by Katie Dowe
*****
Olivia shared office space with a computer lab and a dentist and her office was a tiny cubicle that barely two people could fit in. She had thought about trying to find something bigger but had decided against it. She had no intention of paying an astronomical rent just to impress people that she was doing well. She was more out than in anyway. She looked up at the knock on her partially opened door and her eyes widened as she looked at the fashionably if inappropriately dressed blonde woman who came in. “My dear, I hope you don’t mind my dropping in?”
Before Olivia could respond she had taken the only seat in the room. “Selene Heywood, right?”
“The same.” She laughed shrilly getting on Olivia’s nerves.
“What may I do for you?”
“Oh, I was just in the neighborhood.” She stopped at the look on Olivia’s face and then continued. “I did not get a chance to talk to you at the party and I wanted to get to know you better.”
“Why?”
The question floored Selene for a minute and she did not know what to say. Their pictures had come out in the papers along with several others and a question mark as to the relationship between her and Garth. “You and my nephew seem to be getting close so I just want to know if we can be friends.”
“I am not much in the friend department. I have had one best friend since I was a little girl and I am afraid that’s it. I am sure a woman like you has more than enough friends.”
For a minute Selene felt the rage simmering inside her. This little nonentity was turning down her offer of friendship even if it was not genuine. “So you are the latest in Garth’s life?” Her tone was a little spiteful.
“I guess you could call it that.” Olivia leaned back and looked at the woman coolly. She did not like her and Olivia was a person who rarely disliked people but there was something off about Selene Heywood that she did not trust. “Is that all?”
Selene got to her feet and looked around the small cramped space contemptuously. “For now,” she said ominously as she turned and walked out. Olivia waited a few more minutes and then made a call.
“Your auntie just paid me a visit.”
“Who?” Garth asked impatiently.
Olivia rolled her eyes and answered. “Your Aunt Selene just paid me a visit.”
“Why?”
“She wants us to be friends.”
He was silent for a moment. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I have enough friends. She wanted to know if I was your latest.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I told her yes, of course. What do you think?”
“She can be very vindictive,” Garth warned her.
“You don’t give me too much credit. I can handle the Selenes of this world, honey. They are very predictable.”
“I would never underestimate you,” he said with a laugh.
“Good,” she said briskly. “Now I want to suggest that you come over later and I cook you my famous linguini salad. And before you ask me why, Garth, I need to remind you that we are supposed to be in a relationship and we should be spending time together.”
“I agree,” he said with a trace of amusement in his deep voice. “I will stop by after work.”
“See you then.”
Garth hung up from her and found a smile playing around his lips. She was starting to grow on him!
*****
“You are seeing Garth Heywood?” her friend Glenna asked her as soon as she answered the phone.
“I guess you could call it that.” Olivia plopped down onto the sofa and eased out of her heels, wriggling her toes to get rid of the tension there.
“Liv, please don’t mess with me! I had a very rough day with figures coming out of my ears and everywhere else so don’t play with me! I am looking at this picture of you in this stunning dress and his arms around you as if you two are glued together and I am asking myself why on earth Olivia has not said anything to me.”
“Because I don’t want to jinx it?” she ventured.
“Olivia Gail Bailey!”
“Okay, fine. We are dating. Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we are seeing how things go.”
“You do realize that he is a billionaire, right?”
“No!”
“Olivia!”
“Okay, yes, I know all that and I am trying not to make it scare me.”
“When did you meet him?”
“Some months ago and we talked briefly and then when I went to his office we sort of started talking again.”
“I hope you know what you are doing.”
“I hope so too.”
Chapter 4
Olivia went home early and went all out. She soaked in the bath and shaved her legs cursing colorfully as she managed to nick a few tiny parts on her skin. She had no idea why she was doing this but she had a feeling that the time to seal the relationship was at hand. “Do I really want to have sex with this gorgeous and totally unapproachable man?” she asked herself as she rubbed the scented cream into her skin before putting on the slinky house dress that drifted around her body every time she moved. “Of course I do!”
She glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost four. She had planned to make a strawberry soufflé for dessert but that had just been shot to hell. She had spent too much time as usual in the bath. She dug into the pantry and looked at the selection of wines, wrinkling her nose at the scant display. She took out a bottle of red before taking out the pasta and the other things to make the salad. She turned on the CD player inside her kitchen and turned it up while she prepared the meal and sang at the top of her voice to Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman No Cry.’ She had no idea she had left the door unlocked or that Garth had been knocking on the door until she heard him behind her.
She broke off a scream as she felt the touch on her shoulder. “Oh my goodness, you almost scared the crap out of me” She used the remote to turn off the music, a little embarrassed that he had caught her like that. “How did you get in?”
“The door was unlocked and when I knocked and did not get any response I tried it,” His moss green eyes looked into hers. “Are you always that careless?”
