by Alice Raine
‘Just give him two minutes, OK?’ Sasha implored, before promptly closing the door on me.
‘Hey!’ I slammed my fist on it, but the catch had slipped into place, and the door wasn’t budging an inch. She was supposed to be my best friend, the bloody traitor! I couldn’t believe she’d done this.
‘Robyn, please can we talk?’ Oliver’s pleading tone broke through my irritation at Sasha, and, after a calming breath, I reluctantly swivelled and faced him.
Oliver tried to step closer and touch me, so I sidestepped him and leaned on the opposite wall, crossing my arms defensively across my chest and shaking my head, hoping that I’d made my need for distance obvious.
He let out a heavy sigh, but nodded his understanding, then shoved his hands into his trouser pockets as if that was the only way he’d manage to keep his hands from reaching for me.
‘I don’t think we have anything to talk about, Oliver. You made it perfectly clear that you don’t trust me, and as far as I’m concerned, without trust, a relationship is worthless.’
Oliver ran a hand through his hair in agitation, leaving half of it tumbling across his brow and the other half in a messy mop on the top of his head. Narrowing my eyes, I realised that he looked far more unkempt than usual; scruffy stubble covered his chin, his shirt was partly untucked, and his suit was crumpled, as if he’d slept in it. Come to think of it, I was pretty sure that was the same navy pinstripe he’d been wearing days ago when we’d had our argument, so maybe he had been sleeping in it.
‘I completely agree, but you need to know that I do trust you, Robyn, more so than you can know.’
A dismissive noise rose in my throat as I recalled his cold, hurtful words from the other day – is it mine? – and I shook my head as my eyes fluttered shut.
‘I know I said some hideously hurtful things, but before you send me away, I at least want you to understand why. Please, just give me five minutes?’
The sudden appearance of Oliver on my doorstep finally caught up with me, and I found myself completely unable to reply. A dizzying amount of conflicting emotions were spinning in my brain, and I felt sick as I pressed a hand against the wall behind me to try to steady myself.
As I tried to sieve through all of the chaos in my scrambled mind, one thing leaped out at me as being important, so I quickly blurted it out. ‘There’s no baby, Oliver. I was wrong. I got my period on Friday night, so you don’t have to pretend to be chivalrous and support me.’
He didn’t flinch at my words. Instead, there seemed to be a shadow of disappointment on his features as he nodded slowly. ‘I know, Sasha just told me, but that’s not why I’ve come here today. I don’t have to pretend with you, Robyn, not about anything.’
What could I say to that? I had no idea where all this was heading, but I tried to stay resolute, remembering how upset I’d been in his office when I’d walked away from him nearly a week ago.
Oliver lowered his dark eyes to my clenched fist, and I watched his gaze soften slightly as he realised it was the iPod that I was clutching.
‘Does this mean you liked my gift?’ he asked quietly, and as I became aware of the soft music still playing in one of my ears a small dry sob caught in my throat. ‘That’s the reason I haven’t come around to see you sooner. I suspected you wouldn’t agree to see me, so I wanted to finish off the playlist so at least you would have some understanding of how I feel about you.’ He paused, taking a small step closer to me that made my breath catch in my throat. ‘Did it work? Do you know how I feel, cariño?’
He cared for me a great deal, that much was clear from the deep, expressive lyrics, but that hardly compared to the all-consuming love I felt for him. In the end, I shrugged, but didn’t reply.
Oliver placed one finger on my chin and gently tipped my face up so our gaze met. The denim blue of his eyes seemed to be swirling with emotion, and with the capturing intensity of his stare there was no way I could look away. ‘Pregnant or not, I love you, Robyn.’
Oh God. Now he’d gone and said it. Just as his eyes were imploring me to believe him, my legs suddenly failed me, my knees buckling as I started to slide down the wall.
‘Woah!’ Oliver didn’t let me get far, and smoothly scooped me into his arms to cradle me against his chest. It felt so reassuring to be back in his arms, so right, that it seemed pointless to struggle, so I didn’t. I simply let my body go lax in his strong grip.
