"He's off limits completely until I graduate, but then I'm headed back home to Houston. How am I supposed to stay in touch with him in a non-creepy, I-swear-I'm-not-a-stalker way?"
"Are you sure you want to? Something is definitely up with him. He's almost too cautious around you if you ask me. Did he get popped for dating a student or is he a child molester or something?"
Her expression darkened. "No. Don't be stupid."
"I hit a nerve." I laughed again and got up. "Find out what his story is, Dana. Don't fall in love with someone you know nothing about."
"It's a little late for that." She sighed loudly as I smiled and walked to my room to finish getting ready.
Who was I to be handing out advice on falling in love? My heart belonged to an eighteen-year-old boy from Texas with a killer smile and muscles that would make most girls’ knees weak. I couldn't help but wonder if he'd filled out even more over the years. Best to leave it alone or I'd be taking Dana's advice and searching the city for him.
***
"No. I don't accept it." My boss, Sarah Mayberry, leaned across her desk and smacked her hands on the polished cherry wood. "You're not leaving us. Period."
I chuckled. "I am, Sarah. I need to have more opportunity and take a risk while I can. This is a good move for me."
"No. It isn't. It's a horrible move. You know as well as I do that Luke Taylor is a fucking idiot." She got up and growled. "He's a heartless idiot with a brilliant brother and a silent partner with deep pockets. You need to stay here. Shit, Olivia... it's been a little over a year. What are you expecting? Partnership before you're thirty? That doesn't happen. Surely you're not so-"
"Naive? I'm not, but there are unconventional ways of creating success before society deems you worthy." I kept my voice even and non-confrontational. Luke was a bastard and kept a lot of his life hidden from me, which was fine. I honestly hadn't wanted to know who his partners were or what products they sold when we'd first started dating. It was a hot fling and he was insatiable in the bedroom. I'd grown that way because of him, so as far as I was concerned, he could have three clowns and Daddy Warbucks working for him. He owned the top firm in New York. I was thrilled to be the woman he chose to show off from time to time.
"I agree, but this guy isn't the real deal. His brother is, but he's an idiot." She stopped in front of her desk and leaned toward me. "Reconsider. This is a mistake in the making. You're going to go over there and come crawling back in a few weeks."
"You were my sponsor-advisor in college. Do you think I'm the kind of woman who crawls back to anything?" I stood up as anger raced up the center of my chest. I was a baby in the game they played in Corporate America, but that didn't mean I wasn't capable of growing up - fast. I'd already outsold all of the members of my start class ten times over and was labeled one of the most successful employees in our company at the close of the last year.
"No, but you know that I'd take you back." Her expression softened. "I don't want you to go. You belong here."
"I belong wherever there is an opportunity for growth. You know as well as I do that Frank isn't going to support another woman to rise up the ranks. You're it." I moved toward her floor-to-ceiling window and looked out across the city. "I want to take this risk, Sarah. I just want to see if it will lead somewhere."
"I get that." She stopped beside me and crossed her arms over her chest. "But who's going to be looking out for you over there? You know they have mostly men in their firm."
"I do, but Luke isn't all bad. He's got his faults, but so do you and me." I gave her a tight smile. She had plenty of recognizable faults that she did a piss-poor job of hiding. When she was happy, you knew it. Mad, sad, pissed, thrilled... you knew it. The woman had no filter.
"Fine. Let me at least put in a call to Caden and tell him to watch out for you." She brushed her hand over the top of my back. "Have you met him yet?"
"No. Who's that?" Tingles of white-hot fear raced through me. Surely there wasn't another Caden Taylor in the city. How stupid had I been to not ask Luke for more information? Was he Caden's brother? No. That wasn't possible. My Caden didn't have any siblings that lived with them on the ranch. His father had another son from a previous marriage, but Caden never really talked too much about the other kid.
"He's Luke's partner. You should do your research, Olivia. I'm a little surprised that you haven't. You trust Luke that much? What, are you sleeping with him?" She laughed as if the thought was audacious.
