by Lexi Aurora
“I can see that. If you need to go, please, don’t let me stop you.”
“No, no, that’s alright.” He turned to the blonde, kissed her firmly and with enough gusto that it made Olivia want to look at anything else on the planet but the two of them. He whispered something to her, probably something about how he wouldn’t be long with the crazy, sick-looking woman, and then headed towards Olivia. He took her by the arm instead, surprising her so much that she didn’t try to free herself, and led her several paces away from his waiting date.
“What’s going on? What brings you to my neck of the woods?”
“I wanted to talk to you about last night.”
“You aren’t coming to accuse me of anything, are you? Because that would be bad form after everything that went down.”
“No!” she answered quickly, her voice full of genuine surprise, “Nothing like that. I just –”
“Because you weren’t exactly a bed of roses, you know? I mean, you were tough on me! I don’t recall any other woman ever jabbing at me quite that way in my life other than my mother. So you’ve got that going for you.”
Nick was grinning at her, a twinkle in his eyes, but that did nothing to stop the spread of cold inside of her. She had come here to thank him, really, just to thank him for being a gentleman. Before she had even gotten the chance to do that, he had started making fun of her. He was standing here and making fun of her for being such an idiot, and chances were good that once she left he would fill the blonde in on all of the details so that the two of them could have a good laugh at her expense. She folded her arms in front of her and took a step back, all of the uncomfortable good feelings she had been on the verge of developing dashed right then and there.
“Right. Good to know.”
“Hey, don’t be pissed, I–”
“Was just messing around, right?”
“Well, yes, actually.”
“Sure. Of course. No problem, right? I just came here to thank you. So thank you. That’s all. Enjoy your date. Looks like you won’t have too much trouble there.”
She delivered the words in what she hoped was an adequately caustic voice and spun on her heel, hurrying back towards the safety of her car. She did her best to ignore the sting of tears threatening behind her eyes just as she ignored the sound of his voice calling for her to come back. She wasn’t sure what she had wanted, what she had expected coming here, but it had all blown up in the most fantastic way.
Chapter Six
Nick Oswald
“WHAT ON EARTH WAS THAT?”
Nick could hear Mrs. Walsh talking to him, but it sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away, not from a couple of paces behind him. He couldn't really hear her because he wasn't paying attention to her like he was supposed to. He wasn't paying attention because he couldn't stop watching Olivia walk away, which pissed him off in a big fucking way. She'd had no right to just show up at his doorstep, so to speak, and to do so with no kind of warning. Not that she could have given him warning even if she'd wanted to. Or been polite enough to do so, more like. She didn't have his phone number. The two of them didn't know each other well enough and what they knew of one another had never made them want to be friends. He wasn't even sure how she'd figured out where he lived, unless she was stalking him or pumping Abel for information or something, which didn't seem likely. She was way too proud to do something like that even if she wanted to, and he had no idea why she'd want to. Not when she clearly hated his guts. She hated his guts enough to drag her hungover ass to his place and give him an apology that was only one step above calling him a piece of shit. That was the thanks you got for not only taking a belligerent drunk girl home but also putting her to bed. What you got was a good reminder that a guy was better off keeping himself to himself.
“Hello in there?” Mrs. Walsh called in a sing-songy voice that made Nick inwardly cringe, “Anyone home? Are you still listening to me?”
“What?” he asked slightly startled, feeling guilty like he’d just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar, “Of course I am, Mrs. Walsh.”
“Please!” she answered in a shrill voice, “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you! I don’t want you to call me Mrs. Walsh.”
“That so?” Nick asked lightly, using the flirtatious voice women like Mrs. Walsh always loved, “Tell me the truth, then. Do you have some kind of a secret identity?”
“Of course not,” she giggled in a gross parody of coquettishness, “And if I did, do you think I would tell you? That wouldn’t make me very good at keeping secrets, would it?”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t. What would you prefer I call you, then?”
“I keep telling you, Nick! Call me Angie, everybody else does. All of my friends do, anyhow. And you and I are friends, aren’t we?”
"I hope so," Nick smiled, wishing this could be over before it had really begun. "I think that would be best for everyone, don't you, Angie?"
She giggled like a school girl, which she most certainly was not, and took him by the arm again. He wasn’t a big fan of her doing that sort of shit, either, and she’d been doing it since she had first waltzed through his office door as if she owned the place. She was acting like the two of them really were friends, and that was far from being true. He led her to his very impressive car and drove her to an even more impressive and expensive dinner, all the while doing his best to look interested and keep his mind right.
