Addicted to Mr. Parks (The Park #2) (13 page)

“I think so too.”

Chapter Thirteen

We climbed the several flights of stairs to get to my parents’ flat, passing gangs in the stairwells, arguing couples, and a drug deal going on in front of our eyes. Used to it, I didn’t bat an eyelid, and even though Parks never commented, I knew he was horrified.

I knocked on the door, tenser than I thought I would be. Parks was so close I felt his breath down my neck. His supporting hand on the small of my back gave me all the reassurance I needed, though.

It took several minutes for the door to open, and my dad peered through the gap wide-eyed, greasy-haired, and wearing an old, worn-out T-shirt and dirty jeans.

“Evey?” His confusion told me he wasn’t expecting me. “Who’s this?” He gave a nudge of his head as he cautiously studied Parks. I didn’t answer; I just put my head down and pushed past him. However, Parks spoke to my father all formally.

“We’re here to collect Evelyn’s belongings.” Even his strong, American accent didn’t fit in with my parents’ dreary flat, and when my mum screeched from inside, it made my toes curl, and I cringed that Parks had to witness this embarrassing part of my life.

“Who the fuck is it, Frank? You’re causing a draft with that door open.”

My shoulders rolled back, trying to ease tension that had built. Parks followed as I entered, and although I couldn’t see his expression, I knew his eyes were wide, alarmed, as his gaze darted around the mess my parents lived in. I didn’t intend to see my mother. I didn’t even intend to talk to her. I went straight into my bedroom, blocking out the images that haunted me and quickly packed my suitcase.

“Who the fuck have you brought into my home?” My mum was suddenly standing in the threshold, eyes rolling, and she was biting her dry lips. She was a foul site. A baggy T-shirt drowned her gaunt frame, and she wore holey black leggings. Her pixie cut was unkempt and scraggly, and her arms were on full show, exposing her scabs.

“Leave it, Mum. I’m getting my things and going.” The first thing I did was look for my ruby, and when I found it on the floor, where I left it, relief instantly swept over me.

Parks zipped up my suitcase and picked up the two holdalls. From his clenched jaw and dilated pupils, I knew it took everything in his power to stop himself from interfering.

“Care to tell me who you are?” she sneered, turning her nose up at Parks.

“I don’t care to do anything where you’re concerned.” I could see his anger steaming but he remained calm.

My mum backtracked. “Who the fuck are you to talk to me like that?”

“Mum,” I yelled. “Get out of the way and let me leave.” I made sure the ruby was safely tucked in my pocket as I stared her down. She glared at us, sizing us both up, then her skinny frame moved aside to let us pass.

“Go on, then. Fuck off. Good riddance, I say. I don’t have to look after you now.”

I scoffed out of disbelief. “You’ve
never
looked after me.”

She stepped forwards, snarling in my face. “That’s because I never wanted you from the moment I found out I was pregnant.”

“You’ve made that clear,” I argued. “My life has been hell since birth.”

“
Your
life hell?” She laughed. “What about mine? It was hell bringing up a child I didn’t fucking want.”

“That’s enough,” Parks barked at her, stepping in front of me. “How the hell you produced something as special as Evelyn will never cease to amaze me, but if I have anything to do with it, I will make sure she never gives you any of her precious time again! I will take care of her from now on, something you should have done a long time ago. You should be ashamed of yourself.” He turned to my dad. “Both of you.”

My parents were stunned, my father guilty, my mother blustering. “Get the fuck out of my flat,” she snarled.

We walked back to the car in silence. My silence stemmed from the burning within me. My mother was a state, my childhood home a wreck, far from the high life Parks was brought up in. He had just taken a glimpse into the darker half of my life. Although he knew a little about my alcohol addictions and what my parents did to me as a child, I don’t think he could have braced himself for seeing it close up. His silence was hard to determine. It was either because he was in complete shock or he didn’t know what to say.