"Yes. He's my boyfriend." I turned to face her as she walked back to her desk and dropped down.
"Why am I not surprised to hear that? He's the type of bastard that would steal the heart of my most prized up-and-coming investment manager to turn her against me."
I scoffed and walked over to stand in front of her desk. "He didn't even know where I would end up when we started dating, Sarah. I was a junior in college."
"And I was your sponsor. A Google search would have revealed that." She glanced up and gave me a stern look. "I'm asking you as someone who truly cares about your future to reconsider. This guy isn't who you think he is."
"No. He's exactly who I think he is." I let out a shaky breath and walked to the door. "This is my two weeks’ notice."
"You don't get two weeks and you know it." She turned to face me as I glanced over my shoulder and held back tears. "You have to clean out your stuff and turn over your accounts today. Are you sure this is what you want, Olivia?"
"Yes. I've been thinking about it for a while now. I have to try."
"All right, kiddo." She stood up and walked toward me, surprising me by pulling me into a hug. "When you realize that the world is a heartless place to invest your time and talent, come back to us."
"I hate crawling though." I smiled as tears filled my eyes.
"No need to crawl, though I might ask for you to grovel a bit." She laughed, gave me another quick hug and closed the door behind me.
As emotional as I was over leaving the firm, I was far more destroyed by the thought of my Caden being Luke's Caden. It wasn't possible... right?
I closed my door behind me and grabbed a handful of Kleenex before sitting down at my laptop and pulling up Luke's website. I'd never looked into him because it didn't matter. We had two separate lives, and I almost preferred it to stay that way. I'd only been at my firm for a year and wasn't at the level to worry much about the competition. I was too busy juggling ten new clients and meeting investment forecasts for the next month.
The website popped up, and I navigated to the about page where information about Luke popped up at the top of the page. I scanned through it and let out a yelp as an image of Caden Taylor popped up below Luke's. My Caden. The boy I'd sworn I'd never see again. Not in a million years.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I reached out and touched the screen, dragging my fingers down his handsome face. He was beyond handsome, by far the most beautiful man I'd ever seen.
Memories of us laughing in his daddy's barn as he chased me up to the loft assaulted me. The warmth of his arms around me, the sweetness of our innocence all those years.
"Why? Why the fuck are you here in my life again?" I pressed the Kleenex to my face and let myself have a cry that I'd been denying myself for far too long. Luke was Caden's brother. There was no way I could go work for them now, and I would have to break things off with Luke too. I could start over with someone else and rebuild whatever arrangement Luke and I had worked to build.
There wasn't another option.
Chapter 6
Caden
I got busy with meetings and couldn't seem to find a minute to myself to check into the idea of Luke's girlfriend possibly being my Olivia. There was no way that was possible, and I forced myself to dismiss the idea. I knew Olivia was somewhere in the city, but so were a zillion other people. The past was the past and no matter how badly I needed reconciliation with her, I wasn't going after it. Chances are she would stab me in the heart again and lick the blade clean. Bitc
h.
"All right, boss. This way. Lunch just got delivered to conference room A. We need to talk about the mini-speeches that Luke wants at the event tonight." Annie moved up beside me in the hall as I walked back from seeing a new client to the front exit.
"Then Luke should have to make these speeches, don't you think?" I smirked.
"He's doing a few of them, but he wants you and Jeremy to talk a little too. You're supposed to focus on the human resources type stuff. Growth in people and achievements. Jeremy gets to talk about investment potential for next year and our new services in the estate planning space." She opened the door to the conference room, and the sound of laughter filled the space around me.
We had a good group of people working for us. We'd grown by leaps and bounds after I'd joined the firm my junior year of college. Managing both school and a budding investment firm was a challenge I didn't think I would survive, but it helped to refocus me on what was most important - my career. Nothing else at twenty-five mattered.
"What are Perry and Luke talking on?" I walked in and waved at the group as they all called out various welcomes. I was far closer to the staff than anyone else at the partner level, but that was most likely because they were my peer group.
