Dear Olivia

by Fontaine , Bella

  “Maybe to some other companies who aren’t willing to fork up the two million he’s requesting for research. We want access to this elusive research of his to see where the money is going. That is fair.”

  I looked at him, again surprised. I was surprised with the handle he had on himself and the way he spoke. He was different. So different to the guy I used to know. And, he had a fair point indeed.

  “Merging has to be of benefit to both of you,” I pointed out.

  Bradley’s frown deepened. “Access to my work was never mentioned in original negotiations.”

  “If you can’t agree, then the deal is off,” Sam retorted.

  “That’s insane,” Bradley shot back, looking like he was going to jump across the table and hit Sam.

  I hoped he didn’t because it would have been a very bad idea. For him.

  “It’s not. How is it insane? You’re a businessman. I know someone like you would never put cash down on anything without seeing where the money is going. And you’d want a piece of the prize if you knew the particular investments could be worth billions.”

  Bradley snapped his head to me. “This is how you represent me?”

  “Mr. Henderson. We’re talking it out,” I answered with emphasis, not appreciating the way he was calling me out in front of Sam.

  “I don’t want to talk it out. This is about making an agreement that protects my rights. If you can’t do that, get someone else, maybe a senior partner or someone more appropriate to handle my affairs.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Sam countered.

  I couldn’t help but look at him and it suddenly felt like years ago when no one would dare say anything against me when I was with him.

  Bradley looked thrown by the remark. “It means exactly what I said, and shouldn’t really be anything to you since this is my firm.”

  “You don’t own shit so stop talking out of your ass and acting like you can call the damn shots.”

  Nope, he hadn’t changed. That was just the kind of thing Sam would have said way back when.

  “Unbelievable,” Bradley snapped.

  “Yes, I couldn’t agree more.” Sam nodded. “You have no respect for anyone, and I won’t waste my time trash talking if you want to be the prick you are and fuck around terms and conditions that suit you.”

  My shoulders dropped and my breathing stilled. Embarrassment took me but I guess I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t side with Sam. He was right, and he had every right to put Bradley in his place.

  “Look.” I tapped on the table, bringing the attention back to me. “I’m more than capable of handling this. It’s not exactly rocket science. Mr. Henderson, we need to meet them halfway. Mr. Hawthorne, you need to meet us halfway, too, and look at the bigger picture where Mr. Henderson is concerned. His inventions are unique in the tech world. I don’t agree that you require the level of access that you’re proposing, and definitely not for his future inventions.”

  “Deal’s off if he can’t agree,” Sam stuck to his demands.

  Bradley stood up so quickly his chair rocked back like it was going to tip over. “This is completely ridiculous,” he growled.

  He stormed out before either Sam or I could say anything.

  Great. Now what?

  I rolled my eyes and frowned at Sam. “I don’t get it. Why can’t you negotiate the terms of the agreement? It’s his livelihood.”

  Sam looked me over and the corners of his mouth turned up into an easy smile. “I thought we couldn’t talk about Bradley without him being here. If I’m talking to you, I want to talk about us.”

  His smile brightened and my nerves scattered, racing with my pulse even though the smile held me in place.

  Now there. That… That was the smile that could affect me. The smile disappeared quickly, however, and the seriousness returned to his face.

  I grabbed my notebook and pen, standing up too.

  “So you seriously won’t talk to me?” He frowned.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” I moved toward the door.

  “Dear Olivia,” he said quickly and the words stopped me in my tracks.

  The worst thing about this man was he knew what to say to reach me, even when I didn’t want to be reached, or found.

  “Don’t.” I turned on my heel to face him and shook my head. “Don’t you ‘Dear Olivia’ me. You have no right.”

  He stood up now and pushed his hair behind his ear.

  “Dear Olivia, I’m sorry I couldn’t stay,” he continued, despite my caution. “I had to leave because you asked me to take care of your brother and I didn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t take care of him like you asked. It was the one time I never had his back. I chose not to, and because of me he died. My best friend who was like a brother to me was murdered in cold blood because I chose to do what I thought was right. It was selfish. I couldn’t face you or Joe after. Knowing that I could have stopped Coop from dying. I wish that I could ask for forgiveness, but I can’t. Don’t forgive me.”

  The tears I’d been holding back came. They streamed down my cheeks and I didn’t bother to wipe them away.

  It was too much. The refresher that Coop was gone, and hearing Sam’s guilt over him, was too much.

  My hands started to shake and my chest tightened. My whole body suddenly became drained and I could have indeed fainted from the lightheadedness that took me.

  I struggled to catch my breath. I struggled to find something to say to him.

  He made it harder by walking up to me. I gazed into his eyes, eyes I used to get lost in, and hated myself for wishing I could be that girl again.

  “I wouldn’t have seen you ever again if this Bradley thing never happened, would I?” My voice shook as I spoke, and I truly felt selfish for the question.

  It was a selfish thing to say because it brought it back to me. He just explained his reasons for leaving, but my heart was still hung up on the fact that he left me.

