Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

I drive myself over. I like driving. Don’t get to drive a lot of places because cars in London are annoying as shit. But I have a little Chiron Sport “110 ANS Bugatti” and it’s nice to take her out for a spin when I can.

The drive feels three times longer than it actually is and I’m sweating fucking bullets the entire way as I wonder whether Jo’s on the money—I think he is. Parks doesn’t sleep around. She’s not like that. I wonder for a few seconds what it would feel like to walk into her room and see another man in her bed. I hate the thought. Push it away.

I let myself in to the Holland Park house. I have a key. I don’t tell anyone I’m here. I don’t have time for her Bushka’s wandering hands today, I just need to see her.

Bust into her room, she’s lying in her bed, still under the covers—alone, thank fuck—staring straight at the ceiling. She looks up at me. Hair in ridiculously sexy disarray, mouth all blushy the way it goes in the morning, no make-up. Fuck. That face. I’d do anything for that face.

She frowns when she sees me.

“How’s the weather over there, Parks?”

She looks me in the eye, blinks a few times, then stares back up at the ceiling. Fucking icy. Shit. This is bad.

That’s our question. She never doesn’t answer.

I walk over to her bed, sit on the edge. “Oy.”

“Oh!” She sits up a bit. “How nice of that girl to remove her tongue from your mouth long enough for you to come and say good morning to me.”

“Parks—”

She looks over at me and I can tell she’s been crying a bit. They’re glassy, those eyes of hers. Extra jewel-like or some fucking shit that I’m sure I’ve fallen for a million times and I’ll fall again because look at her. It’s not fair that they do that, it’s crippling. What to say? What can I say?

“Are you okay?” I ask a bit tentatively. She looks over at me. No, is the obvious answer.

“Yes,” she says, nose in the air. She glances away from me. “Fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Why would I not be fine? Because I saw you practically fornicating in public with a rancid girl wearing a skirt from Prada’s 2017 fall collection which, if you recall, looked like its mood board was based solely upon Mackelmore’s ‘Thrift Shop’—” I try not to smile at her because I know she’s being dead serious. “I’m used to that by now,” she says and shrugs, demurely.

I sigh. “You came to the club?” She glances away again. “For me?” I ask.

She gives me a long look. Inside of it she’s crying and screaming and hitting me. But she says nothing, does nothing, doesn’t even flinch and then she says, “I went on a date with Tom England.”

“I heard.” I nod, coolly. “How was it?”

“We’re going out again tonight.”

Fuck. “What are you doing?” I frown.

“I’m going on a date with Tom England.”

“No, you know what I mean—what are you doing?” She looks away. “Why did you come to Raffles last night?” I press. Her eyes look sad and I’m worried Henry’s right.

“It doesn’t matter.” She shrugs. “I’m with Tom now.”

“You’re not with Tom.” I roll my eyes. She’s ridiculous. “You went out once. Don’t send out your save the date just yet.”

She gets out of bed—she’s barely wearing anything. Tiny baby yellow pyjamas set—starts doing fake tasks around her room. Doesn’t like being called out and I love doing it. I sit down on her bed and she comes over and pushes me off it so she can make it. Properly make it. Want to know how many times Magnolia Parks has made her own bed since she left boarding school? A grand total of zero. She might pull up the duvet once in a while herself—refer to it as a hard day’s work or some shit, but here she is making this bed with the precision of an ophthalmologist and the determination of an Olympian just so she has a reason to touch me as she yanks me off it.

I stand there watching her, arms folded across my chest, trying my best not to watch her arse as she bends over in these lacy little undies I know are from La Perla because I bought them for her. I feel relieved that she’s in them. If she hated me for real she wouldn’t have put them on. It’s how I know we’re not done.

She never gave my ring back.

We’ve had each other’s family signet rings since we were rug rats. I gave her mine the day I graduated Varley, something to remember me by I think I said, or some shit like that. It’s funny to think back now, I was definitely just marking my territory. But she wore it everywhere. Never took it off. That same Christmas she gave me her family’s ring.

I remember opening it, glancing up at her—she could have given me a Chocolate Orange and I’d have thought it was the greatest present in the world, but her ring, that she had to ask her Dad for—it was so weighty.

