by CC MacKenzie
Deciding to ignore an Olivier who was staring holes right through her, for good reason, after all she'd let him down by not controlling Fleur in the first place, Anastacia turned to face her other problem child.
The tall man behind the camera hadn't changed much. He looked as if he should be standing in front of the camera rather than behind it. He was wearing battered biker boots, pale blue jeans and a fitted short sleeved designer T-shirt worn like a T-shirt should be worn. He had a new tattoo on his right pec. A snake.
He was still built, still a good looking son-of-a-bitch.
His dirty blonde hair had grown and was bleached at the tips.
The beach-bum look went well with the deep tan.
Someone had recently been on a shoot in the sun or on holiday.
Jake Thornton had always liked the beach, liked showing off his pecs, his six-pack.
Now he turned dark brown eyes on her, sulky eyes, sexy eyes, and just like that her stomach fell to her shoes.
Just like that he made her feel somehow less than.
All it had taken was the look.
"Hi, Jake," she said.
He didn't respond or hold out his hand in greeting.
Instead, he looked right through her.
In reaction and in defence, she crossed her arms and cocked her hip.
"If you send me what you've done today," she said to Jake with a hell of a lot more confidence than she was feeling. "I'll check it out tonight. If it's all okay, we'll go ahead with the bedroom scene tomorrow."
"She'll eat him alive," drawled Jake, referring to Fleur and Olivier.
She wasn't close enough to smell him, that spicy cologne he loved.
But the sound of his voice was so familiar it threw her for a moment, made her heart do a crazy little skip and jump in her chest.
And all the while Olivier was watching them like a hawk.
"Yeah, well, he'll just need to man up, put her in her place."
Anastacia heaved a long sigh of relief as she turned, and walking fast, left the shoot.
Her heels clacked on the tiled floor of the corridor as she headed for her temporary office.
Well, that had gone... as well as could be expected.
Jake hadn't been a total prick, thank God.
But she was sure Olivier had picked up the vibe.
How could he not?
She found Linda clattering on her keyboard, talking into her headset.
"I knew it was a long-shot, thanks Lucas."
Anastacia picked up the thread of the conversation. "We can't get rid of her, can we?"
"Nope. And that's not the worst of it, check out the film so far." Linda turned the laptop.
Anastacia pulled up a chair to watch the film that had been uploaded earlier in the day.
Oh, boy.
"Dammit, dammit, he's too tense. Look at his jaw, his body language. Fleur looks as if she's got four frigging hands. She's all over him. There's no chemistry. They're supposed to be in love. And he keeps sending that look to the camera. What the hell is that?"
"Looks like suspicion, dislike, to me," muttered Linda.
Anastacia spun around to look at her. "He doesn't like the camera? He was fine with it in London."
"Not the camera, the person behind it. He doesn't like Jake."
Alarm shot through her as Anastacia's head again spun around. She stared in dismay at Linda.
"What? What did Jake say to him?"
"It wasn't what was said, it was the way Jake looked at you, which you'd have noticed if you weren't so determined to ignore him."
"What look?"
"Proprietary. Knowing. They're like two wolves with their tails in the air, circling a bitch in heat."
"Did you just call your boss a bitch?"
"Metaphorically speaking."
Anastacia plunged her hands in her hair, gripped and pulled.
"Shit. Shit. This is so not good."
"Agreed. You're going to have to talk to Jake, bygones are bygones, etc. Let's keep this professional, yada, yada. But, that's not our only problemo. Fleur is too hot to trot for our boy. And our boy isn't handling her well, probably worrying about offending her - although I seriously doubt anything could offend her. Olivier's young, not seasoned enough to deal with a man-eater like Fleur. He needs support, namely from you."
"For God's sake, it's like being back in High School."
"Yep. I recommend you bring out the cane and start to spank ass."
"You do it."
"Nope. You're the boss."
"Gee, thanks." Then Anastacia took a deep breath. "Am I difficult to work with?"
"Is that a trick question?"
"Any canes lying around?"
"Nope. But you have a perfectly good boot on your right foot. I'd use it to kick ass. The tension in that room was horrendous. All day you could cut the atmosphere with a knife."
"Jake's gonna be a big problem."
"Always was, always is. Courage, Grasshopper."
Deciding to grab the bull by the horns, so to speak, Anastacia took Jake into the corridor for a heart to heart.
"Dating a footballer, Ana? Seriously?" he sneered in a way that reminded her why she'd walked away from him in the first place. His eyes dropped to the ring on her finger and she watched with appalled fascination his jaw clench and those eyes go black with what looked like temper.
"It's none of your business who I'm dating, Jake. Let's just get on with the job, shall we?"
She was so busy staring holes in the wall next to his head, she missed the way his eyes flicked over her shoulder.
"I'll do the job okay," he muttered. "But first..."
He grabbed her.
He was a big man and he pinned her against the wall.
Her hands were trapped between his hard body and hers.
Then, quick as a flash, his mouth was on hers.
His kiss dominated even as his tongue plundered.
Shocked disbelief held her utterly still.
