Dangerous In Love

by Alexa Davis

  Ding!

  Oh, it seemed my room had a bell. That was good to know!

  “Come in!” I called out. As I waited for the door to swing open, I straightened down my clothing and stood up. I rearranged my expression into a serious, professional one while I waited…

  Oh my God.

  “You,” I gasped as the man entered my room. It was the one person I knew in this city, and I was completely shocked to see him. Zack.

  “You,” he replied just as shocked. “Fancy seeing you here, Olivia.”

  I glanced down at his knee, remembering his fall the previous day. I knew there was a weakness there, so I wasn’t sure why he’d overreacted so much about it. “Yeah, me.”

  “So, it seems that you do have some medical knowledge,” he chuckled, acknowledging that day, too. “Fair enough.”

  I didn’t want to rise to the bait, so I nodded to the chair in front of me. In my head, I was screaming at the horror, the unfairness of having to work with this asshat on my very first day on the job, but outwardly, I was cool, calm, and collected. “Please, take a seat. Erm, I’m here because Rebecca, your former therapist, is on maternity leave.”

  “I know,” he laughed. “I kinda guessed from the swollen belly.”

  “Right, of course.” I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, of course you know about that. Erm…” I glanced down at the notes in my hands. “Maybe we should go out into the exercise area where you can show me just what you’re capable of.”

  “Doesn’t it say all of that in the plans left for you by Rebecca?” Zack furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “She told me she was going to leave all the details for whoever was covering her maternity leave.”

  Ah, for some reason Rebecca hadn’t told her patients that she didn’t intend to come back. She could afford to be a stay-at-home mom since her husband worked in the financial industry. There had to be a reason for that, and I didn’t want to blow her cover already. I just wanted to get through this day.

  “Well, I like to see for myself.” I stood up and gave him a look. “I’ll be doing this with all my patients. It’s all well and good reading what someone else has written, but I want to know for myself.”

  “Fine.” He stood up and gave me a determined look. “Let’s do this.”

  With a bit of resentment, Zack followed me, but as soon as we got into the exercise room, he actually started to listen to me. He did everything I asked of him, and I quickly came to terms with his current ability level. He was actually doing really well; he had all the ability there, a lot of it was mental blockage. He didn’t like that he wasn’t where he wanted to be, and without even realizing it, that was holding him back.

  I could work with that. Especially if he continued doing what I asked of him. It had taken a while to get there, but at least he seemed to be listening to me now. I hoped that would last.

  By the time the session was over, he was starting to look a little tired, which I understood. Trying to get your body to do something it didn’t want to was exhausting. I knew that.

  “Okay, that’s great, Zack.” Saying his name aloud felt weird; it made me feel a little uncomfortable, actually, and I wasn’t sure why. “That’s it for today. I will get a plan organized for next time, okay?”

  “Yeah, alright.” He could barely meet my eyes. I could tell he hated being seen as vulnerable, which was silly. That wasn’t how I saw any of my patients – they were stronger than most! “Thanks, see you later.”

  Once he was gone, I took a few moments alone in my office to calm myself down. There was something about Zack that made my body react wildly, and I wasn’t totally sure why. I hated him. I thought he was a rude, horrible person…but there was something beneath the surface, too. I could sense that if someone was willing to take the time to peel the layers back, they could find something really unique there.

  If they were willing to go through all that crap, of course.

  Ding.

  Okay, time to move on. My next patient was here.

  Chapter Five

  Zack

  Tuesday

  I lifted my head from the couch where I was laying down, lazily vegging out, and furrowed my eyebrows in confusion when a knock sounded on my door. I wasn’t expecting anyone today, and it wasn’t like I had a lot of visitors coming my way, so I was perturbed as to who it might be. I racked my brain, but no one immediately came to mind.

  “Who’s there?” I called out sleepily as I pushed myself into a standing position. If it was a cold caller, I wasn’t going to answer. I was not in the mood for small talk right about now…not that I ever was.

