Sophie's Playboy (28 page)

For the first time all day, he smiled. "Starved."

"I can do something about that."

Parker let the dog in and gave him some proper attention while Sophie fixed them dinner. She wanted quick and easy, 262

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

but that limited them to reheated sausage links and frozen pancakes.

"You don't shop much, do you?"

Sophie couldn't help but notice that Parker was on the other side of the room. He'd redressed—well, since he hadn't
un
dressed, she'd have to say he'd zipped his pants. She'd pulled her torn blouse back on and tugged down her skirt, but since the blouse was open and her underwear was still in the hall, she felt at a disadvantage.

She ignored his small talk. She wasn't in the mood.

"Set the table, please. I'll be right back."

The tears started before Sophie reached the top of the stairs. She let them come, knowing it would be easier not to cry later if she did it all now. Damn the man, he was still distancing himself from her.

She stomped into her bedroom and yanked a set of cotton lounging pajamas from the drawer. What could she do now?

She'd believed making love would remove the new barriers, but it hadn't. It seemed to have only strengthened them.

Even if she got him to stay the night, she had no hope it would convince him to keep moving forward. He was determined to reverse the momentum of their relationship.

She dashed cold water on her face and wiped away the smeared makeup. It wouldn't do any good for him to see how upset she was. Nothing would do any good.

She almost started crying again, but steeled herself and went back downstairs. Parker had served the food and poured orange juice. Even the image of him doing something so 263

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

mundane slammed her in the chest. She was completely lost in this man, and she knew he was going to leave.

"How's Fawn?" she asked, sitting at the table and putting her napkin on her lap.

"Fine. She asked about you yesterday."

"Maybe I'll stop over tomorrow if she's free."

"She will be."

"I'll call her in the morning."

They ate in silence for a few minutes. "Thanks for offering to help Melina," Sophie offered.

"I care about her." He didn't look at her. She watched him methodically cut a square from his pancake, spear it, and put it in his mouth. Then he cut a sausage link and did the same.

The pattern repeated, without variation, and Sophie knew he was holding himself in tight rein. From what, she didn't understand.

Maybe tonight wasn't the night to understand it.

Maybe no night would be. Maybe she should be smart and let him go.

Look at Fawn and Biff,
she told herself. Fawn was determined to overlook her husband's faults and fight for her marriage. Biff was just as determined to end it. Then there was Parker's mother, who was just as cowardly as Biff, even though Parker thought more highly of her. If she'd been around, he'd probably be doubly bitter.

The pancakes tasted like glue, the sausage like plastic.

Sophie felt an overwhelming urge to set Parker free. That was what you were supposed to do, wasn't it? Set what you loved free to see if it came back to you?

264

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

She couldn't do it. She didn't think he'd come back.

265

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

CHAPTER 17

Sophie arrived at Fawn and Biff's house in Beacon Hill mid-morning. She half expected the woman to look wan and mournful, but she was the complete opposite. She answered the door wearing an ivory silk pants suit with a long jacket buttoned over nothing, as far as Sophie could tell. She was more tanned than she had been on the Fourth, and the gold of her skin contrasted with both the ivory suit and her flowing dark-blond hair.

"Sophie, come in." She smiled delightedly and hugged her, then led her to a sunny parlor full of comfortable furniture.

"Deirdre will bring us a snack. So, how are you?"

Sophie set her bag on the floor against the loveseat and settled back. "I'm fine. But I can't believe how good you look!"

"I know." Fawn let a smug smile play about her mouth and Sophie detected a fire in her eyes that she'd never seen there before. "I'm having lunch with Biff. He wants to talk about the divorce."

Sophie's heart sank. She'd so hoped these two could work it out. "I guess you look so battle-ready because you're going to take him for all you can?"

Fawn laughed, and gone was the sweet, gentle, fragile young lady Sophie had met weeks ago. Here was a powerful woman tempered by tragedy and determined to get what she wanted.

Sophie wished she had that power.

266

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

"Actually," Fawn told her, "I'm battle-ready because I'm not giving him the divorce." She crossed her legs and draped her arms across the sapphire sofa. Sophie found herself wishing she had a camera. Biff didn't stand a chance.

"Did Parker tell you my revelation?" Fawn asked. Sophie shook her head, and Fawn told her how she and Biff had met.

"I molded myself into what I thought he wanted. Big mistake, and it makes me angry that I allowed it to happen. Even prostitutes read
Cosmo
. I knew better." She smiled at the woman who brought in their snack, iced tea and croissants on a silver tray. "Thank you, Deirdre."

Sophie helped herself to a croissant and tea, and sat patiently waiting for Fawn to tell her tale. She thought the picnic conversation had been interesting!

"Anyway, it's so clear. Biff fell for who I was. I thought he fell for who I could be. Who I could be can't hold him. But who I
am
, can." She pulled a piece off her croissant and popped it into her mouth. "That fraidy-cat has run scared for the last time. I'm not going to take his bull anymore, and he's going to learn to stand up to his demons. So," she finished,

"how are you and Parker?"

Sophie burst into tears.

Fawn moved to sit next to her. "Oh, Sophie, I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay." She tried to take a deep breath and halt her hysteria. "I can't believe I reacted like that. I'm just...."

"What has he done?" Fawn sounded just as fierce on Sophie's behalf as she'd been on her own.

267

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

"Nothing. Nothing at all." She got herself under control and took a drink of her tea to ease her throat. "I just have a feeling he's running scared like his father."

"Parker is nothing like Biff," Fawn assured her. "He's nowhere near as self-absorbed."

"Maybe not. But he's pulling away from me. More gently than Biff did to you," she observed, "but pulling a bandage off slowly sometimes hurts more than ripping it off."

"I can't argue with that." Fawn studied her. "You're in love with him?"