The smell of him, masculine, hot spice; the taste of him was so damn... familiar, it caught her so completely unaware that for a fraction, a tiny fraction of a second, she responded.
Looking for Ana, Olivier walked into the corridor.
He stopped dead.
If someone had thrust a spear into his chest it would have been less of a jolt to the system than seeing the woman who held his heart kissing another man.
He lost the ability to breathe. His breath simply left his body. Then with the first shaky inhale, rage returned with air sucked into his lungs. His hands clenched into balls of a furious violence. He envisaged those fists beating the bastard who was holding her. Beating his handsome face into a bloody and broken pulp. He actually felt the pain. Embraced it even. Hands and knuckles he imagined all bruised and bloody.
All those feelings and more roared through him within seconds.
He might be competitively lethal on the football field, but he'd never once lost his temper or raised his hand in violence. A bloody haze clouded his vision. And he knew that if he lost it, he'd seriously hurt Jake Thornton, or worse.
Breath ragged in his throat and too tight in his chest, he ordered himself to calm the hell down.
Then he heard Jake speak the words, "I've missed you, baby."
Anastacia's response, she was very pale, was to simply stare up into Jake's face.
If she'd pushed him away, slapped his face, done... something, he'd have jumped in to save his woman.
But Anastacia did none of those things, instead she just stood as if struck by lightning, staring at her ex-boyfriend. Olivier wanted to grab her, cocoon himself around her and hold her, just hold her, and never ever let her go.
Instead, he turned and walked away.
Disgust with Jake, and especially with herself, had Anastacia shove him away.
Rage rose to haze a red mist before her eyes as she used the back of her hand to swipe the taste of him from her mouth.
"What was that, Jake?" Agai
n a shaky hand scrubbed her mouth to rub out the feel of him, the taste of him and again shame slapped her hard. "How dare you touch me, kiss me, like that? What the hell do you think you're doing?"
His shit-eating grin only made her more furious with him, with herself.
"For old times’ sake, darlin’. Old times. Have you missed me inside you, Ana? The Italian stallion not keeping my little angel satisfied?"
With fury scorching her belly, Anastacia narrowed her eyes into slits, even as her heart took a hellish leap. "Seriously? This is about jealousy? I love Olivier."
His eyes slid over her shoulder, glittered strangely before they flicked back to hers.
"Really? I seem to remember you telling me you loved me, too, Ana. Even told me you'd marry me. But you just couldn't commit, could you?"
Now she blinked with a baffled bewilderment.
What on earth was he talking about?
"Still suffering from selective memory, Jake? I never told you I loved you. And I certainly never told you I'd marry you. Never. All of that was in your head and you know it. Just what the hell is going on here?"
"You kissed me right back, Ana. I felt it. You felt it. And lover boy saw it. By the look on his face, he doesn't like to share."
Her heart squeezed too tight in her chest. So tight it actually hurt so bad as she took each breath. She pressed a fist to the spot.
Jake had kissed her deliberately just to annoy Olivier?
What a bastard.
A disappointment in him, in the fact Jake could behave like that, try to hurt her and cause trouble for her, made her stare up into his face to try and read his motives for doing such a thing. All she read was malice and a bitter hatred, for her.
Revenge?
For some reason she now remembered how he'd felt inside her. Big. Familiar. Good.
Yes, things had been good, until... his passive-aggressive behaviour had become an issue. He'd been envious of how fast she'd received promotion. And he'd been obnoxious and way out of line about her relationship with Nico.
Yes, she had what many might consider a close relationship with her boss. But Nico was also a mentor, a trusted advisor and a good friend. Nothing more. Nothing less. But Jake, she remembered the vicious rows, hadn't been able to handle how much she trusted Nico Ferranti.
Nico and Anastacia had a special connection. One they never discussed, but which was simply understood by both. They'd both been children orphaned and caught in their own version of the hell in the care system. Nico in Italy. Anastacia in the UK, and both understood the emotional scars those systems had left behind. It wasn't an experience one could explain to someone who hadn't lived through it.
And with Jake, Anastacia hadn't even bothered to try.
Now she stared hard at the man who was doing everything he could to destroy what little happiness she had. And she'd be damned if she let him get away with it.
Before she kicked his balls into his throat or worse, she turned and walked away.
Jake Thornton simply wasn't worth getting herself into more trouble or wasting time over.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Still steaming, Anastacia swung into her office to find a very pale Olivier slumped behind her desk.
"Hey, you okay? Sorry about all the stupid drama with Jake, but..."
She broke off when Olivier rose, strode past her to close the door.
His furious face said it all even as his eyes roamed over her as if he'd never seen her before.
"You lied."
She blinked.
Her belly jumped not only at the tone but by the scorching heat in his eyes.
"I've never..."
"You lied to me." There was a quaver in his voice, it seemed to throb with as much hurt as fury. But his eyes, those fabulous eyes, had now gone flat and cold as he pinned her to the spot. "I trusted you with my heart, my life. And you LIED to me."
She flinched as he roared the word in her face.
Omigod.
She took a step back from the fury.
