button on the lift furiously. When the door opened, he waited until I climbed in.

“Why are you treating me like this is my fault?” I snapped. “Why are you hiding things from me?”

“I’ll see you at home.”

The doors closed, leaving me alone and my temper flaring.

Chapter

Twenty-Six

I’d paced the living room floor a countless number of times. There was nothing left of my fingernails, five hours had passed on the clock, and my smartphone had remained silent.

What was taking him so long?

A sex-ex of his committing suicide? So how the hell did I happen to be in receipt of those photographs? Maybe he had crazy exes. That would explain my paranoia. I knew someone had been following me, staying close to my heels. Threatening. But why? Why would anyone want to do that to me? At first I thought it was Gabe, but deeply, I knew that wasn’t his style.

Another half hour went by, and I suddenly heard the stairs being climbed. Parks rounded the top and stopped when he saw the worry, confusion, and anger I was draped in.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I barked. “Was it an ex?” I continued, hating his silence.

Parks made his way towards me, slipped his arms around my waist, and pulled me into him. He held me like his life depended on it. He looked quite the opposite of a man who was full of relentless energy.

“No.” He sighed raggedly, making me feel all the tension and angst running through his veins.

“Then who?” I spoke against his chest.

“It doesn’t matter who. What matters to me is you. Evelyn, look at me.” I pushed from his chest and gazed up into his swollen eyes. “How long have you felt like you’ve been followed?”

I quickly racked my brain. “Um. Since meeting you. I think.”

His eyes shifted slightly. It was the answer he was afraid of hearing.

“Is it someone I should be afraid of?”

He wrapped his fingers into my hair and pulled me closely to his chest. “No. Someone is hurting you to hurt me, but I swear to God nothing will ever happen to you. Understand?”

I nodded. “So you got crazy exes?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?” I yelled, pushing from his chest. Yelled because his barricade was killing me. He always kept me in the dark. Always pushed me away from any close and personal side to him.

“Evelyn, when I tell you that you’re better off not knowing my shit, then you’ll do well to listen.”

I shoved his chest in anger, raging as I spoke. “Why do you do this? Why can’t I get inside what you’re hiding? Who you really are?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he decided to walk away from my temper. “Evelyn, you know me better than anyone.”

“I know your surface,” I called to his back. “I don’t know your depth.”

“You don’t need to.” His tone was warning me not to push him, but of course, I pushed.

Almost jogging to get in front of him, I then stopped his walk by pressing my palm to his chest. “Then why do you need to know mine?”

His green eyes got lost in mine for a moment, and he wrapped his fingers around my hand that was splayed across his chest. “Because you’re the one who needs to be taken care of. You’re the one who takes priority in this relationship.” As he turned away from me for the second time, I watched the muscles in his back twisting under his shirt as he walked. Proving he was riddled with tension.

“You don’t have to be the strong one all the time,” I screamed as he walked away.

“Yes, I fucking do,” he yelled, spinning around to face me. His voice echoed around the room, roughly bouncing off the walls and hitting me slap-bang in the face.

I stared at him, hurt, confused. Feeling wounded for the man that was bound so tight with a hidden demon that it felt near impossible to break down.

My hands flopped to my sides, and my gaze fell onto the cream rug I was standing on. I was in two minds: to go soothe a man who was constantly comforting me, a man who made his purpose in life all about helping me, or walk away and admit I wasn’t strong enough to cope with a relationship that was, some days, floating through heaven and other days riding roughly through hell.

My feet began to move. To the left was the stairs that would take me away from him; to the right was my reason for existing in this world.

Right was the direction I took.

Reaching him, I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulled him into me, and held him tight.

“Evelyn.” The sigh on which he said my name was breathless. Tender. Possessive. And that’s what I loved. My full name belonged to him. He was the only person who ever called me Evelyn, and because of that, he owned the right.

“You once said I was a woman with a broken smile.” I stroked his jaw gently. “My smile is almost fixed because that’s what you do for me. Let me try fix the broken smile of yours.”