  “It’s me, knob head!” Lark’s voice rang through my apartment, making me sigh with relief. I didn’t mind the idea of seeing my friend. “Who else is it going to be? Some beautiful blonde who’s desperate for your body?”

  I laughed mirthlessly at that ridiculous idea and went to greet him. “I thought you had some competition in Las Vegas to get to. What the hell are you doing here, bothering me at eleven a.m.?”

  “Yeah.” He pushed his way inside and grinned up at me. “I do, but my flight doesn’t leave until this afternoon, so I thought I’d come and visit my best buddy before I go.”

  “Oh God, what do you want?” I asked him warily. It wasn’t like Lark to want anything from me, but I had a feeling that today was different.

  “No, nothing, God what do you think of me?” He flopped onto my couch where I’d been laying only moments before and changed the channel, breaking the chain of murder documentaries that I’d inadvertently ended up watching all morning long. Not that I was really taking them in, they were just running in the background while I thought. “No, I just came to see you…although you can make me a coffee. How have things been?”

  I flicked the coffeepot on and turned to face him. “Well, I had physio yesterday, and I have a new therapist.”

  “Oh yeah? Rebecca finally gone to have her baby?” It was crazy how much he knew about me.

  “Yes, and you’ll never guess who it is.” I poured the coffee granules into mug and waited for the boiling to stop. “Olivia, the woman from across the hall.”

  “No way!” He spun around to stare at me in shock. “Are you serious? The hottie who moved in the other day?”

  “The very same.” I paused for a second while I recalled the time I spent with Olivia in her office. She had been professional the entire time, but I could acutely tell that she felt a little awkward around me. I completely understood because of my obnoxious behavior around her, but now, I wanted it to end. I didn’t want her to think I was truly like that. I needed to make her see the real me…whoever that was these days. “Weird, right?”

  “Does that mean you’re going to have to be all nice to her out in the hallway now?” Lark was gushing now, like we were two schoolgirls gossiping. “So she’ll treat you nice in the hospital?”

  I shrugged and tried to blow the suggestion off as I handed him a drink. Ever since leaving the Navy Seals, I’d tried to keep a low profile, and that had become even more of a necessity in recent times. I wasn’t just keeping people at arm’s length because I wasn’t myself anymore – the other reason felt much more prominent. I didn’t want to start being overly nice to some neighbor just because I felt like I had to. Who knew where that would lead?

  “Oh, God.” Lark rolled his eyes as he seemed to see right into my mind. “Are you thinking about your lottery win again? God, you must be the only guy in the world who isn’t flashing the cash and actually enjoying the one stroke of luck. You still live in this crap hole, you don’t really own anything nice, you don’t even use it to your advantage to help you get women.”

  My defenses rose high. The wall I’d built around myself flew up and blocked Lark out. “The other day, you were giving me crap saying I need to save, now you’re saying I need to spend.”

  “I was being sarcastic when I said you needed to save. Obviously I think you need to start living your life a bit more.” That riled me up, and
Lark could see it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to stop him. “You could be travelling the world, living in luxury, banging a different woman every night. A flash of the cash would get you everything you wanted. I keep telling you that. I don’t know why you won’t listen.”

  “You know I don’t want that,” I told him firmly. “I’m not interested in sowing my wild oats or whatever. I just want to get better, then I actually want to settle down.”

  “Oh whatever, every guy wants that,” Lark made a dismissive comment, but it didn’t bother me. I knew that was what he wanted for his life, too, despite the bravado. “Are you actually saying you’re the one person who’s different?”

  “I am not getting into this with you, Lark. I’m living my life how I want to.” That wasn’t strictly true. I couldn’t exactly say that I was happy, but that didn’t help my argument right now, so I ignored it. “Come on, let’s watch this movie, something has just started playing.”

  There was some old Western playing on the television that would be a good distraction. I didn’t want to get into an argument with him, especially not if he was going away for a few days. It was easier to simply veg out and to sip our coffees until he had to go.