‘Can I take you inside?’ he whispered above me.
With a heavy sigh, I nodded my head once.
As if by magic, the door to the flat opened as we approached, and Sasha, my traitorous bestie, who had obviously been watching us through the spyhole, pulled it wide open with a flourish.
Slamming her hands on her hips, she raised her eyebrows and glared at Oliver. ‘I’ve helped you out way more than you deserve, mister, so be warned, you hurt her again, and I’ll kill you.’ She jabbed him in the biceps with one pointed finger, and winked at me before disappearing towards the lounge.
‘That’s me told,’ Oliver murmured as he adjusted me in his arms.
With Sasha now draped across a sofa, we didn’t have many locations left for a private talk, and so, without saying a word, Oliver strode with purpose towards my bedroom. I suspected this had been Sasha’s intention all along. I wasn’t sure I was quite ready to be alone with him in such a personal space, but we did need privacy for this discussion.
I still couldn’t quite face all that was happening here, so, instead of trying to deal with it yet, I shut my eyes and turned my face into his collar. Even if this turned out to be the last time I saw him, at least I’d be able to remember how he smelled, looked and felt.
‘I wouldn’t breathe too deeply. I haven’t been home since I last saw you, so I haven’t changed my clothes. They probably reek.’
My mind was suddenly filled with images of Alex sashaying towards Oliver’s office as I left over five days ago, and for an awful second, I wondered if he’d been staying with her. ‘Where have you been, then?’
Oliver kicked my bedroom door shut and gently placed me on the bed. He helped me remove the iPod which had got tangled between us, before standing back and raising an eyebrow at me in apparent amusement.
‘From your tone, I take it you think I was with someone else, which I was not.’ He undid his tie and threw it onto my dressing table before standing back and sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘I didn’t want to go home and face a dressing down from Tía for screwing things up with you, so I’ve been sleeping at my office in the club,’ he admitted. I almost laughed at his rueful expression and words, because the sight of a grown man worrying about what his aunt thought was really quite amusing. ‘There are showers at the club, but unfortunately I didn’t have any spare clothes in my office, so I’ve been wearing these all week. They’re disgusting.
‘I was on my own,’ he added, apparently seeing something in my expression. ‘Once you left, I debated chasing after you, but I knew I’d messed up badly and so decided to give you some time to cool off while I worked out how I could try and make amends.’
‘I know Alex came to your office with your favourite whiskey,’ I murmured, hating how needy I sounded, not to mention hypocritical – this whole issue was because I didn’t think he trusted me, and now here I was doubting him. God, what a mess.
‘She did,’ he agreed with a nod. ‘I kept the whiskey, but I sent her away.’ He tilted his head to the side, observing me and giving me time to think. ‘If you stop for a second to consider it, you know I’d never cheat on you, Robyn. Just as I know you would never cheat on me. It’s instinctive, we’re meant to be together. No one else can compare.’
I drew in a sharp breath at the complete conviction in his voice. He wasn’t putting it out there as a possibility – he was stating facts.
Oliver lifted a hand to his chin and rubbed at the rough stubble there before giving me an imploring look. ‘When I asked if the baby was mine, it was a knee-jerk reaction. I
trust you implicitly, I do. I honestly wasn’t thinking straight …’
I sat myself upright on the bed and wrapped my arms around my knees. ‘But why? You say you trust me, but then why was that your initial reaction? I don’t understand.’
And I really didn’t. Apparently, he not only trusted me, but loved me too. I still hadn’t even begun to try and process that little nugget of information, but if that was the case, how could he have been so hurtful?
Oliver dropped his head for a second, took several deep breaths, and raised his eyes to mine again, but this time his deep blue pupils almost looked black. ‘Because it’s happened to me before.’
My eyebrows flew up in surprise, then I frowned, remembering Alex’s words in his office, where she’d said I was a cunning bitch, just like Abi. Was that who he was talking about?
