Second Hearts (The Wishes Series) (47 page)

I nodded, semi-satisfied that the desperation was at least mutual.

“I’m not going anywhere, Adam,” I murmured, hoping I sounded as crushed as I felt.

***

I staggered out into the kitchen the next morning, enticed by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. As much as I detested the taste, I adored the smell. Adam had already left; the only hint that he’d been here was his mug in the sink. I was actually relieved.

My mood brightened considerably when I received an unexpected visit from Bente. I hadn’t seen much of her lately, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Bente was in a good place. She’d made good on her promise of never giving Ryan a chance to stomp on her heart again, and to Bente the best way of moving forward was doing it with someone else. That someone was a guy called Lucas, an art student by day and the lead singer of a heavy metal band at night. If her objective had been to find Ryan’s polar opposite, she’d well and truly succeeded. Lucas had inky long black hair and a scruffy goatee, and always looked as if his clothes needed a good scrub. But he adored Bente, and for that reason alone Lucas was good.

“Is your frog here?” she asked as I opened the door.

“No,” I replied. “He only comes home to eat and sleep.”

She barged past me, straight for the couch. “Awesome.”

“Please, Bente, do come in,” I said, closing the door and sweeping my hand through the air.

“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.”

At first, the chatter was light and nonsensical, just the way I liked it. But within a few minutes she became fidgety and I began to feel the same unease that I’d felt the night before, just before Adam ripped my travel plans to shreds.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “I get the feeling you’re about to tell me something huge.”

“Very perceptive, Kemosabe. I do have something to tell you.”

I tried to think ahead, imagining every possibility. But if I’d had a million years of thinking time, I wouldn’t have anticipated her next sentence.

“I’m leaving town with Lucas.” I stared at her like an imbecile. She rushed out an explanation in short fractured sentences. “I’ve finished my degree and done nothing with it. Lucas is going on tour. He asked me to go. I said yes. I’m so freaking happy!”

“Lucas is going on tour?”

I considered Lucas’s band to be mediocre at best. Adam and I once suffered through a live
club performance, at Bente’s request. Adam got a migraine and I came close to dying from smoke inhalation. Other than that, it was unmemorable.

“They’re even getting paid for it.” Her body stiffened as she battled to contain herself.

Bente was my sidekick, my one constant in the Manhattan madness. The events of the day before only compounded the problems I faced without her. Even though she was sitting right beside me, the loneliness was already setting in.

“When do you leave?”

“Tonight. I didn’t want to drag it out in case I changed my mind.”

I nodded, understanding completely. In my experience, getting out of Dodge was best done quickly. “I am so jealous,” I said, pouting a little.

She laughed. “It won’t be forever. Besides, you’ll be out of here soon enough. Then I’ll be the one missing you.”

I shook my head. “Nope. There’s no need to hurry back. I’m going to be here for years. I’ll probably have a really bad attitude and a drinking problem, but I’ll be here.”

I tried hard to sound indifferent but Bente saw through me. She demanded I tell her everything, which was probably a mistake.

“I knew it!” she said squinting her eyes and pointing at me. “He’s a dick.”

“He’s not a dick,” I defended. “I can’t ask him to pass up an opportunity like this. He’s worked too hard.”

“What about your dreams, Charli? Haven’t you given up enough for him?”

I tried to turn it around in the hopes of making her understand. “Put yourself in his shoes for a minute.”

“I couldn’t afford his shoes.”

“What if the New York Times offered you your dream job? Would you still go on the road with Lucas, or would you stay here? And if you made the decision to stay, would you want him to stay with you?”

She didn’t hesitate. “I’d stay and he’d go in a heartbeat.”

I smirked. “Well, that’s true love at it’s finest.”

“At least it’s true,” she said bluntly. “Which is more than can be said for the life you’re living at the moment.”

I knew Bente wasn’t trying to be brutal. She was trying to be honest. Unfortunately, it was the same thing. “I love him.” It was all I could think of to put forward to justify my decision to stick it out in New York.

She granted me a tiny smile that wasn’t the least bit reassuring. “And the frog loves you, Charli. He’s just not very good at it.”

38. Poison Ivy League

Losing Bente hurt my heart in ways that Adam couldn’t understand, so I kept it to myself, along with a hundred other grievances that had begun to weigh me down. Resentment is a brutal beast, but for some reason we both chose to ignore it as it crept in.

The love I felt for Adam was complete and resolute. I just couldn’t live it the way I wanted to, and I blamed him. I’d grown to hate the way I loved Adam Décarie. His resentment stemmed from frustration. He loved his New York life, and it killed him knowing that no matter how hard he tried, I just wasn’t happy there. I no longer knew what he saw when he looked at me – and it was terrifying.

To make matters worse, winter had reared its ugly head again. Along with the abominable weather came an endless round of inane Christmas parties, the latest being Parker and Kinsey’s ridiculously decadent event.

Parker’s family, like Whitney’s, were hoteliers, which meant he had access to the grand ballroom of their hotel for no other reason than to show off. To remind everyone how fabulous they both were, they gathered a hundred of their closest friends and packed them into the function room. I couldn’t even claim to know a hundred people.

Even Adam looked as if he wished he were anywhere but here. “Are we having fun yet?” he whispered.

I hadn’t decided. There was something wickedly amusing about being in the company of the poison ivy league, knowing that there was major treachery and betrayal bubbling just below the surface. It was a façade that Parker and Whitney maintained well. Whitney had even brought a date, a cute guy called Nate who seemed as excited to be there as Adam. But Nate had a role to play. He was on the receiving end of flirty looks and handsies under the table whenever Whitney felt the urge to get under Parker’s skin. Parker responded by groping Kinsey. It was a repellent display.

