"You two, get inside will you. Canoodling on my front door. Mama will freak."
Me and Calvin are full of gratitude towards her for letting us in.
She takes us into her front room.
"Take as long as you want. I’ll be upstairs." She then turns to Calvin before she pulls the door to leave. "I like you Calvin, I always have, but hurt her again and you’ll have me to answer to, and yes, that is a threat. I can be your worst nightmare." She warns him with narrowed eyes, firmly pointing her finger in his face. Calvin doesn’t know whether to laugh or take her seriously.
I know she is not joking.
When she's gone, myself and Calvin stare at each other. Each of us at opposite ends of the room. A part of me feels like a stranger towards him, it's been so long for me, yet he's everything I’ve always wanted. The part of me I have always been missing. My eyes drift over the delectable sight of him. From his gorgeously ruffled dark golden hair, to his ice blue eyes. The black mid-length over coat he wears over a grey sweater, black jeans and black boots. Calvin Blake is undeniable flawless. I have missed starting at him this way.
I sense strong lingering tension and I know he has something he wants to say, that's why he's here after all. I still can't believe he's came all the way down here to make it right. He went searching for me after I told him I was leaving. After I told him not too. He's finally fighting for me.
Calvin pushes his hands through his hair, something he only does when he's nervous or mad.
"Olivia I...I don't know where to start. I felt like I couldn't tell you earlier and when you told me not to follow you, it killed me. I did what you wanted because at the time I knew you meant it. I could see it in your eyes. I kicked myself when you left. I told myself to be a man and be honest for once. How could I lose you for good without even telling you the truth? At least now, when you hear me out, and I’m hoping you will stay, that you will still want me. And if you don’t, at least I can say I tried, and after that I will continue to try. I won't ever give up on you."
I hold back tears after his heartfelt speech and advise him softly.
"Start from the beginning."
Whatever he has to say, it won't make a difference to me now. I’m too much in love with him to let something come between us again. I can't do it. I can't fight my feelings for him. I will never lead a fulfilled life without him. Why should I kid myself? My place in life is next to Calvin and his place next to me. That's how I want it to be.
Calvin stares at me warily. He's scared of saying it I can tell, his eyes are full of fright.
"Okay…Fuck!" He's starting to get angry with himself.
"What it is Calvin?" I push gently, trying to reassure him it’ll be alright. He needs to be honest. That's all I ask.
He inhales deeply. "I don't know how to say this. ...but I’m going to try and do as best I can." He inhales again clutching at his hair.
Oh for heaven’s sake.
He walks towards me and takes my hands with his. His worried ice blue eyes lock onto mine.
"Please have an open mind Olivia. I did this with no intention what so ever of hurting you. I didn't realize our relationship would turn out how it did, how it has."
I take my hands out of his and cross them, still waiting, now a little impatient.
I study his body language, he's actually really nervous, something I’ve never seen before.
So am I.
He begins in a rush, and the more he says the more by heart rate starts to build. "It was all a ploy at first, a simple way of getting more insight, an easier way in if you like. Just to ruin him, ruin everything he has. Everything he loves. Everything he's ever worked for. That was our goal and I think we’ve succeeded so far. But not fully."
I narrow my eyes at him, completely lost in what he's saying. What was a ploy? What is he talking about? Who is he talking about?
He spots the concern and confusion cross my face but I let him finish.
He's about to take my hands again, but I shake my head indicating for him to stay where he is. Like he asked, I will keep an open mind, but with him having physical contact with me doesn’t help me think.
He steps back, nodding that he understands I don’t want him to touch me, and continues, still in a rush and getting angry with himself, or the situation he’s got himself in. I can’t tell.
