Outmatched

“I have a real passion for green energy, Parker.”

Excited to hear that, my nervousness melted away and I found myself conversing with Diana Crichton Jones about our model, about the urgent need we had as a world, not just a nation, to introduce the right infrastructure to institute electric-only vehicles, about corruption, about the true effectiveness of wind energy, solar panels … we even talked about my little hybrid bike. She was thinking about buying one.

Diana. Crichton. Jones.

If I could convert one billionaire at a time in this country to go green, I might save the planet.

Okay, that was melodramatic, but this was exciting stuff!

“You were right.” Diana smiled at Jackson, whom I’d almost forgotten was there with Camille. “Parker is everything you said she was.”

Jackson grinned. “Yes, she is.”

Diana sobered. “I’m interested. Leave it with me.”

My boss turned serious too. “Excellent.” He raised his glass to her.

She nodded at him, then Camille, and then turned to shake my hand. “It was nice to meet you, Parker. We’ll hopefully speak again soon.”

“Yes.” I was suspicious about what had just passed between her and my boss, and those suspicions meant I hoped I’d speak with her again soon too. “I’d like that.”

With that, she departed, crossing the lawn to stop at the side of a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman who slid his arm around her waist and leaned down to whisper intimately in her ear. I turned to Jackson.

“What was that?”

Jackson was beaming from ear to ear. “I was glad I hired you when you made those changes to the model. Now, I thank fuck I hired you, Parker.”

Camille laughed at his side as my eyes widened at his effusive cursing.

“I don’t understand.”

“Hopefully, you will. Very soon.”

Suspicions formed in my head, a little glimmer in the back of my consciousness that clung to the hope that Jackson was working on replacing Fairchild. He could just be attempting to bring in a new investor alongside Fairchild so there was no point getting my hopes up.

But it was hard for a girl not to dream.

Jackson and Camille wandered off, leaving me speculating over our interaction with Diana. I searched the lawn for Rhys. He was no longer out there with Fairchild. Thankfully, I couldn’t see my parents either.

Or maybe not so thankfully.

Anxiety ripped through me at the idea they might have hunted Rhys down and were “interrogating” him. Hurrying across the lawn back to the house, relief flooded me when I saw Rhys step outside. I knew he’d been watching for me by the way he strode deliberately toward me.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, a little breathlessly. “I got caught up with Diana Crichton Jones, who is a billionaire with a passion for green energy. I think I convinced her to buy a hybrid electric bike. Can you believe that? Diana Crichton Jones on an electric bike.”

Rhys’s lips twitched as he studied my face. “Converting people to green really gets you going, huh?”

I shrugged, glancing at the party behind me. “It’s more fun than talking about terrible nannies, investments, and where I plan to summer.” I turned back to him. “FYI, I plan to summer in Boston. And by “summer”, I mean working like 99 percent of the rest of the world’s population has to do.”

He grinned. “Your family doesn’t summer?”

“When we were kids, we spent the season in our vacation home in Cape Cod, but my mom and dad only spent two full weeks of that with Easton and me. They both worked. My mom’s sister, Aunt Debbie, is a writer, so she would care for us the rest of the time. Mom and Dad would fly to the cape on the weekends and then back to New York for Monday. It was a lot. I didn’t realize that then, but they did what they could to be there for us.”

“They could’ve kept you in New York with them.”

“They could have. But summer in New York can be miserable, and our cape house is right on the beach.” I’d loved our childhood summers in Cape Cod. Until I met Theo and begged my parents to let me stay in New York so I could spend the summer with him. They’d relented.

“Speaking of your family, how’d that go?”

Remembering the lies I’d told my parents, I blanched, looking away. “It went.”

There was such heavy silence from Rhys, it drew my gaze to him. A muscle flexed in his jaw and his eyes were flat. “They’re pissed you’re dating someone like me.”

Why would he think that?

Opening my mouth to deny it, I was cut off by, “Rhys! There you are.”

Fairchild.

Something dark flickered over Rhys’s face before he turned to my boss’s boss with a strained smile. My eyes drifted over Fairchild’s determined expression, and I shivered at the hardness in his gaze.

Rhys moved into me, sliding his arm around my waist and drawing me to his side.