Sophie's Playboy (14 page)

Sophie's Playboy

by Natalie Damschroder

where the Rant and Rave crew planned their shows. He'd changed direction to investigate when the question she asked next stopped him in his tracks. "When can I meet Parker?"

"You missed your chance." Sophie's voice, as familiar to him as his own. He felt his sluggish blood start to move faster.

"Well, Juanita met this guy who wanted to go dancing, and I couldn't let her go alone." The other voice again. "I really wanted to meet Parker, Sophie, but..."

"I know. It doesn't really matter."

"Sure it does." Parker stepped into the doorway and startled the two women about to come out. He smiled. "Sorry.

Didn't mean to scare you."

The woman with Sophie was about three inches shorter, her hair longer and a lighter blond. She had a compact little body that spoke of an active lifestyle. He looked expectantly at Sophie, who waved a lazy hand at them.

"Parker, this is my sister, Brianna. Brie, Parker. There, you satisfied?" Sophie folded her arms and leaned against the wall. Parker couldn't help but compare the sisters. Brianna beamed at him, full of energy yet projecting an air of peace.

Sophie was a live wire, ready to zap anyone who dared touch her. But Parker was beginning to wonder if that was a defense mechanism, and to seek a way around it.

Maybe Brianna could help him.

"Can I take you beautiful ladies to lunch?"

Sophie rolled her eyes and let her arms drop. "Can the charm, Parker. You won Brianna over with one show. And I can't
be
won."

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Oh, no
? Parker offered Brie his arm and they followed Sophie through the maze of cubicles. "Which show did you hear?" he asked Brianna.

"The one about looping in public schools. I actually used some of your comments in a committee meeting and won a couple of converts to my side."

"Really." How amusing. Parker had taken a stance simply to rev Sophie up about the practice of linking a teacher with the same class of students all the way through eighth grade.

His "opinions" hadn't been based on his own beliefs but on a desire to watch Sophie burn.

He
really
wanted to watch Sophie burn. And not just verbally. He wanted the fire in her eyes, the crackle in her hair, to be generated by passion for him, not passion for the topic. But his knee-jerk reaction yesterday to her innocent question about kids had likely killed all opportunity to see that.

"Are you on the school board, then?" he asked Brianna.

"Oh, no, I'm on the faculty. I'm a first grade teacher."

He studied her as they paused on the outer steps to wait for Sophie to lock the door. "For how long, a year?"

Sophie stomped past them. "I said can it, Parker. Brie's not your type."

"What is my type, then?"

She whirled. "Rich widows with too much time on their hands who need a guy for no more than escort and stud service."

Parker took the hit, allowing the pain only because he saw the pain in Sophie's eyes, too. He hadn't merely alienated her 128

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with his warning last night. He'd hurt her. Remorse flooded him. He didn't know what to say. Neither, it seemed, did anyone else.

"I'll see you Monday, Parker," Sophie finally said, pulling her sister behind her.

"Nice to meet you!" Brianna called over her shoulder, stumbling as Sophie dragged her along.

Parker watched them go, bracing his hands on his hips. A sharp prod in his side reminded him of the He-man in his hand. He studied the action figure. "You had it made, old son.

You just acted macho and demanding and the women fell all over you."

Still, he thought, all was not lost. He had the power to hurt Sophie. That meant she cared. That meant there was hope.

Hope for what, he still had to determine.

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CHAPTER 8

Monday came, as it always did. Instead of getting up early and working out, then storming the office to catch up on everything from the week before, Parker dragged himself out of bed and stumbled around for a while before managing to get his act together. His secretary noted his bleary eyes and rumpled suit and clucked at him while she prepared his coffee.

"Thanks, Betty. You're a doll." He reached for the coffee and took a long, restorative gulp. "I didn't get much sleep this weekend."

"You're a nutcase, if you ask me." She bustled about, organizing the piles on his desk. Phone messages, letters to be signed, his schedule for the day, reports to review. "You need to stop playing around with that show and concentrate on your real work."

Pretending he didn't feel guilty, Parker picked up the message slips and started to sort them. "Come on, Betty, you know your job is safe."

Her back went rigid. "I'm not concerned about my job, Biff.

I'm concerned about your health. You look like death is banging on your door."

"It's not work that has me looking like this." He pulled the letters closer and started to scrawl his signature. Betty stood for a moment without moving, then relaxed. When he looked up to see why she was still there she was smiling, her hands clasped in front of her.

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"What?"

"It's a woman. A woman has you haggard and worried.

Fabulous!"

"Ridiculous," he scoffed, keeping his head down as if he was studying the routine letter in his hand. It wasn't ridiculous, not at all.

He pushed that thought away and wished he could push Betty away as easily. The woman was extremely professional and never interfered in his business or his personal life. But now she simply wouldn't shut up.

"Just what you need. A woman who means more to you than a little fun. Someone you won't want to fix up with a friend."

Parker sat back in his chair, stunned. "What are you talking about?"

Betty shook her finger at him and picked up his empty coffee mug. "Don't play dumb. Whenever a woman gets too serious you introduce her to some guy who just happens to be her perfect match."

"I—"

"Don't interrupt." She strode to the coffee pot next to the sink. "No one gets hurt. Not you, and not the little fluffmuffin."

He couldn't help but smile. "Not all the women I date are fluffmuffins. Some are very smart."

"But not a one seems to realize what you're doing." She set the coffee in front of him again and straightened. "Tell me, Mr. Noble. Who is Vanessa Whitehead seen with these days?"

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He winced. "My cousin Chip. They have a big real estate deal going on."

"Mm-hm." She gave him a case-resting look and swept toward the door. "I just hope this Sophie woman knows what she has in her hands."