‘You might recall I told you that I stopped dating after my relationship with Abi?’ he murmured, sinking down onto the stool by my dressing table.
It looked like my suspicion was correct. This was about Abi. I nodded but, not knowing what else to say, I remained quiet.
‘She was the first girl I’d developed real feelings for. In hindsight, I now know that it wasn’t love, but at the time it felt quite potent.’ He sat back, avoiding eye contact with me as if he were lost in a world of his own. ‘We’d been together nearly a year when she told me she was pregnant. We’d always used contraception, so as you can imagine, it came as quite a surprise.’ His eyes closed, and I saw his teeth clench and a muscle jump along his jaw. ‘It wasn’t ideal, we were both still quite young, but I told her I’d stand by her, support both her and the child.
‘Abi suggested we got married, and seeing as I liked her and was already earning significantly more than her, it seemed a good solution.’ Oliver drew in a long breath and raised his gaze to meet mine. ‘We were engaged and had set up joint bank accounts by the time I found out that she’d been cheating on me all along and that the baby probably wasn’t mine.’ He let out a humourless bark of laughter, and shook his head in disgust. ‘I’d never suspected a thing.’
Holy shit! My mouth dropped open in surprise, but I could see Oliver wasn’t finished with his tale yet.
‘Predictably, we argued. I confronted her about the other man, and she finally confessed that she was in love with him, and that they hadn’t used protection, which was why she thought the baby was his.’ He stopped to pull in a shuddering breath then continued. ‘He was a dropout who wouldn’t ever be able to provide for her and the child, so she’d decided to marry me instead. The safer option.’ He shook his head again, presumably with the revulsion that I also felt. ‘I threw her out, and about an hour later, she emptied out the joint bank accounts and has never been seen since.’
It was like a film script. It was so dramatic I could barely take it in. He’d lost his girlfriend, the potential of becoming a father, and all his money in one day?
Wow. No wonder he had given up on dating. And who the hell could simply see Oliver as “the safer option”? He was gorgeous, caring, confident and powerful … He was everything I looked for in a man and more. There was no way he could be seen as a second choice.
‘I got a letter a year later. It had a print-out of a DNA test in it that proved the baby wasn’t mine. No apology, though, and no return of the thousands of pounds she’d stolen from me.’ Oliver shrugged and let out a long breath as if finally letting go of his painful memories. ‘So there you have it. I got royally fucked over by a woman and that’s the real reason I haven’t dated since.’
A tense silence hung between us, and as much as I knew I should probably say something to console him, I could hardly work out where to start. ‘Oliver … I … I would never do that to you,’ I stated with complete and utter conviction.
Oliver stood and moved across the room so swiftly that I hardly saw him coming, but as soon as he reached the side of the bed he dropped to his knees and took hold of my hands. ‘I know. Please, you don’t need to say it, Robyn.’
‘I could never cheat, you’re too important to me,’ I whispered, and as I spoke I realised I was talking as if we were still together, whereas in reality, I had no clue where things now stood between us.
He let out a low groan, and lowered his lips to kiss my knuckles. ‘I can never apologise enough for my reaction when you said you were pregnant, I … I wasn’t thinking. It was a stupid response triggered by my weaknesses from the past, but believe me, I do trust you. I trust you with my life. I’m just hoping I can persuade you to let me back into yours?’
He’d hurt me with his words last week, but in reality, I now knew that his shock had been born from his own painful past. Could I let him back in? Try again?
As I was debating this, Oliver stood up. He still had hold of my hands, and after giving them a squeeze he gently laid them on my lap. ‘I tell you what, why don’t I give you some time to think this over?’
My reaction to his words was immediate, and I found myself sitting up abruptly. ‘No! Don’t go!’ I had no clue how we were going to proceed, but I knew one thing; I didn’t want him to go.
Oliver’s face softened into a hopeful smile at my reaction, and he nodded once. ‘I wasn’t going. Now you’ve let me inside you’ll need to prise me out of here with a crowbar,’ he quipped. ‘I just thought maybe I could jump in your shower to freshen up, give you a few minutes’ quiet time.’