  “No.” He held my gaze, not breaking eye contact, not even for a second.

  “What was the point of asking me to marry you if you were just going to leave? What was the point of any of it, all those years? Sam, you left and I never knew where you went. Now you’re here telling me not to forgive you. You’re right, I shouldn’t forgive you because I was obviously nothing to you. You never actually loved me. You never—”

  Sam stopped my next words by crushing his lips to mine. He moved so fast I never saw it coming. He smoothed his hand behind my head and pulled me to him, capturing my lips for an earth-shattering kiss filled with greed and possession that set my soul on fire and made my whole body buzz from the passion that rippled from him to me.

  I was so stunned I couldn’t move, and my heart betrayed me because I didn’t want to. His merciless mouth took control and I moved closer to him when he closed the space between us, pulling me flush against the rock-hard walls of his chest.

  I didn’t even think about where we were, when we were, or what we were.

  But suddenly, he pulled back. Breathing heavily, he moved back, looked at me like he’d done something wrong, and moved past me, leaving.

  I watched him open the door and go right through, never looking back.

  Leaving me feeling like the rug of reality just got pulled from under my feet.

  Chapter 5

  Sam

  Twenty years ago…

  Damn Ray. He got me good this time.

  Got me good.

  My head still felt like it was going to fall off. I guess being hit with a baseball bat tended to do that to a guy.

  I didn’t know how anyone could think it was okay to do that to a person, yet Ray hit me all the damn time and got away with it. I’d given up trying to tell people that my foster father was an asshole who took out his rage on me every chance he got, especially when he drank too much.

  No one believed me.

  No one at all, because I was trouble.

  He’d labeled me trouble and I gues
s I couldn’t argue. It was true. Even I knew that. If I wasn’t stealing cars, getting expelled from school multiple times, stealing whatever I could get my hands on, I was smoking and drinking and trying to think up what I could do next to cause a stir.

  That was trouble and I couldn’t seem to get myself out of it.

  Ray kept me around because of the government allowance he got for me. He made a point of making sure I knew that. He’d never take the risk of me believing he actually wanted me around, because I was the kid no one wanted. Ray had Susan when I first went to live with them. She was his wife. She seemed okay and didn’t treat me all that bad. He didn’t, either, when she was around. Then she left him and the beatings started. Like it was my fault she realized he was a fucking loser.

  I hated him and I hated this stupid life I had. I wish I could leave. I knew I could take care of myself if I was allowed to.

  If I took care of myself, I’d go off grid. There’d be none of this juvie shit to worry about. That asshole, he knew that one more strike would send me right back inside, yet he called social services.

  I stole some bread. The lamest thing ever, but this time it was legit. I was hungry. Ray had no food in the house and I was too embarrassed to go to the St. Claire’s.

  I didn’t want to make myself look worse than I already felt by begging for food. So I stole it, got caught, and good old St. Ray ratted me out. Not before he beat me up first. The shopkeeper called him out of work so he was pissed about that.

  He would have killed me if I hadn’t run away and hid here.

  Here… The old board house in the woods near the St. Claire’s. The kids all thought the place was haunted. Mostly it just stank of shit. It was late and I was hoping I could hang out here in the basement until morning. Hopefully the pain would be gone, then I’d find some way to get gone. I’d leave L.A. and maybe head to Mexico. I’d always heard that was the best place to disappear if you needed to leave and stay gone. The juvie kids said that. The ones who spoke to me.

  A creak on the stairs made me snap to attention.

  God, please don’t let it be him.

  He looked for me last time I ran away, and he nearly took the skin off my back with the hiding he gave me. Fucking asshole.

  A shimmer of light moved across the darkness. A flashlight.

  Next came more creaking on the stairs as someone made their way down it.

  “Sam Hawthorne, you better be down here. I came in this awful place for you. I’m so terrified right now,” came a little voice that softened my heart in an instant.

  Olivia.

  Coop’s kid sister. Jesus, it had to be close to ten, what the hell was she doing out in the woods, and here?

  I moved away from my hiding spot behind a large bookshelf, trying as best as I could not to startle her.

  “Olivia,” I snapped and she jumped, shrieking.

  “Oh my God. Sam, you’re here. Good, okay, let’s go. This place is haunted.” Her little face contorted with fear and she tugged on the ends of her ponytail as she looked about the place then back to me.

  “What are you doing out here so late? You’re going to get me in trouble, kid.”

  She shined the flashlight in my face. “I’m not a kid.” She looked upset.

  “You’re ten.”

  “That’s just five years younger than you are.”

  “It’s more like six. I’m going to be sixteen next month.” And eighteen couldn’t come quick enough for me. Out of the system and no longer burdened with the worry of government people taking me to whatever foster parent they saw fit. I’d been with Ray the longest, ever since my deadbeat mother left me for dead a few years back. I couldn’t even remember what she looked like and I never met my father.

  I was ten when she left. I came home from school one day and she was gone. The state thought it was best to keep me at the same school so they placed me with a psycho animal.

  I really had to leave here.