  ***

  Lark and I both leapt up as someone hammered on my door, proving just how into the movie we’d gotten. It was at a really tense bit, so being shaken out of it was something of a shock. We stared at one another wide-eyed, as if there was going to be something horrifying on the other side of that door.

  “Who’s that?” Lark demanded as my heart pounded angrily. “It’s not the physiotherapist, is it? Is she likely to come and visit you?”

  “I don’t know who it is.” My pulse thundered painfully as I walked to the door, but I tried to remain blasé on the outside. I didn’t want Lark to know that I was weirdly freaked. “Could be anyone.”

  “Zack!” I was shocked to find myself staring at my upstairs neighbor, Dolly. As a fashion designer in her early forties, she had that amazing quirkiness that guaranteed to cheer me up whatever my mood. Right now, she was wearing some spotty red outfit that looked like it took her forever to climb in and out of.

  She held out a plate of tarts for me, which suggested that she was worried. I only ever got baked goods from her when she was stressing about something. It was a blessing and a curse all at once. “I’m having a terrible week.” Just as I suspected. “It’s awful, just awful.”

  I stepped aside to invite her in. “What’s wrong, Dolly?” She clip clopped through my home like she owned the place. Her dominating nature undoubtedly helped her to get to where she was in life: very successful!

  “Urgh, it’s this new show I’m doing, the nature line…” She always said these things as if I should know what they meant. I always nodded along because I didn’t want to infuriate her in the way that her employees did, as I’d been told many times. She couldn’t tolerate stupidity, and I felt certain that not understanding fashion terms counted as that. “And, the models just aren’t cutting it. I don’t know what it is about them – they’re just so practiced, polished. I think what I want is someone new, someone who isn’t currently in the business, but then it’s like…do I have time to train them up?”

  Lark shot me a look, and I gave him a half shrug. He knew about Dolly, but he hadn’t ever actually been here for one of her famous rants. He didn’t know that the best thing to do was just listen. All she wanted was a neutral ear; she would come to her own conclusion eventually.

  “You should check out Olivia, from across the hall,” he interjected, making me cringe internally. His opinion would not be taken well. “She moved in last week sometime. She’s a real natural beauty. She has a kid, too, so she’ll probably want the money.” I tried to give him a warning look, but it was too late. He was on a roll. “She’s got this long red hair and pale skin…like an English rose.”

  Dolly gave me a surprisingly inquisitive look. “What do you think, Zack? Is she pretty enough to be in one of my shows?”

  I pictured Olivia gracing the pages of a fashion magazine, her plump lips pouting and her wide brown eyes staring. She was definitely gorgeous enough to be a model, in my mind. “I do,” I admitted. “But she’s a physiotherapist, not a model.”

  “Perfect!” Dolly declared happily while snatching the plate of tarts from me. “That’s exactly what I want, someone I can mold myself. And if she’s a physiotherapist, she must be very clever, so she’ll probably pick up on things really quickly.” She paused and mused for just a second before bulldozing on. “Yes, she sounds exactly what I want. I’m going to give these tarts to her now, sweeten the pot a bit…”

  And then she was gone. Like a hurricane she blew in and out of my life, leaving me a little breathless. I often wondered what had just happened after she left.

  “Thanks a lot, Lark,” I grumbled angrily at him as I shook all of that off. “I never get baked goods – that was the first time in ages. I didn’t even get to eat one of them!”

  “I’m sorry,” he chuckled in a way that suggested he really wasn’t. “Dolly scares me. I panicked. I just wanted to help her.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s only going to be help if Olivia wants to do it. If she doesn’t, Dolly will be back here in a moment.”

  Lark shifted uncomfortably where he sat. The idea of Dolly coming back pissed off at him had him trembling in his boots. It was almost laughable. “She will, though? Won’t she? Doesn’t every girl grow up with dreams of becoming a model?”

  “Maybe the girls you hang out with when you’re living it up in Vegas,” I told him sarcastically. “Not every girl.”