"Everything was going to plan. Fucking things up for him, his family life disturbed. We made sure the first few mishaps would eventually lead to your uncle, the head of police. We needed to jeopardize their relationship. Putting a stop to the police turning a blind eye on his wrong doings was the first thing we needed to do. At first, doing over his beloved clubs made sure he knew that someone was on to him. We got inside his head, made him think he was going mad. When we blew up the warehouse, it brought so much attention, something the police don't like. You see, they don’t like people asking questions and that’s what happened. Now they’re not doing business with each other, now he can't get away with all this shit he has, that was the start."
The anger that fills his eyes are familiar. They turn black and his whole body is tense as he speaks. It’s the same way he looked when he saw Mauricio for the first time.
It's disturbing the way he speaks about this, in a way, boastful but with so much rage.
I stay silent, falling numb to the gut feeling that's overcome me about what this is about.
"I wanted to take everything away from him Olivia, everything he had ever cared about. All this was the plan, mine and my brothers."
Him? Who is he talking about?
Wait?
Is he talking about Mauricio?
"Mauricio? You’re talking about Mauricio?" My voice is hoarse as I say what my gut is telling me to.
"Yes, Mauricio." He says as if I should have known this.
Wait, Calvin has been the one who has been doing all this to Mauricio? Him and Ashton? They have been the one’s trying to ruining his reputation? Bringing him down? Causing rifts between my family. How can that be? It can't.
“You! It has been you the whole time? You’ve been the one ripping my family apart? Doing those things to Mauricio?”
Oh my god. It’s been Calvin! The man I fell in love with this whole god damn time!
My stomach tenses in response to the sordid news. My head feels spaced out.
Calvin’s eyes shoot open to my remarks, now he's apprehensive. “Olivia, please don’t look at me like that. I never intended on hurting you.”
How can he say that? My heart is pounding. My body is shaking. I hold onto the side of the sofa to steady myself.
“Why would you do this to us? To my family?”
He walks around the room in despair trying to explain himself but his motive doesn’t become any clearer to me. “Because we wanted to hurt him. Ruin him. Bring him down, yes. We wanted to make sure everything he ever cared about was ruined. And then..."
“Then... What?” I whisper, feeling sick to my stomach.
He turns away from me. He can't bring himself to say it, so I do it for him.
“Then kill him Calvin. You wanted to kill Mauricio?”
“Yes, I wanted to kill him.”
My stomach churns as he growls the word… kill. The rage consumed in him is scary and unrecognizable.
"Why?" I stare at him stunned. My voice is a whisper. I fall numb to the news. I was not expecting anything like this to come out of his mouth. I don’t understand.
“Why?” he mocks. “Surly you can answer that for yourself.”
I shake my head hurt and confused, trying to make sense of this but it makes none.
“No. No I can’t, that's why I’m asking. Sure he's an asshole and believe me I hate him right now more than anyone, but kill him? All these things that have been happening to him, with his clubs, his plans that I’ve heard of, our family breaking down. That was you and Ashton? Making him loose his mind? You’ve been plotting against him.” I run my hands through my hair, trying to take it
away from the sweat that has built up on my forehead. I'm burning up in temperature. I don’t know much about this but Mayra told me in our earlier conversation that someone has been fucking around with Mauricio's businesses. They have been trying to bring his name down, trying to damage him and she thinks it’s someone who has a vendetta against him. And those people have been Calvin and Ashton? This is what’s been driving Mauricio to destruction?
“Olivia?” he calls warily. I turn to him and point accusingly. “That morning when you met him for the first time out my kitchen, you knew who he was didn’t you. That’s why you looked at him the way you did. I just thought it was because of the way he acted towards me but now I can see it was because you were destroying him. You talked me into introducing you so you could wind him up?” I'm asking theoretical questions because he needn’t answer. I thought it was crazy of him to do. He wanted to introduce himself to Mauricio because he knew it would rile him. Why?
The next question I need an answer to.
“Where do I fit into all this?”
Calvin looks towards me a little anxious saying nothing. His eyes almost painfully apologetic.
Suddenly, it hit's me. The ploy. I was the ploy?
