by Tara Pammi
She shrugged. “I know. Every time I go on one of them, I tell myself this is the time I won’t be scared. But it never works that way.”
“So you’ve done this before?”
“Yep.”
“And yet you still go, knowing that you’re going to be terrified?”
“I will never know the thrill unless I do, will I? And it’s a roller coaster. It’s not like it might kill me.”
“That’s how you do everything in life, don’t you?” His question was loaded with accusation that instantly killed the curve of her mouth. But he couldn’t stop himself. “You jump on it for the thrill and to hell with the price you might have to pay.”
“You make me sound like an adrenaline junkie.”
“More like emotion junkie.”
“Well, of course, I jinxed it, didn’t I? Truce over.” She folded her hands, gearing up for a fight. “Stop messing around and just tell me what’s bugging you.”
He felt a familiar sensation pummel through his blood, something that had once almost destroyed him. He didn’t want to feel the concern tightening his chest, especially for someone like Olivia.
Because Olivia didn’t need anyone. That was her appeal, her wild defiance of every convention, her absolute acceptance of herself. Yet his analytical mind couldn’t stop seeing the pattern of why or how she did things.
Until now he had attributed it all to recklessness, to sheer lack of concern for everything in life but her selfish pursuits, yet he couldn’t hold on to that belief now.
He caught her elbow and turned her toward him. The same pervasive thrill ran through him at her nearness.
God, he’d never been so tempted to kiss someone like he wanted to kiss her, never wanted to defy his own set of rules, everything he had built his life around. Until he met Olivia, his control, his will, had never really been tested.
“Not every thrill in life needs to be chased, not every emotion needs to be explored until it consumes you. And not everything you chase is as harmless as the roller coaster, is it?”
She tugged her hand away from him, her posture stiffening. “I don’t know what—”
“Your affair, your careers, your choices in—”
She paled, her gaze stricken. “You think I had an affair with Jacques for the thrill of it?”
“No, I’m saying you’ve gotten into the habit of chasing the wrong things just so that you could find some validation, to find some.... It’s okay to say enough, to cut your losses, and even better to take control and walk away.”
“I know failure, Alexander. It’s been my longest friend.”
He shook his head. “Walking away from something that’s not good for you doesn’t equate failure. It takes just as much courage as to succeed. Believe me, I’ve been there.”
Olivia stared at him. Just hearing the same words failure and Alexander in the same sentence was enough to silence her.
Tilting her chin up, he pressed a kiss on her cheek. “Good night, Olivia.”
Olivia slid against the leather, her arms and legs boneless as he walked away from her.
She ran a hand over her cheek where he had kissed her, tried to breathe past the fluttering in her stomach. She had always attributed her failures—in anything she had done, to herself, to her own faults and weaknesses.
Alexander’s words turned the assumption on its head. There had been no contempt in his words, no derision. They had rung with belief, even concern, as though it had mattered to him that she see things his way.
In that moment, she wanted to believe him.
The gentleness in his words seeped into every pore of her. She lay back against the leather and closed her eyes, replaying the evening again.
Because, without doubt, it had been the best day of her life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE NEXT MORNING, Olivia pressed the power button on her laptop for the second time and muttered a curse. She had a few minutes before a conference call with her boss, Nate, and of course, her years-old laptop was messing with her again.
As the blue screen took forever to load, she settled down on the couch just as Alexander slid toward the other end. Her laptop still hadn’t powered on.
He slid a new, glossy laptop, a pink one like her own, but of course, the state-of-art expensive model into her lap. Her mouth wobbled as she struggled to string a coherent sentence together. “What’s this?”
He didn’t look up from his iPad. “I noticed that your laptop takes a while to reboot and thought you might like a replacement. It’s all set up. All you need to do is transfer your files from your old one.”
He extended his hand, palm up, and she stared blindly for a few seconds before she grabbed the flash drive from him.
Not trusting her vocal glands to work past the wedge in her throat, she mumbled something. Or tried to. It was a simple gesture, nothing that would have cost him time or energy. Yet it was more precious than the pendant, or the check he had given her or anything she had ever received in her life. For a minute, she ran her finger over the gleaming surface, fighting the tears prickling behind her eyes.
Clearing her throat, she plugged her headphones in and powered it on, quickly transferring her presentation when her old laptop finally booted up.
She made notes and answered Nate’s questions as he brought her up-to-date. Excitement thrummed through her as he walked her through his notes on her presentation.
But she couldn’t shake off the unease dripping into her when an awkward silence descended on the line. “I’m sorry, Olivia, but—”
Something was clearly wrong, especially because Nate was never one to mince words. Whether praise or criticism, she had always found him to be fair-minded.
The sound of her own breathing curled up dread inside her. “Nate...whatever it is, just tell me.”
Alexander frowned, reading an email from his lawyer. Tightness knotted in his gut as he read on. Isabella had finally set things in motion, even though it was cloaked under a request for an initial hearing to review their visitation rights. He didn’t believe for a second that it would stop there. The rumors weren’t just rumors anymore.