“You okay, Princess?” Parks placed my belongings into the boot, then wrapped his arms around my shoulders.

I nodded, stepping into him. “I’m surprised you’re not already speeding off in your Jaguar away from me and my life.”

He pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes. “No running. Got it?”

“Got it.”

***

My head was on Parks’s chest as I sprawled across him. We’d shared a shower together after he’d spanked me for my attitude. I was yet to receive the pleasurable spank, the one where I got to lie across his lap, but I was sure it would come.

He’d also shown me my walk-in wardrobe full of designer clothes, handbags, shoes, and jewellery. It was to die for. He obviously soaked up my love for clothes, and although I never realised he did it, he listened and took mental notes about any kind of clothing I commented positively on. He knew I liked Victoria Beckham dresses, so he had all her available dresses custom tailored for me. He also bought me every colour and every style of Doc Martens just because he saw me wearing them once. The wardrobe was crammed and kitted out with every possible designer dress, trousers, tops, and jumpers. And don’t get me started on the amount of handbags. He’d even taken note of my perfume and filled a whole draw full of Black Opium perfume bottles. Which was highly unnecessary. They would last me a lifetime.

I did get a little overwhelmed and had to sit inside the room by myself, just taking it all in. The wardrobe was the size of a small boutique. All organised and colour coordinated. A man like Parks wanted to treat me like a princess. He wanted to help me. Wanted to take care of me and make me happy. How could I adjust to that so quickly?

“Why wouldn’t you tell me you have drug dealers after you?”

My body froze in response to his random question, and angst blossomed in my chest. My heaven had been replaced with hell again from a sentence. “How do you know that?” I continued to trace his chest with my finger.

“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “Gabe and Trevor. Correct?”

I pushed away from him and covered my body with the sheets. “I’m not telling you anything until you tell me how you know.”

I watched his Adam’s apple jolt as he swallowed, watching me carefully. “I called Cheryl.”

“You what?”

He winced at my objection but made no attempt to apologise. “I need to know everything in order to help you, Evelyn.”

I smacked the bed with my palm. “No, you don’t. You’re prying. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Of course it does,” he argued. “You honestly think I’m going to let these men threaten you?”

I held my hand up to my mouth as I looked away. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

“Neither do they.” His tone was dark, menacing. I wasn’t sure I liked it. And I wasn’t sure I liked Parks interfering in my business behind my back. But the more I yelled, the more determined he was, so I tried a softer approach. Shifting to be near him again, I placed my hand on his chest. “Wade, he’s dangerous. Please leave this alone. This is my shit. Not yours.”

“Anyone who hurts you, Princess, hurts me. You’re wasting your breath.”

That time I couldn’t control my temper. “I’m trying to keep that part of my life away from this part of my life. You go interfering, then my darkness and light will collide, and you’re the only person that can stop that happening.”

He kissed my forehead and pulled me into him, ignoring my resistance. “You’re right, I can stop that happening. And I will.”

“That’s not what I meant, Parks.”

“Wade,” he growled, pouncing on me, pinning my hands above my head, and kissing me so deeply that the back of my head pressed into the mattress. “Tell me,” he questioned before giving the tip of my nose a quick lick, “why did you ask me to punish you?”

Whoa. Change of course.
“You punish me when I misbehave. You know I love it.”

He dipped to take my earlobe between his teeth and licked around the shell. “That’s not what I meant. Before. The first time.”

“Because I hated myself. I was drinking and pushing everyone away. I thought I needed it.” He paused thoughtfully, so I spoke again to encourage his curiosity. “Wouldn’t you have done it if I told you?”

Looking regretful, he pushed off his palm and sat upright in bed, pushing a firm hand through his hair. He seemed angry. “Punish you because you hated yourself? Never.”

My deep frown showed my confusion. “Then why
do
you punish me?”

“You’re telling me you don’t like it now?”