No! No way. He wouldn’t do that to me would he? A gorgeous man like him going for a plane Jane like me? Shit. Of course, it all makes sense to me now.
The cramps in my stomach become worse. I begin to feel sick, right down into the pit of my stomach sick. My breathing instantly flares up turning into raged intervals. My head is spinning as my world has just come crashing down.
How could he.
"You used me Calvin?” I gasp a distraught breath. “You used me to get to Mauricio as some sort of a cunning plan? You would do that to me?"
Worried Calvin is back as he pales, studying my eyes, my body language. He is in visible despair. How does he think I feel?
"Olivia, please. I didn't mean to hurt you.”
“Did you fucking use me?” I scream. My anger is being encouraged by the unknown.
He walks away from me and curses under his breath. “Okay, yes. I used you at first to get to him. I mean, it was the easiest way.”
I can’t be hearing clearly. I shake my head in antagonizing amazement. My eyes filling up as I watch him.
"You used me?" I whisper again. “Why?” Who is this fucking guy?
Calvin's eyes shut while he places his fingers over his mouth. He’s finding it hard to say.
“Yes, I used you. At first. God I hate to say that, but you were an easy target. Such a good girl. I knew you must be the apple of your daddy’s eye. I knew Mauricio hated nothing more than his perfect little family being disturbed, you told me that yourself.”
I inhale sharply while my heart takes another blow. “So all the times you wanted to see me, the times we spent together, they were set up? Every time you asked about my family it was only to get some knowledge? How could you betray me like this?”
I ignore the grief that appears across his face and in his tone, because a fraction of what Calvin is feeling doesn’t come close to what I am.
He hesitates. “Yes…no…yes. But wanting to get to know you was real. I wanted to get to know you, Olivia. I wanted to spend time with you. Everything I did for you was real.”
I know he’s hating every second of this, his hair is a mess where he’s been pulling at it, his demeanor sort of angry at the situation yet wary because he doesn’t know what I’m thinking. I don’t know what I'm thinking. I know how I'm feeling. Hurt, betrayed and lied to.
“How can you say that it was real when I was a part of your fucked up plan? For a reason I still do not know about! You played me Calvin, you sucked me into your life under false pretenses
and I fell in love with you. When all along you had no intention of having a relationship with me.”
“Olivia, don’t say that. It’s not true.” I don’t look at him. I can't breathe properly. My chest starts to tighten. I walk around the living room trying to catch my breath, clutching at my hair. I’m burning up. Feeling nausea. Sweating. I’m still listening to what he's saying but it hurts like a fucking dagger to my heart as he twists it in deeper the more he confesses.
He used me to hurt Mauricio and I can’t comprehend why.
“You purposely set out to hurt each and every one of us.” I continue.
He frowns, then shakes his head quickly disagreeing. “No, just him.”
“You say that but the only one that has been hurting through this is me. He has taken it out on me for months. Acting like I was being the nuisance brat, disturbing his peace. He thought it was me suddenly turning against him, but really it was because you were turning me against him. That’s why I acted the way I did towards him, you strung me like a puppet for your own use.”
I slowly sink down into the couch holding onto the arms of the chair for support. Calvin is about to help me sit but I push his hands away. “Don’t touch me!” I yell.
He recoils at my harshness but it’s not harsh to me. I need to think straight. I need time.
I stay silent for a few moments, thinking.
“Olivia, talk to me.”
I close my eyes, allowing tears to fall down my cheeks.
“All them times you had to ‘be somewhere’ Calvin, all the times you were gone. Times when I didn’t see you for days. Times when I thought you didn’t want to know me anymore. I sat there and I would think to myself; why doesn’t he want to spend time with me, what’s wrong with me. I doubted I was ever going to be good enough for you,” I glance up at him. He looks down at me with his blue eyes hooded and oozing agony. He walks over to me and kneels between my legs taking my hands. “You have no idea how much it hurts to hear you say that. I wish I could take them days back where I didn’t see you, because them days are wasted moments I should have shared with you and I'm never going to get that time back. I wish I could take every doubt that you ever had about yourself and banish them by making it better in any way possible, but I can't. Just know that you will always be too good for me and I will never be worthy of your love. Never.” His face is full of regret as I swipe at my tears with my fingers.
