Addicted to Mr Parks (The Parks Series #2)(120)

Pushing up from the bed, I was careful not to rub my backside against anything because I knew it would sting and dragged my body upwards, wrapping myself within the sheets. The material chafing against my backside made me wince. He saw the pain etched upon my face and almost broke down.

“I’m such a sick f*ck,” he bellowed, his voice strained as he so desperately tried to knock back tears. The sight stunned me. His soul was so wounded, deep and indebted into hell that he saw no way out. He hated himself. It was a sight that made my heart bleed for him. He’d taken me out of my own darkness but pulled me into his.

“Wade, I…” I couldn’t look at him.

“You hate me. Of course you do.”

My head shook telling him no, but a lump in my throat strangled words, tears falling heavily.

“No.” He cupped my face with his hands and wiped my tears. “Please don’t cry. I’ll soothe the pain. I will.”

My head bowed down into my lap. “It’s not my pain that’s breaking my heart. It’s you.”

I heard his gasp. “Then punch me, Evelyn. Kick me, beat me, because that’s what I deserve.”

“No, you don’t,” I wailed. “You need help.” I was begging him over tears, forming words over a swollen throat. “People like us don’t deserve the worst, Wade. We deserve to be treated as equal.”

“Princess,” he breathed raggedly, green eyes looking lost and deep in my breaking soul. “I’m not good for you. I am going to drag you down with me. I’m going to make your life darker than it ever was. I can’t break you again. I love you too much.”

“Don’t say that.” I touched his face as he crouched in front of me. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

He shook his head determinedly as he held his hand over my fingers that were cupping his face. “We’re going to tear each other apart, Evelyn. Two broken souls can never make a whole.”

“You don’t mean that.” I was mentally praying he wasn’t about to do what I so desperately feared. Wade Parks was my complete and utter solace. He was my peace. My life. He always seemed the strongest one in our relationship. The one holding us together. But holding us together and focusing on getting me better made him take a step back from his own issues. Now was the time to take that step forward and address them. Work though them. I also hoped to God I was strong enough for him.

“Wade, you’re such an amazing person. I’d probably be dead right now if it wasn’t for you. Please don’t say that being together will tear us apart. Being alone is the only thing that will kill us.”

He distanced himself from me and wandered across the room to a chair. He sat and rested his elbows on his knees, head bowed between his legs, looking like a man that had bad memories eating him alive. In that moment, far gone was the controlled and confident, cocky, arrogant arse I first met.

“Talk to me,” I pleaded, edging towards him.

His swallowed harshly and spat it out. “He abused me. He abused my mother and sister.”


His words wrapped around my lungs, knocking out my breath and halting my step. “What?”

Parks ignored me. Speaking to the wall rather than to me. His eyes blacked out. “I took the worst beatings from him every damn day. I took beatings from him to protect Jasmine. To protect my mother. I could never stand hearing them cry out in pain. I took beatings from him when my grades weren’t good enough in school. He broke my fingers when he heard I played one note out of tune at the piano. I was a kid, for f*ck’s sake. He punished me. Mentally tortured me. I was never good enough for him. Everything I did was never good enough.”

“Your father?” My hand went to my mouth to suppress the building sob that was begging to escape me. It hurt my throat to keep it in, and my eyes started stinging from a new buildup of fresh tears.

“My mother is scared of him, but she stays because she loves him.” His eyes closed agonizingly before he glanced up at me. “Just like you’re staying with me.”

“No.” My words came over the painful ache that stabbed me in my chest. “I’m not scared of you.”

“And now,” he went on, “I have adopted his ways. Punishing women when they do wrong. I was so angry he humiliated me. So that’s what I’ve done to women. Trying to find out what he got out of it. What he got out of punishing and subduing.” He closed his tightly, the demon in his head taking over. “I’m a sick f*ck,” he repeated. “You need to leave.”

“No,” I wailed, holding on to his arms as he stood up. “Please. Don’t make me leave.”

I was sobbing. My heart cut in two. One half was throbbing from the pain I felt towards his childhood. His father abusing him. Telling him he wasn’t good enough. The other half was dying because he thought he couldn’t stay with me. Thought he was going to hurt me.

“Is that why you’re so controlled?” My voice became hoarse. Tears emptying. The pain I felt as I sensed Parks slipping away from me was going to hurt more than the cane did.

He nodded, his expression ice-cold. “My life has become adsorbed in the need to become the one in control. My father controlled my life for so long. Everything I said or did. My goal was set on getting my own things in life and being in control of them. Businesses. Women. Nothing and no one will ever control my life again. I am in control now.”