Which meant he needed to strike first.
He needed to plan, he needed to call his lawyer and figure out the best way to handle this. Damn it, he needed his wife by his side.
But not even the pressing email could hold his attention when Olivia’s call took on a strange note next to him. She kept repeating the same words, her face pale.
“I do understand, Nate...No, I get what you mean. It’s just that I’ve...” She swallowed, her words ringing with misery. “Yes, okay.”
Her eyes glittering with tears, she yanked the headphones out. She slid the laptop into the couch, shot to her feet like a coiled spring.
He reached her in a minute, the tears she scrubbed viciously from her face freezing him into inaction. He was so used to thinking of her as defiant and strong that he couldn’t believe that they were tears, that she could be hurt. He gripped her wrists and pulled her closer. “Liv, what’s wrong?”
She shrugged, her mouth a bitter slant. “I’m not going to be working on the pitch to LifeStyle Inc. anymore.”
“Why? I’ve seen how hard you’ve been working on it, the merit of your ideas.”
“I—”
He wanted to reassure her that she could trust him. Yet it could turn into a false promise in the blink of an eye. With any other person on the planet, he could give his word knowing that he would keep it. With Olivia, there was no telling what she would say and how he would react.
She rubbed her trembling hands over her eyes. “LifeStyle Inc. has a new marketing director.”
“Yes, Vincent Gray. I appointed him three days ago. What’s that...” His words faltered as things clicked into place.
She had slapped Vincent at his engagement party to Kim, broken a contract with him before. “Vincent knows better than to hold personal grudges in the work environment.” When she didn’t elaborate, he continued. “But no one can change the fact that it will make working with him a difficult situation for you.” He softened his words, hating that he had to speak them. “Nothing justifies unprofessional conduct.”
“No, it doesn’t. That’s why I have been re-assigned. So that I don’t jeopardize the agency’s chance to win the contract, even though it’s my idea that got us shortlisted.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Nate’s afraid that if I head the pitch, Vincent, at best, would make it hard for the campaign to go successfully, at worst, won’t grant the contract to our agency.”
He frowned. “Irrespective of the content or the suitability of your campaign?”
“Yes.”
“You do have a lot to learn if you think that’s how my companies do business. This is not a campaign to sell lemonade on a roadside stall, Olivia. What you’re suggesting is not only highly unprofessional but unethical. If someone made such a statement publicly, it would be grounds to sue for defamation.”
“It’s not that simple, okay? You can spout all kind of rules from here but the reality is that....”
“What?”
She walked away from him, wound up in her own world.
“Don’t do this,” he said, pulling her back to him. He didn’t know why he cared so much, only that he couldn’t let it go. “With the reality show, you had to have a relationship with the lead guy. With the jewelry campaign, you up and quit, and instead of making contacts and building a reputation in advertising, you slapped Vincent at that party. Why did you quit that campaign if you’re serious about a career in advertising?”
For the first time since he’d met her, she didn’t meet his gaze. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“He...harassed me sexually.”
Alexander froze, wondering if he heard her right. “I’ve known Vincent for ten years. We started working on our first business venture together. I’ve never even...” He ran a hand through his hair, things he’d always been confident of in his life shifting before him. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand him, you didn’t...”
Olivia laughed, a bitter sound that echoed around her. Tiny cracks inched around her heart. It was what she had expected him to say. And yet she couldn’t believe how much it hurt. Just because they’d spent a few days under the same roof looking beneath the surface, coming to an uneasy truce didn’t mean Alexander saw her any different from a car crash. If she’d expected any different, even on a subconscious level, then she was an even bigger idiot than she had thought.
“Am I sure if from the minute I started working at the jewelry firm, Vincent kept hitting on me? Yes. Am I sure if I heard him right when he said, ‘Women like you can never say no’? Yes. Am I sure if he criticized every tiny bit of work after I, somehow miraculously, managed no? Yes. At your engagement party he said the reason Nate had given me my job was because I was putting out. So, yes, I slapped him.”
“I just can’t believe Vincent would—”
She clenched her teeth, holding the dam of ache rearing to burst through inside. “Whereas I’ve had an affair with a married man, have no material success to give me even a little bit of credibility and have no talent to speak of. So of course, it’s not a big leap that I would be lying.”
Alexander closed his eyes and swore softly. Her words could have been plucked from his mind. He didn’t want to think them yet his rational mind couldn’t stop. And yet hearing her give voice to it, nauseated him. “I didn’t say that.”
She sidestepped him, and made her way to her bedroom. “You didn’t have to.”
He pulled her back toward him, perverse anger rising through him. “I’m not done —”
She twisted, struggling against his grip. “I’ll punch the daylights out of you if you say one more thing.”
His grip on her arms tightened, and he pulled her closer, until he could see himself reflected in her brown gaze. “That kind of behavior is what landed you here, Liv. I’m trying to help—”
“No, you’re not. You’re being a rational, analytical jerk again and I won’t take it.”