“How did I not see this before?” I asked, trading glances between the two biggest wretches I had ever known. They both glared at me and I smirked back.

“See what?” asked Adam, oblivious.

I picked up my napkin and fanned it across my lap. “These napkins are the exact same shade of green as Kinsey’s dress.”

Adam looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. Whitney and Parker relaxed as if they’d just been granted a stay of execution, and Kinsey giggled. “Oh, someone noticed!”

“Of course I noticed, Kins,” I purred. “I notice
everything
.”

My snaky comment, and several others that followed, made for an uncomfortable dinner. I eventually excused myself from the table on the pretence of needing fresh air.

“Do you want me to come?” asked Adam hopefully, as I stood up.

I shook my head, smiling. “No. You stay.”

I slipped out of the ballroom, made my way across the lobby and into the lounge area. I sat on one of the winged chairs near the fire and breathed easily for the first time all night – right until Parker appeared in front of me.

“Are you going to hide out here all night, Charli?”

“I might.”

“That’s not very sociable of you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a very sociable kind of girl.”

A disgusting, smug look crossed his face. “I guess that’s understandable, all things considered.”

I couldn’t help but ask him what he meant. Parker sighed heavily, reached for the nearest chair and dragged it closer to mine. I tried to appear apathetic as he sat beside me by keeping my focus on the open fire. What I really wanted to do was push him into it.

“Adam is my best friend,” he began. “We talk about everything.”

“Oh good,” I muttered. “So you’ve told him that you’re screwing Whitney?”

He chuckled blackly but ignored my question. “He talks about you a lot. You’re such a tortured soul, Charli. It’s pathetic really. Did you really think he’d leave New York? I warned you months ago that he’d never follow through with your absurd plan.”

“Plans change.”

He shook his head, then reached across and touching a wisp of my hair. I slapped his hand away.

“Charli, Adam’s plans have never changed.”

“He didn’t know that he was going to be offered an clerkship,” I defended.

Parker gave a condescending laugh. “No one gets
offered
an clerkship, sweetheart. He applied for it, just like a thousand other law students did. He got it because he maintains near perfect grades.”

My heart dropped. I had only one question for him. “When was he accepted?”

Parker shrugged his shoulders. “At least a year ago.”

Things finally fell into place. Lingering doubts about Adam’s intentions of leaving New York had been a constant drone in my head for months. And now I knew why. When he’d stood beside me at the altar and promised that we’d leave New York after two years, he’d already accepted a position that would keep us there. The subject of where we’d travel to when we left had never been his favourite topic; in fact, it usually made him squirm. That was obviously when the dishonesty weighed heaviest on him.

Despite my best efforts to stop them, tears rolled down my cheeks. Parker took it as an opportunity to move closer to me.

I was too distraught to protest as he draped one arm around my shoulder.

“I’m here for you, Charli,” he declared, leaning closer to whisper the words.

“Like you’re there for Whitney?” I mumbled, suddenly nauseated by his very existence.

“If you want me to be.” I shuddered but he ignored it. Harvey Parker made my skin crawl. “Maybe you just need an escape for a while. We could go upstairs.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe I did need an escape.

“And you think soulless sex is the solution?” I asked, dabbing my eyes with my fingertips, trying not to smudge my makeup.

“It has some therapeutic qualities,” he replied, breathing the words into my hair.

“I wouldn’t know.”

It wasn’t a dark world I’d ever ventured into. I tended to hang out in
La La land where love conquered everything and lies covered all.

“You should give it a try,” he urged, moving his free hand to my knee.

“Parker, I think you should buy me a drink first.”

He was on his feet before I’d even finished speaking, and judging by the speed with which he took off to the bar, I only had a minute to make my next move.

I delved into my purse and grabbed a condom – something I never thought I’d need in Parker’s presence. I was going to use his latex allergy to teach him a lesson. I discreetly took it out of the foil wrapper, held it between my palms and feverishly rubbed my hands together. When I spotted him weaving through tables with a couple of lethal-looking drinks in his hand, I dropped it back in my purse.

“For you, Madame,” he crooned, in the lamest French accent I’d ever heard.

He set the glasses on the table beside me and sat back down, even closer than before. My heart was almost belting through my chest. If my plan failed, there was a fair chance I was going to be in a whole world of trouble.

Parker’s hand moved back to my knee and I made my counter-move, covering his hand with both of mine and kneading his fingers, praying that there was enough latex on them to work. I endured his stupid dirty talk and heavy breathing until I saw the first hint of discomfort take hold. As soon as I saw him scratch his hand, I pulled away. I wanted to see him squirm, not die. I stood and grabbed my bag, preparing to make a run for it if I needed to.

“What’s the matter?” he asked in a buttery voice that had always been powerless over me. “I thought we were getting to know each other.”

“I already know you, Parker,” I said gravely. “And just being in the same room as someone who’s prepared to sleep with his best friend’s wife makes me want to throw up.”

“What if Adam thought you’d made the first move? I could tell him that, you know.”

The douche was actually threatening me. He was also scratching his hand with a little more ferocity than before so I let it slide. “Do what you need to do, Parker,” I encouraged. “I know I’m going to.”

My intention was to return to the party, but I didn’t make it that far. The entire purple circle stood at the doors leading into the ballroom. Even before I got there I knew the conversation was heavy. Seraphina was comforting Kinsey, who was sobbing uncontrollably. Jeremy stood in front of Adam as if he was holding him back. Whitney stood alone in the corner, looking calmer than any of them. Deciphering what had happened took no time at all. The house of cards had finally fallen, and judging by the relaxed look on Whitney’s face, she was the one who’d blown it down. She’d finally come clean about her affair with Parker.