Addicted to Mr Parks (The Parks Series #2)(79)

“Fine. I like this.” I picked up the paddle and traced along the black leather. “But I prefer your hand.”

“Yeah?” He liked that news.

I agreed, looking past him and through the blacked-out windows and seeing our office building coming into view.

“Ready to jump back into reality?” he asked on a sigh.

“I’m never ready for reality.”





Chapter

Twenty-Five





“My girl, you have a letter here.”

“A letter?”

Clarke was getting his briefcase ready and nudging his head towards my desk. “Peculiar, isn’t it? Anyhow, I have a meeting. I need you to type up a couple of legal documents. Pat also has a court form for you to get finished by the end of the day.”

My groan was one Clarke was used to. I dropped my bag to the floor, kicked it under my desk, then sank down into my chair and glared at Pat. My relationship with her wasn’t great, especially after I caught her slagging me off in the toilets with her cronies. I waved Clarke off and stared at the envelope on my desk. It was handwritten to the office, and for some reason it made me feel eerie. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to open it or not.

“Evey?” The smallest one of the closeted Johns was hovering over my desk. His leopard-print glasses were placed on his head, his grey moustache thick but kept neat, and his light blue eyes were inquisitive.


“Hmm?” I questioned mindlessly and began to type my password into my computer.

“Are you, or are you not,” he bent down, mouthing the next part, “f*cking Mr. Parks?”

John was the nosiest bastard I ever did know. He was the office gossip queen and never could keep anything sacred. Leaning over to get closer, I humoured his actions with a pointed pencil. “Tell me, John. Are you f*cking the other John?”

Clearing his throat, he recoiled. “That’s none of your business.”

“And mine is yours?” He didn’t give me an answer. “Now sod off.” I brushed him and his nosiness off my desk.

I called Steph to make sure she was alright, then for the rest of the day, I threw myself into my work, because when Clarke was absent, it was extremely noticeable. He was like my wingman. My only mate in the office. The one who sort of got me. Pat, though, was acting strange. The substantial difference in her behaviour made me feel awkward.

By lunchtime, I handed Pat her court preparation papers, and she thanked me warm and kind. I seized the opportunity to pull her up on it. “Okay, this is weird.” I pointed in the space between us.

Her greying brow shifted. “Would you explain?”

“You, acting nice to me.”

Pat lowered her brown eyes to her desk and shifted her gaze, weighing up her answers. “Look, Evey. I never did quite give you a chance when you started working here. I suppose—” her sigh was trimmed with regret, “—I looked down my nose at you.”

“You did?” I scoffed sarcastically, but I gave her chance to finish.

“And I’m sorry.” Her body language switched. Switched from being the uptight Pat the Twat to becoming just a regular old boot with quite a genuine sole. “The afternoon you caught us talking about you seemed to have cut me deep. I always looked at you as a loudmouth young woman. No cares in the world. But what I saw in you was a broken soul. Disconnected and lost. I was utterly disgusted with myself for talking that way about someone I hardly know.”

“Look…” I had to stop her midsentence, because even though her words were consoling, I didn’t want her pity in any way. “Pat, you don’t have to tell me all this. We don’t get along. That’s fine.”

“No. I was wrong. And I apologise.”

“Then I accept your apology.”

Her nod was firm with a stiff upper lip. “Thank you.”

Accepting her apology or not, she was still a twat.

Lunchtime couldn’t come quick enough. I had a lunch date with the stunning male model I had the privilege of calling my boyfriend. Jesus. I had a boyfriend. I felt twelve. And on cloud bloody nine. We were going to have lunch in his office, and I’d been excited about it all morning. Clock-watching, urging the slow handles of the cycle to move faster. Finally, though, twelve o’clock arrived, but I quickly remembered the odd letter that was making its presence undeniably known on my desk. Burning a hole through the envelope. Daring me to open it.

Bloody hell. I was being ridiculous. How the hell could a letter intimidate me? I swiped it from my desk and thumbed the opening. A pile of photographs fell out of the envelope and onto my desk. They were facedown and I couldn’t see what was on them, but I caught sight of a letter tucked up inside. My heart started to race, blood pounding through my swelling veins. A sense of dread washed over me, and for some unexplainable reason, I knew the letter was from the same person dishing out all the stalking and threats. If it wasn’t Gabe and Trevor, who was it?

My hands began to tremble, my breathing shallow. Situations that were out of my control always threatened to send me into a panic attack. But I tried to hold it together.

The letter read:



Do you know what Wade got up to last night?



It fell from my hands, my fingers instantly darting to pick up the photographs. I turned them around as I studied each one. Three altogether. Bile gradually rose in my throat and began accumulating in my mouth.