by Tara Pammi
“Not even a little kick at the sexual thrall you have me under?”
Her heart kicked against her breast. “No,” she repeated louder, a surge of anger diluting the thrill his words did evoke. “I understand that what would be a minor matter of an inconvenient attraction to any other man is of utmost significance to you. Because your control over what you let yourself feel is what defines you, isn’t it? And the fact that you can’t lock it away, that you can’t turn it off is driving you nuts. So, no, I can’t rejoice in the fact that you despise me because you’re failing in your own eyes.”
“I don’t despise you, Olivia.” He tilted her chin in his hands, his touch infinitely gentle. It took everything within her to hold his gaze. “It would be easier if I did but I don’t.”
“No? Only yourself, then,” she said, feeling battered. After that night, she knew how much it cost him to admit what he did just now, yet she felt nothing but hollow inside. How could she be so drawn to a man who was out of her reach on every level there was? “When a man is attracted to me, I want him to embrace the fact, not think it’s beneath him. Whatever my past mistakes, I deserve that much.” Her words sounded confident, defiant even, yet the fact that she had never met such a man nor probably ever would was a painful knot in her stomach.
She braced herself from some caustic remark about her past. Instead, he tucked her arm around his and leaned back into his seat.
They sat in silence like that for a while. A warm and fuzzy feeling uncurled in her stomach as she studied his profile. Even as she fought it, the truth crept in. Alexander, she realized with a slow, agonizing breath, could crumble her good intentions to protect her heart with one simple look or a heartfelt smile.
“Carlos informed me today that Kim never left the island,” he said, gazing straight ahead. “She’s still there.”
Olivia pulled back with a jerk, guilt a constant, heavy shackle she couldn’t shake. It was like a house arrest bracelet that screeched every time her heart ventured into forbidden territory.
Tight grooves bracketed his mouth. “I was a jerk when all you did was help.”
She tried to remind herself of the anger, the frustration she had felt that night when he’d blamed her for everything. But she had to admit that anyone who knew Kim would have doubts believing that she had fled her own wedding. For a man who dealt in absolutes, who never was plagued by doubts, Kim’s actions wouldn’t make sense, especially because he had believed her to be above it all.
“That’s all I get?” Her heart beat a stuttering tattoo against her rib cage. “If I remember right, I said I would settle for nothing but a grovel. And before you say you don’t know how, let me tell you. You go down on your knees, spread your arms wide, kiss the ground at my feet and say ‘Oh, great Olivia, please forgive me’.”
He burst out laughing, the sound of it rippling over her. A couple of women stumbled to a stop by their table and slid long glances at him. But his gaze didn’t turn from her.
“That’s what I like about you, your unending optimism.” His eyes sparked blue, the curve of his sensuous mouth lifted at the corners. He looked breathtaking, laughter etched into the stark lines of his face. “What can I do instead of the grovel?”
“Keep smiling like that.”
His sinful mouth still curved, he shot an eyebrow up.
Breathe, Liv. “I mean, you rarely, if ever, laugh.” She drew her brows together in mock seriousness. “It’s always—make sure Emily’s okay, make sure my billion dollar empire is fine, make sure Olivia is not up to trouble. I agree the brooding look is definitely sexy, but when you laugh, you just...” She sighed, and shut her mouth, the amusement inching into his gaze heating up her cheeks.
He leaned forward. “Maybe it’s the present company that hasn’t given me much reason to laugh? Between figuring out where Kim is and trying not to forget I have some sense of right and wrong, which believe me is very hazy right now, maybe brooding is all I have left.”
Loaded silence hummed around them for a few seconds before they both burst out laughing.
“After dinner, we can—”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t stand another business dinner.”
What she couldn’t bear was the sense of inadequacy that was becoming second skin again. She had spent the better part of her life wishing she was more like her twin, had barely managed to train herself to accept that she would never even come close.
And every second she spent with Alexander, a little of that acceptance crumbled.
When he opened his mouth, she forged on, refusing to let him interrupt. “Even couples honeymooning need a break from each other, don’t they? Or if that ruins the image of perfect marriage you’re supposed to have, you can tell them I’m tired from all the crazy monkey sex we’ve been having...”
Their gazes collided and held, her breath hitching in her throat. The blue of his pupils darkened. He leaned back into his chair, moving his neck this way and that. “Crazy monkey sex, huh? Is this your way of punishing me because I didn’t believe you? Because it’s working.”
She stood up on shaky knees.
“I’ll cancel tonight’s dinner. There’s a runway show that you might like.”
Warmth exploded in her chest. The fact that he belonged to Kim should be more than enough to kill the attraction. Her sister loved him, deserved him, and even the unbidden rush of pleasure Liv felt at the prospect of spending the day with him was wrong. “You don’t have to spend—”
“We’re family. It’s time we learned to get along.”