Olivia's assessment of the situation had been way, way off the mark despite her always thinking that she was right about everything and everyone. This was not a date. He tried to make a point of not going on many honest-to-God dates. When he bit the bullet and did so, it wasn't with a woman like this one. She was older than he liked, for starters, although it was hard to see from even a little distance, but that wasn't the biggest thing. He'd been with older women before and liked it, thought they were hot as hell, some of the time. The real issues Nick had with Angela Walsh were two-fold. One, she was utterly vapid. She talked too much about stupid things, and she did so with the attitude that what she said was of utmost importance, the most interesting dialogue that had ever come out of a person's mouth. Secondly, she was just too damned thin. He liked a woman with a little meat on her bones, and she didn't have it. None of which mattered in the end because she wasn't for pleasure, but for business, and that was it. She had come to him with a commission for a truly awesome house that was going to make him a nice chunk of change. She had an incredibly wealthy husband that Nick got the impression wasn't around all that much and didn't pay her that much attention when he was. Said husband had no hand whatsoever in either the design or the implementation of the house. Nick had been working exclusively with Mrs. Walsh, which was why it was he who had to suffer through a two-hour dinner full of flirtation and innuendo. By the time said dinner was over he was so ready to be rid of her it wasn't even funny, but she wasn't prepared to make things that easy on him. Instead of allowing him to drop her off at the rental house she shared with Mr. Walsh like he wanted, she'd insisted that he take her back to his place so that she could call a cab. Her reasoning had been that her husband wouldn't like seeing her dropped off by some "strange man," but leading her through the door of his swank apartment, Nick had gotten a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. It didn't take very long for him to understand that the feeling had been right.
“What’s the matter, Nicky?” she asked in a whiny voice, taking the liberty of pouring herself a glass of scotch despite not receiving an invitation. And, Nicky? What was this Nicky shit? He was starting to get a headache. He wanted the money from her new house just like he wanted any other money but he was starting to wonder if this was worth the trouble. There were other rich people looking for houses. Hopefully, some of whom weren't so desperate for attention.
“Nothing, Mrs–”
"Uh uh," she smiled a smile probably meant to come off as seductive, but struck him as sloppy instead, "what did I tell you?"
&nbs
p; “Right,” he forced a strained smile, “forgive me. Old habits. I meant to call you Angie.”
“Good. That’s very good. Because we’re friends, right, Nicky? Still friends?”
“Sure we are. I think this was a very good meeting, Angie. Very productive.”
Mrs. Walsh groaned and took a larger than recommended sip of her glass of scotch. Nick watched with mild disgust as her throat worked up and down. She was too thin to be trying to toss back that scotch on top of the three glasses of wine she'd polished off at the restaurant, and there was a minute where he was sure she was going to puke. If she did, he was out. No deal. There were other clients out there whose hair he wouldn't need to hold, and he was more than happy to find them. He had already done his good deed helping a too-drunk chick, and it had only gotten him yelled at. He wasn't up for round two. Fortunately, Mrs. Walsh appeared to be getting her gag reflex under control, but that didn't mean she was all that much more pleasant to be around. She was done deciding whether or not she was going to puke, but now she was poking her lip out at him like a little girl and he didn't like that a whole lot more. On top of everything, his head was starting to hurt. All he wanted was for her to leave so he could take a shower, pop some aspirin, and go to bed. Too bad she showed no signs of going anywhere.
“A good meeting? Are you serious right now?”
“I am,” he did his best to keep his voice level, “and it was. As I said, productive. We have a good idea of what direction we want to take moving forward. Wouldn’t you say?”
“For the house? Sure. Great. I know you’ll make it perfect. I’ve heard plenty about how good you are. How capable your hands are.”
She was moving towards him with alarming, wobbly speed and Nick took a step back. He was too late, though. Before he had a chance to put his hands out to stop her, Mrs. Walsh was stumbling into his arms and planting a wet, scotch-flavored kiss on his unhappy lips. He took her firmly by the shoulders and moved her a step back, unable to hide his grimace of displeasure now.
“What’s the matter, Nicky?” She pouted again, struggling to be back in his unwilling arms, “I thought you wanted to be productive.”
“I do, Angie. Believe me. My business is important to me.”
“Well, then let’s be productive. Let’s be productive together. What do you say?”
She lunged forward again, and Nick took another step backward, almost with his back flush up against a wall now. This time the look he got in response was more than a pout. It was closer to a snarl and Nick's heart sunk in his chest. It looked like he wasn't going to get out of this without another drunk girl drama, after all.
“What? You think you’re too good for me or something? Is that it, Mr. Oswald?”
“No, of course not, Angela. I just don’t make it a habit to mix business with pleasure.”
“I could make things better for your business. You know that, don’t you? You know how much money my husband has?”
“Yes, I do. Your project would be an honor to work on.”
“I can make things worse for you, too. If I want to. I can take my business elsewhere.”
“You can,” Nick answered slowly, “but your husband might have something to say about it.”
“My husband?” She snapped like a snake coiled and ready to strike, “What exactly does my husband have to do with anything? I’m the one in charge of this project.”
"You are. But he's the one paying for it, and he's the one who signed the contract. It's going to cost him if he has to cancel. It will be messy for everyone involved, too."
For a second, Mrs. Walsh looked totally and completely stunned. Then she lifted both of her hands and shoved him right in the chest. It was a surprisingly hard shove coming from such a small and intoxicated woman. If he hadn't been so close to the wall, already Nick would probably have gone sprawling. It seemed like that was what she was hoping for, too, because when he kept his footing, she let out a banshee shriek, and hauled off and slapped him. He took deep, steadying breaths, willing himself to maintain control.