‘Oh. OK.’
Bending forwards, he placed a brief kiss on the top of my head, then headed into the bathroom without looking back.
As soon as I heard the door click shut I collapsed backwards, the soft pillows engulfing me as if sensing the fact that I needed cocooning and comforting for a few moments, which I definitely did.
So what would happen now? Should we just carry on like we were before? Now that I knew the cause for his cold response and understood why he had reacted that way, I supposed there was nothing stopping us getting back together. He’d certainly been very remorseful about his behaviour. There was no baby to consider, I loved him, he’d said he loved me, and things between us had been incredible up until last week, so I’d have to be crazy to walk away from it.
Feeling my muscles relax for the first time in days, I enjoyed a moment of silence, then became very aware of the sound of running water coming from the shower. That meant Oliver was now naked in my bathroom.
Naked and wet.
Visions of his gorgeous body sprung to my mind: corded muscles; the smattering of hair on his chest; the infamous V that led from his belly down towards his deliciously perfect cock … A very loud swallow forced its way down my throat. I sat up, biting on my lower lip as I considered the option of going in there and joining him. After all, my period had finished now, and he hadn’t locked the door, so he’d practically invited me.
Before I’d had time to climb from the bed, there was a soft noise at my door, followed by Sasha pushing her way in without any prior warning.
‘Seriously, Sasha, you really need to knock before you barge in!’ I exclaimed in exasperation with a roll of my eyes.
Sasha glanced around the room, then stepped in with a coffee pot in one hand and two mugs in the other. ‘Nah. There’s more possibility of seeing something juicy if I don’t knock,’ she replied cheerily, clearly not caring one bit. Looking towards the closed bathroom door, she placed the coffee down and turned to me. ‘So, you guys haven’t killed each other yet then?’
Shaking my head, I gave a wistful sigh and smiled. ‘No. I don’t think we will be, either.’
‘Given that lusty look in your eye, I’d say you might be doing something else to each other in the not-so-distant future, though.’ Sasha giggled. ‘Probably just as well that I came in now and not in ten minutes, eh?’
My cheeks bloomed with heat, but I avoided too much embarrassment by standing up and shoving her back in the direction of the door. ‘Yes, especially seeing as you never bloody knock!’
‘I did the right thing getting you to talk with him
though, didn’t I?’ she asked, her expression sobering for a second or two.
I nodded, a soft smile pulling at my lips. ‘Yeah, you did. Thanks.’
She let out a relieved breath and smiled. ‘OK, good. I’m glad you’re working things out.’
‘We are.’
‘Don’t go too easy on him, Rob. Make sure he knows what he did.’ She had a point there. I’d been ready to leap in the shower and attack Oliver, but perhaps I should make him work for it just a little more.
Now that our touching moment was over, I began wrestling my bestie through the door again. As I succeeded in getting her into the corridor, she turned back to me with a grin. ‘I’m off to my spinning class, so don’t worry, there won’t be any more interruptions from me, but I want full details later.’
‘Yeah, yeah, just bugger off, would you!’
‘I’m gone,’ she replied with a wink before skipping off down the corridor giggling to herself.
Shutting the bedroom door behind her, I smiled to myself as I turned the lock, just in case she did decide to pop back, and turned back just as the bathroom door opened.
To my surprise, Oliver emerged with nothing more than a skimpy towel around his waist and a few droplets of water flowing over his skin.
‘Jesus, Oliver. Where are your clothes?’ His hair was damp and ruffled from a quick towel dry, and the light covering of hair on his chest was still flattened from the shower jets.
Oliver glanced down at his body, then slowly raised his head until he was looking up at me through his lowered brows with a wicked glint in his eye.
Oh, that was a dangerous expression.
It was also one of my favourites, which he knew, only too well. ‘Am I distracting you?’
‘Yes!’ I spluttered, not sure where to look, but finding my eyes increasingly drawn to the flimsy bit of material covering his groin. Had he deliberately picked the smallest towel I owned?