“You asking me to marry you, Parks?” I squinted down at her playfully.

“Not yet.” She smiled.

“One day?” I asked, brows up.

“Girls don’t ask.” She frowned, offended.

“But I could?” Me.

“You could.” She nodded, resolute.

“I will.” I nodded coolly.

She never gave it back, not even after I cheated on her. Took it off her finger. Now she wears it on an extra-long chain around her neck that no one can see, but I know it’s there. See it sometimes before she darts into the shower. Magnolia throws on another a ridiculous-looking fluffy robe.

“We are, by the way”—she calls over her shoulder—“together.”

“Bullshit.”

She tosses me her phone and on the screen is a Loose Lips blast.

HOT NEW COUPLE ALERT.

A new couple about town! It’s being reported that billionaire dream boat Thomas England has been snatched up by the ineffable and ridiculously beautiful Magnolia Parks.

Watch this space!

“So?” I shrug, but my chest is getting tight. “Everyone runs shit on us all the time. Doesn’t make it true.”

“Yes,” she walks over, talking her phone from my hand. Her hand hovers above mine, grazing it. “Except this time it’s not shit.”

I stare across at her. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m quite sure I don’t know what you mean,” she says with her nose in the air so she definitely does know exactly what the fuck I mean.

“I fucked up! It just happened! It was stupid! But—”

“Do you know what it’s like to lose you how I lost you?” she interrupts quietly. She looks at me and then her eyes fall away. “Those first few weeks after what happened and we were over, every time I closed my eyes I saw you with another girl. Every girl. Every girl in the world except for my sister and Paili, every girl we passed on the street, every bartender who looked at you longer than she needed, every waitress who held your eyes when you gave her your card, the girl who works in Saint Laurent, the old girls from Varley, girls from shoots you did—it was a supercut of you and them in every way and position my mind could come up with, trying to imagine what the fuck they did for you that I couldn’t do. Because I would have done anything for you—”

Her eyes are too heavy for me to hold on to anymore. I feel sick.

“And I thought you knew that. And I think you did? Didn’t you? Surely you did.” She’s looking for an answer I can’t give. “All this time I thought it was me, something wrong with me, some deficiency in me, something I couldn’t give you, but now, having seen you, seen what you’re like when I’m not there—it’s not.” Her voice goes soft. “It’s not me, it’s you. You’re just…a slut.”

She delivers this with straight-faced perfect execution.

I glare over at her. “Take it back.”

“Why?” She shrugs insolently. “What are you going to do? Fuck someone else? Fuck me over? Make me look like a fucking, goddamn fool?” She swallows, composes herself. “You’ve already done that.”

“Parks.” I grab her by the wrists.

“Let me go.” She pulls away, fighting me.

“No.”

“Let me go!”

“I can’t.” My chest feels like it’s heaving.

She shoves me away and I look at her with ragged eyes.

“I reckon it’s time you left, Beej,” says a quiet voice from the door. Bridget’s there in the doorframe, watching on, brows low.

I let out an incredulous laugh and walk out the door of the girl I love, brushing past her sister and walking as quick as I can down the stairs.

“It’s getting a bit old, don’t you think?” Bridge calls after me. I stop halfway down and look back.

“Your sister’s serial dating?” I scoff. “Yeah.”

She nods. “Also, you fucking anything you can just to hurt her… bit tired at this point”

I shake my head. “I’d never do anything to hurt her.”

“Don’t bullshit me.” She’s annoyed. “No one needs as much sex as you have, and even if they do, which they don’t, by the way, because if they needed it, they’d be an addict. Are you an addict?” She gives me a long look that makes me feel uneasy about myself. “But let’s say, for shits and giggles, you did need it—you don’t need to tell her every time you have it. You tell her to hurt her.” She folds her arms over her chest. “You have sex with other people and tell her because when you do, it makes her sad and her being sad about that validates your feelings for her. She still cares. She wouldn’t be sad otherwise. She’s sad that I’m sleeping with other people, it must be because she still has feelings for me. You do it to feel close to her.”

I scowl up at her, equal parts annoyed and confronted. “I don’t need a psychology lecture, Bridge.”

“No, Beej.” She gives me a pointed look. “You need a therapist.”