She shut the door on that compliment. Parker shook his head and turned back to his desk. The routine stuff was easy to get out of the way, but he couldn't concentrate on the reports. He kept thinking about the trip to the Cape this week for the Fourth. He and Sophie had gotten the day off, and thanks to Mare he didn't think she'd back out now. Thinking about being alone with her for the drive there and back caused him to read the same statistics three times before he realized they meant trouble.

He was getting more than his share of that lately.

* * * *

Sophie fussed with the full skirt of her halter-style sundress. The three hundred dollar dress should fit right in with the snooty crowd she expected, but the skirt didn't hang right. She grabbed a belt from its hanger in the closet and cinched the dress around her waist. There, that was better.

Her sandals had slight heels and she hoped they wouldn't make her feet hurt. She'd been wearing sneakers to work and had grown used to being comfortable.

She studied her makeup. Light, in a concession to the heat. Just enough eyeliner to define. The lipstick was wrong, though. She wiped it off with a tissue and tried to find one 132

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that matched the flowers in her dress. She was still rooting when the phone rang.

"Sophie, darling!"

She blew out a breath. "Happy Fourth, Mom."

"I just couldn't let the day go by without talking to you.

We are
so
going to miss having you here for the Brook Hollow Independence Day festival."

Her mother rambled on. Sophie tried to decide if the call was good or bad for her nerves. She lifted a hand to her hair and wondered if the French braid was too "sweet." It wasn't really her. She looked at the clock and decided to leave it.

"Anyway, enough about all that. I wish you were coming home, sweetie. It's been ages since we've seen you."

"And now I'm the only bird away from the nest and you worry too much about me. I'll come home for a weekend soon, okay? Parker will be here any minute. I've got to go."

"Okay, well, have a great time, enjoy the Cape—I wish we were going with you!—and make sure you wear sunblock.

And—"

"Thanks, Mom, I will. Bye!"

Sophie eased the phone down and let it drop into the cradle. She sighed at how exhausting conversations with her mother could be.

The next five minutes seemed interminable. She gave up on the lipstick and just put on a frosted gloss. Perfume would be a mistake, as she'd be outside in the humidity. She didn't want to draw mosquitoes and flies and bees. She only wanted to draw Parker.

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No
, she didn't. She stalked to the bedroom to grab the foolish little purse that matched her shoes and held her driver's license and lip gloss. She looked at it in disgust.

Impractical and dainty, it wasn't like her any more than her hair was. She was acting like someone she wasn't and thinking she wanted something she didn't.

She was old enough to stop looking for an interesting time with a guy with no care for the future. She was smart enough not to waste time with a guy whose goals were diametrically opposed to hers. She was secure enough to nurture a friendship with her on-air partner without believing it could be more, that she could change him.

She stopped pacing and paused in the middle of her living room, then took a deep breath and relaxed. She liked Parker and was happy to be friends with him. She didn't want more, and this nervous twitting about was ridiculous.

The doorbell rang and she was relieved to find that her pulse didn't jump. At least, it didn't jump until she opened the door.

"Parker." She swallowed hard against the dryness in her throat. The navy polo shirt and khakis weren't anything special, but the man inside them was.

Maybe she should just sleep with him and be done with it.

"Sophie." His once-over took her in from the top of her loosely braided hair to the tips of her pink-painted toenails.

He cleared his throat. "No, ah, red-white-and-blue today?"

She shook her head as she stepped out and locked the door behind her. "I don't usually wear any of those colors.

Not in a dress, anyway. Sorry for the lack of patriotism."

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"You're forgiven." His eyes blazed briefly, then they were walking down the sidewalk to his Porsche.

"No giant ego-mobile today?"

Parker grinned at her as he opened her door. "No, just the little ego-mobile."

Once Parker was settled in the driver's seat, Sophie asked,

"What is it about rich guys and their vehicles, anyway? Don't you think it's stereotypical of you to drive a Porsche and a giant SUV?"

"Sure. But it's just as stereotypical that women dig 'em."

She tossed her hands. "I give up."

"We should do a show on the topic," he said.

Sophie itched for a pad. "You're right!"

"Under the seat."

She looked at him. "What?"

"There's paper under the seat."

Sophie reached down and immediately found a leather folio with a legal pad and Waterman pen. She flipped it open.

"Theme. Stereotypes or men's egos?"

"Ha. Stereotypes."

She wrote it at the top of the page and underlined it. She loved the feel of the pen stroking across the paper, the warmth of the metal under her hand. She might have to save up for one of these.

"We've got men and cars as one."

"
Women
and men and cars."

"Women can't drive," Sophie offered, writing as fast as they talked.

"Men are too aggressive on the road."

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"Truck drivers and all the things they supposedly do wrong." Sophie tapped the end of the pen on the pad. "Maybe we can get some calls from drivers who can tell us what people in cars do wrong around trucks. What else?"

"Road crews," Parker offered, pointing to a quiet work area up ahead. "Standing around instead of working."

"State workers in general."

They brainstormed for another ten miles before they ran out of steam. Sophie grinned at Parker. This was much more fun than she'd expected. They were getting close, though, and she didn't know what she was getting into.

"Tell me about your family," she said, after tucking the pad away. "Who am I meeting?"

Parker's hands flexed on the wheel. "Well, you're meeting more than family. But the basics are my dad, my stepmother, and Mare and the kids." He looked over his shoulder before changing lanes to pass a slow-moving minivan. "Dad's Biff the Senior, I'm Biff the Second at these things. Everyone calls me Biff except Mare and my stepmother, Fawn." He glanced over at Sophie. "Fawn is a stereotype, too."

"Trophy wife?"

"Undoubtedly. She's younger than I am and doesn't like to be reminded of that, so she calls me Parker. And Mare hates the name Biff."