She fell back to the cobbled ground with a thump. “You really know how to make a girl feel all special inside, don’t you?” She glared at him. “If you’re worried I’ll make a spectacle of myself somewhere—”
“I’m not.” He grabbed her wrist when she pushed her chair back, locking her in place. “I’m extending the olive branch. We’re going to feature in each other’s lives whether we like it or not.” His thumb moved over her skin, sending flares of sensation rippling over her skin. “And I had no idea how hard all this was on you.”
She had, but for all the wrong reasons. With each passing day, Jacques had moved further and further back in her mind, Alexander now occupying the front and center position. She locked her trembling hands in her lap.
Nice move, Liv. From frying pan into the fire.
Refusing to meet his gaze, she pushed her cup back on the table. “Pfft... This...thing between us? Being attracted to totally unsuitable men is kinda the running theme of my life, as you already know.” She really deserved an award for her acting skills. “It’s you who seems to be—”
“I mean—to pretend you were Kim.”
She hated how easily he saw right through her, how easily he turned her inside out with a few kind words. “I love my sister. I’ve never begrudged her her success or anything else that she’s achieved.” That was mostly true, except for the man staring at her with an intensity that could crumble her already-weak will.
He nodded, his gaze searing through the false smile she forced to her mouth. She yanked her handbag over her shoulder and stood up, eager to escape.
Leaning his head against the chair, he closed his eyes. She greedily drank the sight of him without the piercing gaze assessing her. “The limo is at your disposal. Do what you want.”
“I don’t want...” He was right. He was going to be a permanent fixture in Kim’s life which meant she had to learn to tolerate his presence without going all hormonal and moony over him. Or at least learn to act normal despite feeling hormonal and moony.
“Were you serious about us spending the day together?”
He shrugged in that I-don’t-give-a-damn kind of way.
“You really are good for my ego.”
“At least I’m not recoiling at the idea as you seem to be.” He opened
his eyes and leveled a curious look at her. “Would it help if I said I was mildly looking forward to it?”
“Okay, I can live with mildly,” she said, tongue-in-cheek. “But you have to give up the control-meter for once.”
“The what?”
He looked so uncharacteristically slow that she laughed. “I’ll decide what we’re going to do and you have to go along.”
“And what’s that?”
“Oh, come on, Alexander. This is going to be fun.” She clutched his hand and tugged him up, knowing exactly what he needed. She was getting better at breathing through the thump-thump of her heart as his large brown hand enclosed hers. “You know, doing something spontaneous and crazy, something you can’t control to the last minute, fun.”
* * *
Alexander had never felt such unrelenting curiosity before as the limo took off through the streets of Paris and entered the A1. All through the drive, Olivia refused to reveal anything, literally bouncing in the seat.
He felt like a kid who had been granted a special treat, at least that’s how he imagined he would have felt if he had been a carefree kid. When he moved to lower the tinted windows to get a clue as to their destination, she batted his hand away. “Don’t make me blindfold you.”
He listened with increasing amusement as she chatted on about the time she had spent in Paris before, about the changes in the city, the number of times she had gotten into trouble and not once did the shadow of her disastrous affair mar her lit-up gaze. He had no idea what had changed but he was extremely glad for it.
Grinning from ear to ear, he leaned back into the seat, his curiosity spiking exponentially with each passing minute. He already knew they weren’t going anywhere formal. With her hair tied up in a high ponytail, dressed in denim shorts and a Hard Rock Café tee, Olivia looked unbelievably cute, not that he could tell her that. And she had made sure he had dressed down, too, in shorts and a polo T-shirt.
Today, more than any other day, since they had arrived, they looked exactly what they were pretending to be. A couple honeymooning in Paris with no pressures from the outside world, drastically different from what he would have been doing if Kim were here. Even the reminder of what Kim had done didn’t dilute his excitement.
The limo came to a smooth stop. “You ready?”
He nodded, the eagerness with which he was looking forward to it quite novel in its intensity.
They stepped out of the limo, and a drone of excitement reached his ears. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his shorts, and looked around, a strange little pang clenching and unclenching his gut.
Happy voices and smiling faces washed over him, the buzzing din of it rippling along his skin in an unfamiliar way. Unfamiliar but not grating. He didn’t know what he had expected. But it hadn’t been this.
They were at an amusement park. It was a perfect summer day, and the park was filled with kids and adults making the best out of it.
His first instinct was to turn around and walk away.
He stood unmoving as Olivia waved away the chauffeur and sauntered toward the ticket booths. Almost as if she knew to let the place and the noise around them seep into him for a few minutes. His gaze followed her hungrily as if she was his lifeline. The only time he had been at a park, of any kind, had been on his seventh birthday when he had spent the few hours watching his parents fighting like alley cats and paparazzi parked outside the gates.
The slight dimming of Olivia’s smile as she reached him with tickets in hand knocked the memory on its head. If nothing else, he would stay to not spoil the day for her.
Her gaze lingered on him as she waved the tickets. “What? Don’t tell me your time is too precious for a roller coaster.”
He fisted his hands in his pockets, striving to keep his tone normal despite the strange heaviness in his throat. “I’ve never been on one.”