“I like it when it’s due. I like it when it’s playful. I get it. I don’t like it when you’re angry and so mad you intend to hurt me. That’s the part I don’t understand, because you won’t tell me.”

He turned his back and pushed off the bed. Seemed he couldn’t look at me while delivering his reply. “I’ve told you, discipline is a part of me.”

“I get that, but why?”

There was another brief pause. A pause that told me he didn’t want to resume the conversation
he
bloody started. Evidently, it was only because he didn’t like it when I flipped the spotlight onto him.

When he came back to bed, I pulled back the sheets and welcomed his warm body settling next to mine. “Princess, I don’t want to tell you things you don’t need to know. I’m not going to bombard your mind with my shit when you have enough of your own.”

My hands went to his cheeks, cupping his gorgeous, intense face. “You don’t have to be the strong one all the time.”

He wrapped his fingers around my wrists. “Yes, I do.” A quick kiss to my lips cut off the conversion.

We soaked each other up, adoring with our eyes. I occasionally had to remind myself I was one seriously lucky lady.

“What are you humming, Princess?” He gave me that captivating, adorable smile as he swiped my hair from my face when it fell across my eyes. We were so relaxed that I’d slipped into my humming without noticing.

“A song my nan used to sing me to make me fall asleep.” I didn’t realise my breath had caught until a tear blocked my vision.

“What is it?” he murmured.

“It’s “Smile” by Nat King Cole.”

“Your nan liked that song?” His tone was fond.

“Yes. I always remember the part about smiling even though you had a broken heart. She’s the reason I was so strong. I always smiled when my heart was broken. Always laughed when I didn’t want to. I lived when I had nothing to live for because she made me do that.” My eyes dropped from his gaze, and my throat suddenly began to swell. Recalling those times was not an easy task. “I smile because it hides my sadness. A smile can hide a problem, and it was what I adapted to in aid to get by.”

Hearing the compassion tangled in Parks’s inhale set me off. Feeling disheartened, I burrowed into his chest so as not to catch the pity in his eyes. Neither did I want to fall victim to my tears and let them expose me.

“Before she died,” I went on, cuddling into the safety of his warmth, “she wrote me a letter.” I would forever remember the day I found a white piece of lined paper tucked in a pink envelope signed to me when my aunt and I were clearing out her house. I was sixteen, and reading such a letter after losing my nan ripped out a huge lump of my heart and left me numb.

Parks stoked my hair tenderly. “What did it say?”

The heavy lids of my eyes closed. “She told me that whatever happened, whatever I chose to do in life, she would be endlessly proud of me, just like she had been since the day I was born. She told me to promise I would stand in the mirror and tell myself I was beautiful every single day, because she wasn’t going to be around to do it anymore. She told me to wipe away my tears if I ever had any and turn them into a smile, because I deserved to be happy.”

Tears came rolling down my face like a silent waterfall, and I let them fall. The deep, gut-wrenching ache I held within my bones from how much I missed my grandmother needed to be released. “She kept me from breaking because she told me to stay strong. She hated that she couldn’t be around for me, and I know it would have killed her to know she was leaving me behind in a life I didn’t want to live.” My tears poured out, and my throat closed so tight it hurt to talk. “I feel so guilty because I never wanted her to spend her life worried about me. I know her last breaths would have been agony because she never wanted to leave me.”

The drive to never want to rely on anyone in my life was partly due to wanting my nan to see I could succeed on my own. “She tried so many times to take me from my mother, but my mum was vindictive. She didn’t want me, but she kept me to spite my nan.” I gripped his arms, but he held me tight, trying to shield me from the past, from the pain. “She was my life. My protector. And she was taken away from me because of the stress my mother caused throughout her whole life.” I glanced up through my tears to Parks, who was holding back emotion of his own. “Why is life so cruel?” I asked before going into a full-blow whimper, my tears completely misting my view. A sob tore through my throat. “Why does God take the good ones, Wade?”