"Perry isn't coming. His wife isn't doing too well right now. Her cancer treatments have her bed-ridden." Annie gave me a frown and pointed to the food. "Go eat. Luke will be here in a minute and fill you in on what he’s talking about. When you know, tell me too."
"You don't know? Someone has to censure him." I rolled my eyes and grabbed a plate.
"Right." Annie balked. "You let me know how that works out for you, Mr. Optimist."
"Hey, buddy." Jeremy patted my back as he moved up in line behind me. "You doing all right? Anything new on the horizon?"
"Hey man." I picked up a few sandwiches and grabbed a bag of chips. "I had something interesting happen this morning."
"Tell me all about it. Please let it include sex with a super model." He lifted his eyebrow and moved to sit across the table from me. Everyone else milled around in small groups, laughing and having a good time.
"What? No. Shit, I wish." I opened the bag of chips and glanced up at him. "You don't need to be thinking about that stuff though. You have a pretty wife and a little one on the way."
"Yeah. They're my world, man. I keep thinking I'm going to miss my wild-ass days-"
"Like yesterday?" Zander plopped down next to me and pushed his shoulder against mine. "Hey, boss. What's shaking?"
"Hey man." I turned my attention back to Jeremy. "So this morning I helped some dude with his car because it broke down in the middle of Third Avenue-"
"You're such a saint. I wish there were more men like you in the world." Annie sat down beside Jeremy across from me. "And he even ruined his good white button down shirt over it."
"Not the Brooks Brothers shirt, right?" Jeremy's face paled.
"Shut up, dude. Nobody cares about a Brooks Brothers shirt." Zander swatted at Jeremy across the table. We acted like teenage boys most days of the week, Annie included.
"Keep going and save us from another conversation over Jeremy's obsession with these shirts. Please."
I laughed. "The guy was Seth Martin. I didn't recognize him at first because he looked like shit, as most of us would from pushing a car across the road in eighty-four-degree weather, which, by the way, is ridiculous."
"Eighty-four is blistering hot," Annie complained.
"Try one hundred-five-degrees. That's Dallas in the summer." I rolled my eyes at them. New York had some pretty bad hot spells, but without the humidity, it was different - better - more tolerable.
"So Seth Martin, hmm? That's kick-ass. You know your brother has been trying to get an account started with him for the last three years or so." Jeremy picked up his sandwich and took a big bite of it. "Any luck?"
"I wasn't going to try and sell the poor guy anything, but he gave me his card and said to call him. He picked up on who I was pretty quickly."
"Yeah, who wouldn’t? You're the youngest millionaire in the city." Zander chuckled. "Tell us your secrets."
"A ruthless unethical brother?" I smirked as everyone laughed and dove into their lunches for the next few minutes.
Jeremy broke the silence with a subject that I knew was coming, and yet still felt myself almost bent over about.
"So tell us more about this girl your brother is dating." Jeremy wiped his mouth on his napkin and sat back in his chair. "I've seen her a few times at various events, but-"
"Wait. You've seen her?" My voice rose enough to glean the attention of the room. "Sorry... just excited about the event tonight." I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. "Details. Now."
"Hold up." Zander backhanded me on the arm. "You haven't met a girl that your brother has been intimately dating for the last three years? Are you guys not as close as you make it seem? That's crazy, bro."
"No, we are, but we usually stay out of each other’s private life. He's nervous I'll steal anyone he picks up." I waited for the laugh that should have come, but they just shook their heads as if they completely understood. "I was kidding, you idiots. We just keep our private lives to ourselves. We always have. Now, tell me what she looks like."
"Hot. She's fucking sick hot." Zander stood up and stretched. "The type of girl we all want to parade around this plastic city and show off the real deal to."
"She's just a washed up cheerleader type. Big boobs, blonde hair, great skin. Blah." Annie stood up and struggled before walking toward the food table.