Sophie choked out a laugh. "Can't you tell?"

"Well, yeah, it is pretty obvious."

"That's probably the problem. I'm so obvious it's pushing him away."

"No." Fawn pointed a finger at her. "This isn't about you.

It's about him and his fears."

Sophie stood and started to pace up and down the Aubusson carpet between the sofa and love seat. "It is about me. It has to be, because he's never gone this far with a woman before. He told me that." She lifted a shoulder.

"Indirectly." The night of the concert, when they'd ended up in his townhouse, she'd not-so-coyly asked how many notches he had on his bedpost.

"None," he'd told her, circling her like a shark in his bedroom. "No one else has been in this bed with me." He'd caught her against him, and she forgot the topic. Later, she'd teased that the bed must be a new one. He'd looked seriously into her eyes and told her it was six years old. She gotten the 268

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

message, or thought she had. She was important to him. The first one important to him.

"Whatever makes me different to Parker is what binds us,"

she said, thinking out loud. "But it's also what threatens him.

So how do I balance it?"

"First you've got to know what it is."

"Okay, help me. Why me, and not the other women he's dated?"

"Geez, you got all day?" Fawn ticked off on her fingers.

"You're smart. You're independently ambitious. You aren't looking to snag a husband, especially a rich one. You'd have already done so, if that were the case."

"Well, we can stop there." Sophie sank onto the couch where Fawn had originally been. She thought of Vanessa Whitehead. She had been married to an old-fashioned tycoon who died of a heart attack six months after the wedding. As soon as the will was probated and she got all her money, she went looking for the next one. She'd targeted Parker, judging by her actions just before he started pursuing Sophie.

"I go after what I want," she said, still trying to figure it out. "But I didn't go after Parker."

"Men love a challenge."

"If I pursue him now, he'll probably retreat even faster."

"Good observation."

"But
why
?" She grit her teeth. "He was fine until your ...

until..." She stopped.

"It's okay. My miscarriage. It was horrible, but it wasn't the end of my world." Fawn looked thoughtful. "Maybe Parker doesn't realize that. Maybe he thinks I was devastated."

269

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

Sophie frowned. "How could you not have been?"

Fawn sighed. "Consider where I come from, Sophie. I've been through a lot of tough times. Like I said, it was horrible to lose the baby, but it was a blessing if something was wrong. I can still have children. It would be more devastating to lose Biff."

Sophie still couldn't figure out why Parker would react this way to the situation. Why hadn't he come to her for comfort?

Made a commitment so he didn't have to fear losing her? How could she stop him from throwing them away?

"So do I back off? Stop pushing? I pushed last night, and he became so distant I could hardly even see him."

"And?"

Sophie sighed. "I don't know." She looked around for her purse. "I'm going to make you late for your lunch with Biff."

"Let him wait. He won't run away."

"I'm glad you're doing okay." Sophie smiled at her. "Good luck, Fawn. I hope you get your man."

"You, too." Fawn hugged her, then pulled back. "I want to be your mother-in-law."

* * * *

Sophie dressed slowly and carefully that night. She wore a long ice-blue satin cocktail gown with a draped neckline that she'd purchased for an opera opening a few years ago. She had her hairdresser squeeze her into the schedule to pile her hair into a complicated arrangement on top of her head that would fall apart with the pull of one pin. She added silk thigh-270

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

high stockings, strappy shoes, and a pearl necklace with matching drop earrings.

She looked elegant and refined rather than sexy. She didn't want a repeat of last night, where she begged Parker for sex and he left her after giving her what she wanted.

She'd decided to play the waiting game. Parker was pulling away, but he wasn't gone yet. She wasn't sure why he was retreating and until she was, she couldn't take action.

Parker arrived at seven and took her breath away in his custom-fit tuxedo.

"My God, you're gorgeous." She couldn't keep the words in her head. His smile made him look like a model, and her heart did a little flip. He was taking her out in a very public manner. That had to count for something.

"So, what's the fundraiser?" she asked when they were settled into the car. She was trying to ignore the fact that he hadn't kissed her. She reached for his hand and fought the pain when he put it on the steering wheel, out of her reach.

"Autism." He glanced at her sideways. "MMT's new philanthropy."

"Really? Why?"

"Dave's son was diagnosed with it."

Sophie gasped. That darling little boy. He was only three.

"When?"

"I don't know. Recently. I guess you haven't been in touch with them."

"No." She felt terrible for Dave and his wife. Chuck had called her early last week, but she had never gotten around to returning the call. She'd been afraid he would try to talk 271

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

her into coming back to MMT again, and she just hadn't been in the mood to argue.

"Do you ever feel too lucky?" she asked Parker.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in the past few weeks there have been Trina's death, Melina's kidney, Fawn's miscarriage, and now Zachary's diagnosis. It's like it's circling closer and closer."

"What is?" He sounded irritable.

"Bad luck, fate, tragedy, whatever. Tests, you could call them." Sophie rubbed her breastbone, where a feeling of dread had settled, then took a deep breath. She
was
lucky, but she was also not in control. She couldn't stop bad things from happening, to other people or to herself. But she didn't need to anticipate it, either. "Never mind. I'm getting philosophical, that's all."

Parker shrugged and they drove in silence for a while.

Sophie decided to apply the "not anticipating" ploy for a while. She couldn't predict or prevent what was going to happen next with Parker, so she'd stop dreading it.

When they got to the ballroom where the fundraiser was being held, the valet opened her door and helped her out.

Parker waited for her on the curb, then took her hand and placed it on the crook of his arm. Very formal, very proper.

Very unlike them until today.

Sophie plastered a smile on her face for the people she knew and the ones she met. She approached Dave and Shirley and told them how sorry she was.

"I hadn't heard," she apologized. "How's he doing?"