He stepped forward.
"I saw you. I saw his hands on you. I saw his mouth on yours, his tongue..." He turned away, muttering something in rough Italian before spinning back. "You didn't put up a fight."
She closed her eyes, knowing exactly which part of the kiss he'd seen. Oh, Jake had set her up so beautifully, so skilfully.
"I know what you think you saw, but..."
"Do not attempt to lie to me again. I will not tolerate it. Why did you not tell me you had feelings for another man? Why?"
Her stomach had gone to solid ice, even as a worm of cold sweat trickled down her back.
"I do not have feelings for Jake," she said in a flat little voice.
"Do you have feelings for anyone, except yourself?" he exploded, fists clenched, the knuckles white. She knew he'd never use them, never hit a woman, but still she took a step back.
He stepped forward.
"Because I loved you I bought you a ring. I bought a ring for a woman who does not deserve me or my ring. I would have laid down my life for you, Ana." Abruptly, his voice went soft, went quiet and the look in his eyes for her made her eyes sting, her lungs burn. "I see now you were never going to commit to me, to us. You were never going to marry me, were you? You made a fool of me, Ana, and I will never forgive you for it. We are finished."
The room spun sickly as she took an unsteady step towards him, reached for him.
"Olivier..."
But he held up his hand for silence.
"Go to hell, Anastacia."
She said nothing when he walked out, leaving her door wide open.
Omigod.
How had things gone so bad, so fast?
She closed her eyes.
"Anastacia?"
An angry looking Nico and a white-faced Bronte stood at the door.
Anastacia cut Nico off, simply by turning away.
Slowly, she took a breath that burned her throat, her lungs.
Then she slowly took another and another, until her battered heart beat erratically in her chest.
God, she could still smell him. The scent of her man and his signature cologne he loved so much he endorsed it.
"Ana?"
Bronte's arm was around her shoulder and that was when Anastacia broke.
Bronte held her tight as she cried into her shoulder.
She didn't see Nico's brows meet as he watched them.
She didn't see him exchange the silent message with his wife, nod once and walk away.
***
"What the fuck was that?" Nico demanded of Olivier as he barrelled through the door.
They were standing facing each other in Olivier's bedroom.
Olivier gave him the gist of what he'd seen between Anastacia and Jake.
"I do not believe it," said Nico flatly.
"She was with him all the way."
Nico shook his head, turned to bean him with a hard look.
"Was she? Was she really?"
Olivier's brow creased at the sharp tone. Nico had never spoken to him like that.
"I know what I saw."
"Did she tell you about Jake Thornton?"
Olivier shook his head.
"No. Who is he?"
"He is the man who for a year made her life a living hell."
"I do not understand."
Nico shook his head.
"Believe me, neither do I. Ana is the woman you are determined to marry, and yet it appears to me you know nothing about her. Not only that, but you are prepared to attack her and let her go because of something you thought you saw." Nico waited a beat. "Did Jake see you watching them?"
Now Olivier frowned as he remembered the way the man's eyes had narrowed. The way his hand had slid down her back to grip Anastacia's ass, as if to say, Mine.
Since his legs were threatening to give way, he sank to the edge of a chair.
"Si. He saw me."
Cue a very long silence.
A silence that went on
.
And on.
"You stupid bastard," said Nico.
"She said she had a close relationship with him."
"So? You expect a woman today to save herself for you?"
"No. Of course not."
"And yet," Nico went on relentlessly, "you were fast to jump to the conclusion that Ana was cheating or had somehow lied to you."
When Olivier simply stared at him, Nico took a deep breath and clarified things for him.
"Bronte and I heard every single word you yelled at her."
He had yelled at her. And he did believe she had lied to him. Hell, he still believed it. But now guilt over his stupid pride slapped him hard.
"Ana told you she loved you?" asked Nico now.
"Si."
"Then you will never know the hurt you have inflicted on someone who does not deserve it."
Frustration blending with fear was a toxic mix in Olivier's gut. "Who is he?"
"Perhaps," said Nico in a silky voice, "that is the question you should have asked Ana."
"Why didn't she tell me about him, about the past?"
"Again, that's a question for her to answer." Nico stood in front of him, dressed down in black jeans and buttoned down white shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He had black suede Tod loafers on his feet. Shit, it now occurred to Olivier that perhaps he and Bronte had come to Paris for a quiet and romantic break. Now Nico stared at him through narrowed eyes, spoke in a thoughtful voice, "You are in one hell of a rush to get her to commit to you, to get her to the altar. And yet it appears you do not trust her. Let me tell you something. Love without trust, is not love. I am asking myself if you are the right man for Ana. I thought you were. But now I am not so sure."
Nico walked out.
Olivier would have much preferred Nico to punch him, much preferred it to the sharp sting in his heart, his gut.
Was Nico right?
Had he really messed up?
A little voice in his head told him he had.
Fuck.
Now what was he going to do?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Pascal Wolfe was not a man who suffered fools.
So while he was standing outside his apartment block waiting for his limousine to arrive, he was wondering why he was behaving like a fool.