  “Well, I bet Olivia does. She just seems the type, don’t you think?”

  “What on Earth are you basing that on?” I wasn’t sure why, but I felt a bit offended that he was making assumptions about her. I didn’t know her any better than he did, but I felt like I did. “When did you become an expert?”

  “I dunno… She moved here alone, with her daughter, probably running away from, like, a crappy life or something.” Lark shrugged. “I don’t know, it just might be a way to make her life better, that’s all. Maybe she’ll be grateful for the opportunity.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I replied quietly. “I’m sure we’ll soon find out either way.”

  Lark’s words made me curious. I couldn’t help but wonder why Olivia had all of a sudden moved to New York. It wasn’t any of my business, of course, and I knew better than anyone about wanting to keep an identity a secret. But the more of an enigma Olivia became, the more interested I felt.

  Chapter Six

  Olivia

  Wednesday

  Anger radiated through my body as I hammered on Zack’s door. I wasn’t sure what I’d done exactly to gain such negative attention to myself when it came to him but I wanted it to stop – now!

  I felt so impatient that I couldn’t even give him the time that he so desperately needed to get to the door. I knew he couldn’t move quickly – if his leg was playing up it’d take him a couple of moments longer than it would anyone else, but my brain wasn’t in the right place to be rational. I was pissed off as hell.

  Finally the door swung open, and just for a moment, my heart leapt up into my throat. All this time, I’d been trying so hard not to look at him so as I stared him in the face it took me aback a little to see his striking good looks. With his dark hair, his dark eyes, and his chiseled cheekbones, plus that broad strong body of his, he was like an Adonis. Shame he was an asshole to go along with it.

  I folded my arms across my chest and tapped my foot rapidly to let him know that I was furious. I didn’t want him to think that this was anything like a social visit.

  “Hey.” He smiled, causing little crinkles to form around his eyes. “Nice to see you again. What can I do for you today?”

  “What were you doing sending Dolly over to my place?” I stepped forward as if I was about to go inside his apartment, but I thought better of it at the last moment. “She keeps coming over wi
th baked goods, demanding that I need to be one of her models. As if I have the time for that.”

  “But… I mean, that’s a good thing right?” Zack smirked at me as if he didn’t understand how pissed off I was. “She’s bringing you food, basically telling you that you’re pretty enough to be a model. Even if you don’t want to do it, that has to feel nice.”

  I furrowed my eyebrows and gave him a dirty look. As if I needed to be told my self worth to believe it, as if I got my confidence from my looks. Maybe once upon a time I cared all about that stuff, but ever since having Meghan, I had better things to worry about.

  “Meg has a lot of food allergies,” I told him prissily. “There are so many things that she cannot eat. Do you think it’s fair that she has to smell and look at lots of food that makes her mouth water, just to be told that she can’t have them?”

  My breaths fell raggedly out of my mouth, and I could still feel the anger circulating around me. I wasn’t sure that anything could dispel it at that point, especially not the obvious mirth in Zack’s expression. “What?” I demanded. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

  “You’re cute when you’re mad,” he replied happily.

  Of course, that only served to piss me off further. I wanted to lash out and scratch his eyes right out of his head. My fists kept clenching and releasing by my sides as I did my best not to rise to his words like he so obviously wanted me to. He’d only said such a shitty thing to wind me up. I didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of knowing that he’d defeated me.

  “You better be prepared to hurt at your next physical therapy session,” I eventually spat out through gritted teeth. “Things are about to get real serious for you.”

  Zack propped his body up against the doorframe, then he leaned in close until I could feel his breath tickling my cheek. “Can I kiss you?” he whispered quietly into my ear.

  Shame flushed through me…along with an intense desire that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. It wasn’t him, of course. I wasn’t actually attracted to him. It was just the suggestion, that was all, the roller coaster ride of emotions that he was taking me on. The flush in my cheeks was more to do with the fact that he’d so clearly overstepped the boundaries of normal human behavior than anything else. It certainly wasn’t anything to worry about.