“No,” she said shakily, her heart still thundering inside her chest. “Thank goodness it was just you and not some serial rapist,” she said with a delicate shudder.
“Exactly.” His tone was amused. “You sing.”
“I sing when I am cooking and I am particular into reggae music especially Bob Marley.”
He looked at her for a moment and then asked her. “Is there somewhere I can hang this up?” He had the black cashmere jacket on one finger. She took it from him and went to put it over the back of a chair in the living room.
“Would you like some wine?”
“Thanks.” He stood there in her kitchen and somehow managed to dwarf it and her. She had pushed her feet into a fuzzy bed slippers and her lack of height was made noticeable. She poured wine for both of them and indicated a stool for him to sit.
“So how was your day?”
His eyes glinted as he looked at her. “Really?” he asked as his dark blond eyebrows rose.
“Yes, really,” she said with a teasing smile. “I told you about your aunt coming to see me so it is only fair you tell me what went on at the office.”
“She is not my aunt,” he said a little darkly.
“Okay, I get it. Touchy subject, so we will skip that part. How was the commute coming here?”
He used his glass to hide the smile on his lips. She was really something! “It was fair to fine. There was a bottleneck on the freeway but otherwise it went smoothly.”
“I am happy for that,” she said with a straight face. She sniffed the air and hopped off the stool going to the stove top to turn off the fire. “I will just allow it to cool down a little before we eat. How about I show you the rest of the house?”
“I would love that.” He did not
pull away when she took his hand and led him into the living room. His eyes caught the picture over the mantel and saw that she bore a stunning resemblance to her mother. “Your parents,” he said, looking down at her. She really was quite petite, he thought absently.
She nodded and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “They were the best.”
“You miss them,” he murmured as he looked at them. He suspected that she was going to look similar to her mother on her wedding day.
She curled her fingers into his unconsciously and he almost pulled away except for the sadness on her face. “Every single day.”
“They were in love.” He made the startling observation.
She looked up at him and their eyes met for a moment and held. “Yes, very much.”
“I guess it works for some people.” He pulled his hand away leaving her bereft.
“I guess so.” He had walked over to the window to look out. It was almost six and the darkness had descended. She stood where she was and waited until he turned back to her. “How about the rest of the place?”
He noticed the scattering of her parents stuff in every room and suspected she wanted to surround herself with their things to keep from being too sad. She had a unique sense of style which he noticed in the rooms she occupied. He barely glimpsed into a cheerful green and white bedroom that she said was hers and they went back to the kitchen. He watched in silence as she hummed beneath her breath as she finished preparing the meal.
“Do you need help?” he asked as she gathered up plates and forks to go to the dining room.
“Grab the wine, will you?”
He had never had a more informal meal and to his surprise he found that he loved it. He did not have a need to speak much because she did most of the talking.
“This is very good,” he murmured as he ate the salad.
“I told you,” she said smugly. She did not eat with a knife but just used the fork and her elbows were on the table. Somehow it was not offensive to him.
“Yes, you did.”
“So tell me about yourself.”
He looked at her sharply and carefully chewed the pasta before responding. “All that anyone needs to know is on the internet.”
“You know that is not true.” She put down her fork and leaned forward. “I am not the bad guy here, Garth. I am not out to get you if that is what you are afraid of. We are going into a relationship and even if it is one of convenience we still need to get to know each other.”
He stared at her for a moment and nodded. “You are right.” He took up his wine glass and drank deeply not complaining about the texture of the wine. “I am an only child and grew up with a strict father who started grooming me when I was six to take over the company.”
“That’s awful!” she burst out before she could help herself.
He looked at her frowning for a moment and Olivia wondered if he objected to her outburst or to her interrupting him.
“I ate, slept, and breathed Heywood Real Estates and by the time I was fourteen I was working alongside my father.”
“Was that what you wanted?” she asked him softly.
He shrugged and looked down into his glass. “It was what was expected of me.”
“And you went along with it.”
“It would have been my company anyway,” he said a little defensively.
“But now you are having to fight for it all over again,” she pointed out. She regretted saying it when she saw the tightening of his fingers around the stem of the glass.
“I don’t mind.” A cool implacable mask had slipped over his face.
“Life is too short to care so much about things that are not breathing,” she said softly, knowing that she was digging herself deeper still but wanting to catch a reaction from him.
“People tend to disappoint you,” he told her cynically. “With a company you get what you put in.”
“I get it that you grew up thinking that way, Garth, but what is the true Garth saying?” She leaned forward and his eyes drifted automatically to her gaping bodice. He could clearly see that she was not wearing a bra and for a moment he felt his skin heating up.
“People disappoint and hurt you so it’s best to stay clear.” He dragged his eyes away from her enticing bosom. “That’s the real me.”
She shrugged and got to her feet. “Are you done?”
He nodded a little disappointed that she was done sparring with him. She cleared the dishes away and put them into the sink while he sat there and wondered what to do. She came over and turned him around and before he knew what she was doing had parked herself into his lap.
