Erika rolled her eyes. “He’s clearly into you. Next time, ask him to walk you home then casually invite him inside and let the sex chips fall where they may.”
“He did walk me home,” I admitted. “Actually, he wanted to buy me a drink. I said no.”
Erika’s mouth hung straight open, and a piece of bacon fell to the floor, where it was gobbled up by one of the corgis.
“Sadie,” she said, horrified.
I grimaced. “It gets worse. He came into the building and stood outside the apartment door and asked to come inside. I still said no.”
Jasmine literally face-palmed. “What is wrong with you?”
“I thought we raised her better than that,” Erika said in her best impression of an Italian noni. “I don’t understand. Where did we go wrong?”
“What am I going to do?”
“You’re going to die a virgin,” Jasmine said, shaking her head.
“Third time’s the charm,” Erika insisted. “We’ll find you another date. Harrogate is lousy with men.”
“Can we find one that’s not Milton?”
Jasmine served me another piece of French toast. I couldn’t remember eating the first one.
“You had the perfect man begging to come into your apartment, and you blew it.”
“He’s my boss!” I wailed.
“Even better. Bosses who sleep with their assistants aren’t looking to get attached. It’s fun stress relief. I bet he has some weird kinks too.”
Erika nodded. “Those billionaires—they’re into all that bondage stuff, I hear.”
“I don’t want to be tied up.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Erika said.
I stood up. The second piece of French toast had disappeared at some point, and I felt like I’d drunk more than my fair share of mimosas. “I need to do some work on the Rural Trust.”
“Before I forget,” Jasmine said, wiping her hands. “Parker’s jacket is dry. I steamed it, so it’s good as new.” She pulled it out of a perfectly organized hall closet.
“Thanks. I’ll take it back to him.”
“Do you need a ride back?” Jasmine asked.
“I’m good. I should walk. I need the exercise. Probably. Definitely.”
But after waving goodbye to Jasmine, I turned left instead of right.
I had lived in Harrogate long enough to know where the Svensson estate was. I had researched it when I thought Parker was going to be the answer to all my problems back when I’d first met him on the dating app. It wasn’t that far from Jasmine’s house. I would just pop the jacket over to him.
Forty-five minutes later, I realized that it was the alcohol and the sugar that had put strange ideas in my head and given me ill-founded confidence to think I could hike to Parker’s. I was not wearing the right clothes for a walk, and the estate was farther away than I had thought. It was also, I realized dejectedly when I finally dragged myself to the front of the driveway, protected by a tall fence and a locked gate.
Worse, it had started to rain.
25
Parker
My night did not end the way I wanted it to. I resisted the urge to curse when Sadie shut the door in my face. I waited a moment, hoping she would open the door and drag me inside, and then I would show her how much better I was than anything she would find on Tinder. But she didn’t. Instead of spending a night slowly fucking her while she screamed in pleasure, I walked to my car then drove home.