"Why is she complaining?" Jeremy asked. "She's a pretty girl too."
"No clue. Give me details." I leaned in a little, feeling like a ten-year-old boy who wanted access to the treasure map of a lifetime.
"Annie hit it on the head, but the girl isn't washed up at all. She's beautiful. Exquisite is the word I would use. She's got dirty blonde hair down past her shoulders, big blue eyes and a smile that leaves your heart fluttering in your chest. She's got that look that says she's intelligent and ready to rule the world, but there's something underneath it all."
"How do you know so damn much about her?" Zander pressed his hands to the back of his chair and leaned over.
"We went to that poker tournament last year for Luke. He had to bow out, so I went in his place." Jeremy shrugged. "You were closing that McMillian deal. Remember?"
"I remember that. All too well." I took a quick sip of my soda. Everything they'd said collectively added up to Olivia being my Olivia, but maybe I was stretching too far. "This woman is from Tangling, right?"
"Yeah." Jeremy pulled his phone out. "Here... I'll just look up the website and show you a picture."
Ice water ran through my veins. Did I want to see her again? The year before getting her resume had almost been too much. It had unwound my resolve to get over her and get on with my life, which left me fucked and still single at twenty-five years old.
"Well, fuck. I'm guessing your brother won her over." Jeremy glanced up as a smile lifted his lips. "Her picture has been taken off their site. She must have agreed to come over here to work for us, or gotten a better offer. She graduated at the top of her class from NYU about a year ago. Whether she's Luke's girlfriend or not, the woman knows her shit. We're going to benefit greatly by having her here."
"It will make the place prettier if nothing else." Zander laughed and stood up as I popped him in the stomach and turned back to Jeremy.
"What was she like? You said she had a look that said she could rule the world, but what was she like? You spent an evening playing as her poker partner, right?" I forced myself to sit back in my chair and take a few more bites of my sandwich even though my stomach was threatening to revolt.
"She's great, Caden. She's warm and friendly, knows how to joke and have fun." He smiled as if a memory fluttered by his vision. "She's the kind of woman I could see you with, but not Luke."
"Why not Luke?" I crossed my arms over my chest as the overwhelming nee
d to protect this girl raced through me.
"Let's be real right now. Your brother is a dick that sleeps with anything that moves. You know he's cheating on that poor girl. She doesn't deserve that shit. She's classy, man. Unless she's the world’s greatest actress, and then I'm the idiot in all of this." He stood up and gathered his trash. "Either way, I'm thrilled she's coming to work here. I hope it works out. She's awesome."
"Do you have proof that he's cheating on her, or are you just basing it on the fact that he's Luke?" I tossed the rest of my sandwich back onto my plate. There was no way in hell this was my Olivia. She wouldn't date a dickwad like my brother. She held herself too far too high of a standard. Hell, the fact that she'd dated me for seven years when I had no plans for a life beyond football was a miracle in the making.
"He's Luke. He's cheating on her." Jeremy walked away and left me to stew in my thoughts alone. If my brother was cheating on this girl then I needed to tell him to tread lightly. It wasn't my fucking business at all, but bringing her into the firm would only give her more insight into the real him. I wasn't sure that was something Luke wanted.
"Jeremy." I looked over my shoulder. "What's her last name?"
"It's something weird. Detrom? Desrand?"
Luke walked into the room and rolled his shoulders, obviously catching the ass-end of our conversation. "It's Olivia Desmant. Why?"
"No reason." I turned back around as my heart broke. Fuck my life. It was her.
Chapter 7
Olivia
"No fucking way." Dana walked around my bedroom as I laid on the bed with my hands pressed to my face. To say I was a hot mess would have been a vast understatement.
"Yes. I'm an idiot. I should have looked into it the minute I met Luke."
"What? Why? Taylor is a really common last name, Olivia. Cut yourself some slack. These kinds of things don't happen, well, not to most people. You just seem to be uncommonly unlucky."
My Last First Kiss: A Single Father Secret Baby Novel Page 81