“What are you doing?” he rasped.
“Proving your theory wrong,” she whispered as she brought her lips down to his. He stiffened at first and then as his tongue touched hers he went under, deep, his fingers curling into the material at her waist. She smelled like flowers, he thought dazedly as he deepened the kiss. To his mortification he felt himself hardening against her, his body heating up and his heart thundering inside his chest! Olivia’s fingers dug into his well brushed blonde hair and drifted up restlessly, her body vibrating. No matter what he said he was not leaving here until they explored each other! He broke off the kiss, almost tearing his mouth from hers, his fingers biting into her flesh! His moss green eyes burned into hers as he stared at her. “I have to go,” he said harshly.
“No.” She refused to let him go. “We need each other, Garth, and I am beginning to pick up on the fact that if you are not in control of a situation you run away from it.” She ignored the hardening of his expression. “You need this.” She moved seductively over him and he groaned. She had started pushing off his jacket but was frustrated as he brought his hands up and held hers in a punishing grip.
“Don’t tell me what I need,” he told her coldly, his expression hard. “I decide when to take the next step.” He took her off him and got to his feet backing away from her as if she had the plague. “I am leaving.” He hurried out of the house as if bats from hell were chasing him!
Olivia went over and locked the door, leaning against it and closing her eyes as she heard the sound of his engine firing up as he drove away. That went well, she thought shakily as she put her fingers to her lips. “How long are you going to run, Garth?” she whispered.
*****
Garth stopped short as he opened the door to his office the next morning. He had had a terrible night and had not fallen asleep until the early hours of the morning. To make it worse he had had woken up with an erection that had not gone down even after the cold shower that had left him shivering.
“I have work to do,” he said tightly as he moved into his office and slammed the door shut behind him.
“As do I,” Blake Heywood said, uncoiling his length from the chair he had been sitting on in front of the desk. He walked over to the cabinet and selected a glass before pouring some orange juice and bringing it back to where he had been sitting. “You look tense, boy,” he said quizzically as he stared at his nephew. He had always admired the way the boy had managed to make a mark on the company. It was as if it was the most important thing in his life and it probably was. “That sweet young thing did not put out?”
The look Garth gave him could have curdled milk. “What do you want?”
“Who is she and why now?”
Garth went around his desk and sat, bringing his chair around, his smile cool and appraising. “Why do you care?”
“You are my nephew after all and we are family.”
“And you want to know if she is right for me.” Garth inclined his blonde head gracefully. “That’s not for you to decide. Was there anything else?”
“If you are going out with her because of the stipulation in the will-”
“What are you going to do?”
Blake got to his feet and approached the desk. “You don’t want to mess with me, boy,” he growled as he planted his hands onto the desk. “I eat boys like you for breakfast.”
/> Garth lifted a brow arrogantly. “And I eat old men like you for dinner.”
Blake stared at him furiously before moving away. “The company belongs to me, Garth, and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure it comes to me.”
“Bring it on,” Garth said softly.
Blake turned and looked at him for a moment and then without another word he left slamming the door behind him.
*****
Olivia called him. She had told herself that she was not going to but she rarely listened to anyone including her own self. She had spent the night with the impression of his lips on hers and had spent a restless night. “Garth Heywood’s office. How may I assist you?” the polite voice asked. Olivia could just picture her looking blonde and perfect with her perfect teeth and perfect clothes and probably willing and ready to have sex with him!
“Is Garth in?”
“May I ask who is calling?”
Olivia stuck her tongue out. “Olivia Bailey.”
“Would you mind holding?”
She told the professional sounding voice no and waited, drumming her fingers on her desk. She had a showing in ten minutes and had put her files together. “Olivia,” his voice sounded brusque and impersonal.
“How are you?”
“I am fine,” he said impatiently. “What do you need?”
“I am fine too by the way,” she said dryly. “I am showing a house at Park Lane in a few minutes. Why don’t you jump into your car and come on down and we can spend a few hours together?”
The silence that followed her sentence was deafening and for a moment she thought he had hung up on her. “You are wasting my time.”
“I am so sorry,” she said softly, a smile playing around her mouth. “Does that mean you won’t be there?”
“Olivia, I do not appreciate you treating this arrangement as a joke. I will call you later,” he said and hung up on her.
“I guess that means no,” she said wryly. She sat there for a moment and then gathered her things together. He was starting to grow on her and was becoming quite a challenge, one that she was not going to back down from.
*****
She went on the internet and found out where he lived and wrote it down. She had not expected him to call but could feel the disappointment just the same. She had come home and fallen asleep waking up at some minutes to six and had decided to take a shower. She sat at the kitchen counter in her robe and stared at the address for a long time. What if she went there and he was there with someone? What would she do? She shoved the paper into her pocket and went to get a juice from the fridge. She was just uncapping the bottle when the doorbell rang.