  “My Uncle Neal is a whole ten years older than my aunt,” Olivia pointed out.

  I tilted my head to the side and regarded her. The other day she made some remark like that. I couldn’t quite recall what it was she said but it was similar, like she was making some kind of point.

  “Kid, your aunt and uncle are old; age doesn’t matter when people get to a certain age.”

  “Really?”

  I seriously couldn’t be having this conversation now. I needed to find a way to get her home and off my back. I may have been hit with a fucking baseball bat that could have knocked me out, but I wasn’t blind or stupid. The way her face brightened and the things she said… It wasn’t difficult to do the math and figure out she had a crush on me. And that was the last thing I needed. More trouble.

  “Kid, I need to get you home.”

  “Stop calling me kid.” She winced. “Everyone’s looking for you in the woods.”

  Shit! I wished she’d told me that first.

  “Everyone? Like who?”

  “My dad, Coop, your dad and um…” She pressed her lips together.

  “Who, Olivia?”

  “Some cops and social workers. Sam, are you in trouble again? Like last time?” The worry was heavy on her pretty little face under the glow of the flashlight.

  “Olivia, is your dad nearby?” If he was, I’d send her back out.

  “Yeah. He’s looking around the lake with Coop. I came in here because you said the other day you could live here.”

  Sometimes I talked too much. “I need you to go back out and tell them you haven’t seen me.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I need to get gone.”

  “Gone, like juvie?”

  Since they’d known me I’d been to juvie a total of five times. It was the most horrendous place ever. It was like being condemned to hell. “That’s where they’ll take me if they find me.”

  She held the flashlight close to her chest. “Are you going to run away?”

  I didn’t know why, but somehow I couldn’t lie. As I looked at her, I couldn’t lie.

  “Yes.”

  “How will I know if you’re safe? Anything could happen to you.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Will you call?”

  “Olivia, I seriously need you to get back up there.”

  “If you don’t call, how will we know what happened to you?” Her voice quivered like she was going to cry.

  I’d known her and her family for five years. They moved into the area and lived on the same block as me. Coop and I got on straight away. Their old man was cool, too, even though he was a cop. Their mom was cool too, she always gave me a pack of homemade cookies when I went to visit. She died a few years back.

  And her… Olivia. For some reason this kid took it upon herself to worry about me. No one ever did that. No one really cared that much to do that. Though I suppose the fact that hearing her family was outside looking for me tended to refute that assumption.

  “You remember that movie we watched last Saturday when they were able to trace that guy from the phone calls he made?”

  She watched Speed with Coop and me and loved it.

  “Yes, but that was a film, and that guy was really bad. They don’t do that in real life.” She shook her head and the ends of her hair settled in the crook of her elbow.

  “They do, depending on the person.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to call. It was more the case of if I left here I wouldn’t want anyone to find me.

  “So…write. Write to us. Write to me.”

  I just looked at her and blinked. “Olivia, do I look like the kind of guy who does letters? And what would I write? Dear Olivia… I’m alive, yours truly, Sam?”

  “Perfect. Do that.” She nodded.

  I was about to say how ridiculous that sounded but the creak on the stairs stole my words.

  “Sam!” It was Ray.

  I balled my fist as he descended, flashlight in hand too. His bulky body stumbled, showing he was still drunk. />
  He didn’t care that Olivia was there. When he saw me he snarled and lunged at me.

  “You little shit! I’ve been looking for you.”

  Trying to move Olivia out of the way put me right in line with his fist. His solid fist connected with my face and set off the pain from the bat to the back of my head.

  Olivia screamed.

  It was too much and I was no match for him. I stumbled and fell back to the ground. Olivia rushed at my side.

  “Olivia, go!” I yelled.

  “No, don’t hurt him!” she cried. She was the first person to see Ray for what he was.

  The next two people came running down the stairs.

  Joe and Coop.

  But…not before Ray landed another punch in my face. My nose cracked and blood spurted from my nostrils. The pain was so intense I saw stars.

  “Dad, help him!” Coop yelled, but he didn’t need to give the command. Joe was already in motion.

  He grabbed Ray and punched him. Both men were perhaps as big as each other, but Joe had muscle and skill. You could tell he’d be good in a fight. Ray didn’t stand a chance.

  Joe didn’t, however, use that skill. He held back. I watched him.

  “Crazy bastard. You ever touch that boy again and that’ll be the last time you use those hands of yours,” Joe threatened.

  “Let me go!” Ray winced.

  I couldn’t help the triumph that soared through me at watching him look scared. Served him right. He’d finally met his match.

  The cops came down the stairs and that triumph went through the window, along with my hopes of leaving.

  Feather-soft fingers brushed over my cheek and I turned to see Olivia. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She pulled out a tissue from her pocket and held it to my nose.

  Joe released Ray, shoving him into the wall, and came over to us.

  “You okay, son?” he asked.

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “We’ll take him now,” said the tallest officer.

  It must have been my inner fears coming out, but instinctively I reached for Joe’s arm and held on tight.