She twisted in his hold again, and this time he forced her against the wall, their harsh breathing surrounding them. Adrenaline pumped through him, anger and arousal roped together inside him. “Stop it, Olivia.
“Why didn’t you report him?”
“Do you believe me?”
He wanted to say yes, yet his mouth wouldn’t form the word.
She slackened against the wall, and sighed, a depth of pain in it. “Either I would’ve gotten the creepy, twist-my-gut silence I’m getting from you or the much worse ‘she asked for it’. I found neither idea particularly palatable. Because, after all, it’s not possible that I don’t want to sleep around with every man that looks at me, right?”
His gut tightened. It was exactly what he had assumed about her, what he had set out to prove that night on the beach in his anger. Was he no different from Vincent, then? “What’re you going to do?”
“There is nothing to do.”
“Is that it? You’re ready to give up so easily?”
She glared at him. “Yesterday, you were telling me to accept—”
“Yes, to make better decisions, to walk away when you feel the need to shack up with the wrong guy again.”
“How long have you been waiting to throw that in my face?”
Alexander could feel his head throbbing, his meager control on the situation slipping. He was doing this all wrong. Why did a simple conversation with her become such an exercise in control? “I didn’t ask you to give up on something you’ve worked so hard for.
“How is anyone ever going to take you seriously if this is how you react to each hurdle? If you do win this contract, you whole agency’s future will rest upon the campaign. And let’s face it, however hard you work now, you can’t wipe away your past. There are always going to be people who will hold it against you.”
Every inch of color fled from her face.
“So maybe it is better for everyone involved if you walk away now. Your kind of quitter mentality isn’t something I want associated with my company’s campaign, even indirectly. And I bet that’s what’s bothering your boss. Not that you might not win the contract but that you will never successfully see it through.”
“I hate you.”
“Do that, Liv,” he said, releasing his grip on her with great effort. The pain in her eyes unraveled something inside him, but he forced himself to utter the words. “Blame me all you want if it helps you cope with the fact that it’s easier for you to walk away.”
* * *
Alexander leaned back against his seat as Olivia regaled one of his oldest friends, Mike, who was also visiting Paris, with another one of her stories. It was their last dinner out before they left for New York the day after. He was waiting for a call from Carlos, he had a thousand things on his mind and he shouldn’t have been able to enjoy even a minute of the evening.
Olivia had shot that theory to hell in a second.
The low lighting of the small pavement café on Champs-Élysées, another of Olivia’s divine finds, threw shadows over her, giving him teasing glimpses of the curve of her mouth, a slender shoulder or, if she bent a certain way, her warm, gorgeous smile.
She had dressed simply in a denim skirt and a gold sequined top. The silky fabric moved sinuously over her torso, hiding and showcasing her lithe figure, driving him crazy. It hooked at her neck, leaving her glorious back bare. It was all he could think of since she had walked past him to the elevator.
He watched, arrested, as she laughed. Her face lit up, her shoulde
rs shook with her mirth. “The next thing we know, our wing warden walks by and all the girls are blowing rings into the air.”
He smiled. He could almost see that teenage version of her, all attitude and sass, the first one to jump feetfirst into one more escapade at the boarding school, the first one, from all the snippets she had shared, anyone in trouble went to.
Her gaze flicked to his instantly, cautious, as she backtracked and added that she had many more stories about her wild twin.
Mike winked at her, a grin curving his mouth. “Olivia sounds exactly like my sort of woman—sexy and fun.”
Olivia pulled a bright pink Post-it from her clutch, scribbled her number and slid it toward Mike. A fierce pounding began behind Alex’s right eye. “Why don’t you give her a call in a few days? She would love to hear from you.”
Alexander pursed his mouth, and wrapped his arm around Olivia’s shoulders. And instantly felt her stiffen beneath his touch. Her hair was pulled back into a tight plait, and his fingers itched to tug it free and sink into it. He still couldn’t stop sliding the pad of his thumb over her bare skin, though, perversely enjoying the right to touch her.
She was still angry with him over their discussion about Vincent. But there was nothing he could say to make her feel better. Except his absolute belief in what she said. But Vincent still hadn’t gotten back to him. He knew, in a corner of his heart that didn’t look at facts and figures, that she was telling the truth. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to say the words, could barely admit to himself that...
Of all the damned things, when had he started thinking with his heart again?
Cursing himself for what was surely becoming more than a momentary madness, he pulled his hand back. What was wrong with him?
His iPhone buzzed. Seeing Carlos’s face on the small screen, he excused himself and walked into the twinkling Paris night. He knew from Carlos’s brief emails and Kim’s continuing silence that it was not going to be good news.
Carlos didn’t mince words. “Kim is married, Alex. I waited to inform you until I could verify the authenticity of what I discovered and I have. I have a copy of their original marriage certificate. And even though she had filed for divorce several times, the man she married never signed it. Their marriage is valid under law. From what I gathered, she...is staying with him.”