“Let me get this straight. When you were gone, you were the one's doing over the clubs? You and Ashton? You were the ones causing Mauricio’s ‘calamity’s’? That’s where you were? And you told me you couldn’t tell me. Told me the devil never reveals his secrets,” I scoff at my stupidity. “I thought you were joking.”
Calvin looks away before answering me. “Most of the time that’s where I was yes.”
I narrow my eyes at him and nod trying to work this out. “Okay. So, that’s how you knew where I lived? That’s how you knew almost everything about me? Seems you knew more about me than I knew about myself. How did you get this information?”
He stands from his kneeling position and positions himself in the middle of the room, standing. I almost think Calvin isn’t going to tell me but instead he tells me everything.
“Weeks before we met, we’d follow Mauricio. See what he was about. See what he owned. What his operations were. I wanted to see what he loved the most. After your graduation, he took you to his restaurant. I saw how much you meant to him. I figured out you were a good girl, but that could easily be swayed.”
My eyes turn to his sharply. “You were at the restaurant? After my graduation?”
He bows his head, closing his eyes, and sighs in shame. “Yes.”
“You followed me and my family?”
“Yes.”
He followed me and my family? Is he insane?
“Olivia, I did what I had to do.”
I yell at him forgetting where I am. “Why me? Why not Sophia? We all know she’s way prettier and a man like you, she would have done anything for.”
He answers me too casually which throws me. "Sophia was too easy, she fell in love at the drop of a hat and I knew in the end she would suss me out, but with you...”
"But with me what?" I scrunch up my eyes
, feeling doubted again. I know Calvin doesn’t want to explain this one but I push him firmly. “Me what?” I grit my teeth.
He rubs his red, blood shot eyes before answering. I know it’s to give him time on how to approach the question so I yell again. “Why me?”
“Because I heard that you were Mauricio’s pride and joy. I heard that you did everything he asked of you. You were the perfect step daughter that completed his ‘perfect family’ I knew he would have hated every second of you being influenced, his special girl being tainted.”
I open my mouth to speak, but have nothing. He’s right. I was. But he knew all this?
“So I was some sort of joke to you? Do you realize how fucked up this sounds?”
I can’t stand it. I stand sharply from the sofa. I need air. I brush past him to make my way outside.
“You’re not leaving me?” he frantically pulls me back by my arm.
I throw myself out of his grip fiercely. “I need some air!”
I get outside Mayra’s with Calvin following behind, closing the door behind him. I’m about to walk off but again, Calvin pulls me back. “Don’t leave me Olivia, please.”
“What the fuck do you expect from me? You tell me you want to kill Mauricio. You tell me you used me to get to him. Used me to ruin our family life, which you have succeeded in doing by the way. You tell me you followed me and my family around and you think I want to stay?”
"Olivia, please don't look at me that way. You wanted me to tell you the truth and I am. I’m begging you to hear me out, you said you would." He pleads, desperately trying to hold on to me.
I stare back into his piteous blue eyes, and frown. Do I know this man at all?
“Who are you Calvin?”
He steps back alarmed, feeling wounded by my question, looking at me like I’m in the wrong.
“I’m still your Calvin, Olivia. I’m still the man you fell in love with. My personality is no different. Who I was with you, that was the real me. I didn’t make up any of that.”
“How can you say that you’re still mine? You never was mine. Not really.”
He groans exasperated to hear me say such a stupid thing. “Yes I was. I always was. Please believe me.”
Confessions and Olivia (Olivia #2) Page 14