She widened her eyes and fluttered her lashes innocently, or as close to innocence as the minx could manage. “Oh, really? Then you’re in for a treat.”
He rolled his eyes and smiled, letting her tuck her arm through his. “I’m glad you’ve given up on being an actress. Because, frankly, you suck at it.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” She nudged him forward and they fell into a comfortable stride. “And before you get ideas, the only reason we’re here is because after almost a week of pretending to be supersmart and in love with you—I’m not sure which was harder by the way—I need to unwind.”
He looked sideways at her. Her skin glowed in the sun, her eyes twinkled. “Why am I even remotely surprised that an adrenaline-pumping roller coaster is what would loosen you up?”
Her teeth dug into her lip, and she stepped to the side, giving him a once-over. His pulse pounded. “Actually, what would loosen me up is a good, hard bout of...”
He wrapped his hand around her wrist and tugged her closer, the mere scent of her skin incredibly arousing. “You think this is funny?”
“No, but what else do you expect me to do? It is either laugh at the whole thing or...” Her brown eyes darkened. “Well, you know what I mean.”
She moved in front of him, her back to the crowd behind her. “All this deprivation and control, it might be good for the soul, but it does nothing for the body.”
* * *
Within an hour, during which they stood in line for, of course, the scariest ride in the whole park, Alexander realized how wrong he was in thinking that Olivia would be in her element on the roller coaster.
Even as excitement rose in his gut as they settled into the car and it gathered momentum across the track, inching upward toward the high point where the track started looping in, he felt Olivia tremble next to him.
She was wedged tight against him as the car careened to one side, and even with everything else around them, his skin thrummed at her nearness.
He opened his mouth and breathed through the rising hum around them, his heart pounding in his chest. He felt the grin spread across his mouth, feeling a liberation he had never felt before.
He laughed, the sound barreling out of him, as they entered a downward loop, the wind blowing in his hair, adrenaline pummeling through him. And this time, he could see their reflection in the water below as the track threw them facedown.
Olivia’s white-knuckled grip tightened on his hand, while her other hand tightened around his arm. He turned to tease her about squeezing too close to him, but the words froze on his lips.
Her skin bereft of color, her features frozen in stark terror, Olivia screamed at the top of her lungs as their car veered into another loop, throwing them upside down from a height from which people on the ground looked like colorful dots.
She screamed, the sound edged with terror.
As the third loop approached, she was shaking uncontrollably next to him, her hands clammy. His threw his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her closer to him, the strange sensation in his gut standing out even amid the thrill thrumming through his veins.
* * *
By the time they had reached the penthouse, Alexander didn’t have words to describe the day. Even in thought. The quiet joy of the evening was, quite literally, something he had never experienced before.
Olivia had been right. It was the most fun he had had in...forever. And it wasn’t just the insane roller coasters, either. It was her company, her pleasure in the smallest things that had done it. They had gone on three rides, gotten their picture taken in a booth and he had even won her a stuffed toy.
He couldn’t remember a time, even when he’d been a kid, when he hadn’t been mired by a sense of responsibility and until this moment, he hadn’t realized how much of that he had carried into his adult life.
He had made millions through sheer hard work, had taken responsibility for his sister when he’d turned twenty and he had never learne
d to laugh, to live for the moment, to lose himself in the sheer pleasure of everyday things. He hadn’t even known what he’d needed or what he’d been missing. But one thing he hadn’t missed was the fear that Olivia had felt throughout each ride.
Her long legs folded under her, she leaned back into the couch and blew out a tired breath. He swallowed and pulled his gaze from her graceful neck. Her brown eyes twinkled as they met his. “So what’s the verdict?”
“You want your pound of flesh, Shylock?”
“Yes.”
“It was more fun than I’ve had in a while.”
Her eyes bright, she smiled. She didn’t need to give a hoot whether he had or not. But she did. And the warmth in her smile stole through him.
“Even better, we didn’t argue,” she said, her gaze slipping to his mouth for the fraction of a second.
Too tired to fight his own impulses, he watched her hungrily as she walked to the refrigerator and pulled out an ice cube.
Being attracted to her when he’d considered her a selfish, scandalous epitome of everything he despised had been easy. But she was slowly turning every arrogant assumption of his into dust.
Every nerve in him tightened painfully as she ran the ice cube over her cheeks and neck, wetting her t-shirt in the process. “Thanks for today. It was a lot of fun except when you refused to share your cotton candy with me.”
He laughed out loud. “Well, you were already hyper and every time we were on one of the rides, you looked decidedly green. Now I know you’re not as fearless as you behave. Did you go on those rides just so that you could cozy up to me?”
She threw the ice cube at him. “You really think you’re irresistible, don’t you?”
He fisted his hand over the ice cube, the idea of a cold shower sounding better and better. “Not so funny now, is it?”
“Good night, Alexander.”
Shooting up from the couch, he tugged her arm. “You were terrified for every single second of those three rides. I kept waiting for you to throw up, or to say enough.”