"Mrs. Walsh, I think it's probably best if you head on home now. I've already asked the doorman to call you a cab and my guess is that it will be here any minute."
“You’re a real piece of shit, Nick Oswald. Has anybody ever told you that?”
“In the interest of keeping things as civil moving forward,” Nick continued, unwilling to let her draw him into a fight, “I really think it’s best–”
“Shove it up your ass. How about that, Mr. hotshot engineer? I know my way to the lobby. You’ll be lucky if my husband doesn’t hear about this.”
She hit him one more time for good measure and then she was out the door, slamming it as hard as she could on the way out. Nick would have worried about his neighbors, but his apartment was so big and far from any other units that he doubted anyone had really heard. Even if they had, people in his building knew him. They had come to expect the occasional pissed off woman from time to time. He took a quick look around, poured himself his own glass of scotch, and slid into the nearest chair.
“Christ,” he whispered to himself, “what a day.”
It wasn't every day that a man had two women storm out on him in one day. Even for a man like Nick Oswald, that was unusual. It should have been Angela Walsh that he was worried about. He didn't think she would actually go to her husband with what had happened, not when she sobered up and had some time to cool off. She might have been pissed at him, but that alone wouldn't have been enough for her to risk her cushy situation with her sugar daddy. Still, anytime there was trouble in the business arena it was supposed to take precedence over everything else. Instead, it was Olivia he couldn't stop thinking about. Even as he slipped off to sleep, the fire in her eyes as she had stormed away from him was the last thing he saw.
Chapter Seven
Olivia Young
“SO, LIKE, WHAT’S YOUR deal, lately, anyway? What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing, Patricia. Nothing’s going on with me. This is what it looks like when somebody is working hard. Maybe you should give it a try sometime.”
"Geez. First of all, I do work hard. Anybody working as your secretary works hard. You make sure of that. Secondly, you can pretend everything's good with you all you want, but I don't believe you. Something is definitely up. You don't have to tell me what it is. I know we aren't, like, friends or anything. I'm just curious. I'm kind of wondering how long things are going to be like this."
Olivia sighed and looked up from her computer at the young, blonde woman standing in her doorway. Patrizia Art was her secretary, and unlike some of the secretaries in the firm, Olivia liked her. She wasn't the best worker in the world and maybe not the smartest girl in the world, but she did work hard. She was also prone to calling Olivia out on her bullshit and although nobody liked having that done, Olivia was bright enough to understand that she needed it from time to time. At the moment, however, she was not in the mood to answer any questions. One of the reasons she'd been working even harder than usual in the days following her unfortunate run-in with Nick was so she didn't have to think about the answers to those questions at all, either out loud or inside of her own head. That was one of the things she liked so much about hard work. If you did enough of it, you could block out almost everything. Except, of course, when a secretary started asking questions.
“It’s not going to ‘be’ like anything, Patricia. Things have been nuts since the promotion. You know this. I’m just trying to make sure the partners know they made the right decision in choosing me. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a few of them had their doubts. I want to prove them wrong.”
“Yeah,” Patricia answered, twirling her hair around one finger and looking sort of bored, “that’s fine. Don’t really believe you, but it’s fine. That’s what I told your friend, anyhow.”
“My friend? Which friend might that be?”
“You know, your bestie. The one who calls you up here all of the time. I told her
you were busy–”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you told me not to take any calls.”
“Oh, right.”
“Anyway,” Patricia went on as if she’d never been interrupted, “I told her your big promotion was sucking up all of your time and good moods, and she told me to have you call her, like, as soon as possible.”
"Oh, God. Thanks, Patricia. That will be all."
“Okay. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what’s really eating at you?”
“Nothing is eating at me. Please shut the door on your way out.”
Patricia rolled her eyes, snapped her gum, and did as she was told. Olivia waited until the door was fully shut and sighed, looking thoughtfully at her phone. She loved Caroline, of course, she did, but she wasn't sure how she felt about making this call. She had felt a little bit weird ever since learning that Caroline and Abel were moving in together. She was happy for her, for both of them, but it felt like there was a barrier up between them that had never been there before. This was a big life step that, up until now, neither one of them had taken. Now, for all of her job success, Olivia had been left behind. She didn't know why Caroline needed her to call as soon as possible, but if there was more news involved, Olivia wasn't sure that she would be able to handle it. That and Patricia had outed her about the promotion. Caroline was sure to have plenty to say about her keeping that little tidbit of info to herself over the last couple of days. Normally, the two of them didn't keep any secrets from each other at all, not even about the little stuff. Now Olivia was going to have to come clean, and as she listened to the phone ring, she felt her heart beating just a little bit too hard.
“What the hell, lady?” Caroline half laughed, half yelled into the phone after only the second ring.
“Well, hello to you, too. Is this how we’re greeting each other now? For the record, I’m alright with it, but I’d like to know so that I do it right from now on.”