“You do,” he whispered, nuzzling the side of my hair. “Just by being here, you fix me completely. Don’t ever go away.”

“I’m here for as long as you want me.”

He cupped my face, brushing my cheeks with his thumbs. “Princess, I want you forever.”

“Then I’m here until you get sick of me.”

“Never happening.” He smiled against my lips before pressing a heavenly kiss against them. Picking me up, he then made his way towards his bedroom. “I am never going to be able to get enough of you. My life has become all about you, and I don’t know what I’d do if that were to ever change.” He climbed onto his bed with me in his arms and laid us down so we were face-to-face. I kissed his neck, then pulled back to gaze into the depth of his greens.

“Parks, are you going all soppy on my arse?”

He slapped my arse, making me yelp. “Don’t call me Parks. And it’s not soppy, it’s the truth.” He shrugged. Parks confessed words of need, yet his soul seemed to distance itself from me the minute he spoke. He sighed and sat up in bed, making me untangle myself from the warmth of him and shift to his side.

“What’s wrong?” I watched on as he put his head in his hands. Plainly, I was staring at a man who was lost, and I had no idea as to why. So how was I ever going to find him?

As soon as he knew about my dark issues, he wanted to help me. From that day on, he threw himself into making me feel special. Wanted. He was bringing me into the light. Making me believe in hope. But by helping my issues, he was masking his own. And that wasn’t right.

“Please don’t shut me out,” I begged, reaching out and touching his withdrawn back.

His sigh was ragged, and it almost formed a lump in my throat. “I’m not shutting you out.”

“But you’re not letting me in, either.” Trust me to start falling for a man that was emotionally shut down. Before Parks, I was also emotionally detached, and I prayed to the heavens his reasons weren’t similar.

“I’m mending.” I smiled through my words, trying to keep it light. “I’m mending because when I’m around you, I forget how bad and useless my life used to be. I forget the pain my mind was swamped by. I forget the hurt. The lies. But you’ve given me hope, Wade. And hope is something I have never believed in. Won’t you let me give you hope?”

He gave another sigh, but it was painful and drawn out. “Evelyn, getting you back to a place where you’re happy, where you are set free, is my goal. That’s all I care about. Not me.”

Unusual tears stabbed at the corners of my eyes. Pain I hadn’t felt for a long time was returning. “But I care about you. I care about your happiness. Aren’t I allowed to do that?”

Parks turned to me, his eyes grave and bleak. Hidden torture was easy to spot for someone like me, because I faced it every time I looked in the mirror. He swiped at a stray tear that drifted down my cheek. “Don’t cry for me,” he breathed.

“If I don’t, then who will?”

“I don’t want or need you to feel sorry for me, Evelyn.”

“Why? Because you’re too strong to accept pity? Don’t you know I understand all this? I am the one person who knows how hard it is to be strong when all you want to do is cry. Cry until there are no tears left. Cry until someone out there hears you and feels your pain.” Swiping at my tears gave him something to focus on. But my eyes were closing sorrowfully.

“Evelyn, I feel your pain. I hear your cries. And to me, you are the strongest, bravest woman I have ever met. You inspire me, and not many people do. You are my life now, but please don’t pressure me into telling you my demons because once I’m exposed—”

“—you’re vulnerable,” I finished off his sentence, making him bow his head between us. “I get it,” I admitted, trying desperately to push back tears.

After a brief pause, he kissed my forehead and lingered for a time. “Get some sleep.”

“No.” I pulled on his arm. “Don’t leave me. Please. I can’t stand it when you leave me. I need you with me. When you’re gone, I panic because I don’t know when you’re going to come back.”

Hearing the distress in my voice and seeing the torment in my eyes gave him only one option. “Princess, I’m not leaving. I won’t ever leave you.” He climbed back into bed with me, pulled the sheets over our bodies, and tucked me into him, close and safe.

We both had pasts and demons we were trying to deal with individually, but suddenly they were combined and we had to cope with them together.

Having each other was either going to be a blessing or a curse.