Most of the friends I had made through the years were business acquaintances. No one really knew me the way Olivia seemed to know the boy.
“You don’t have to answer that. It’s a silly question,” she said.
“I’d like to try.” Maybe this was my chance to draw the line. I’d never befriended any one of my employees and so far this was proving to be a bad idea. “In my world, you don’t get to make a lot of friends. Most people I consider such are business associates. We’re not as familiar with each other as you seem to be with your friend.”
My socializing skills were still wanting, but over the years I’d grown better at it. I’d never wanted my children to grow up thinking I didn’t love them so I’d done all I could to fill those spaces that had run empty for so long.
“You’re a little familiar with me,” she said.
I wanted to respond, but I didn’t know what to say because I wasn’t sure what she meant.
“I’m an open book to you, Mrs. Gallagher. You know everything you need to know about me. You know how I–how I…feel,” she hesitated, then resumed. “But I don’t know anything about you. You’re a…”
Robot.
“Closed book,” she said.
A robot can be reprogrammed. A memory flashed through my head and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
“I’m I making you uncomfortable?”
I shook my head, looking at this young woman who dared provoke me so.
We came from such diverse universes; it was a wonder we were seated there chatting. She had an unmatched power to bring back sensations that had long over time faded out of existence. Feelings I’d thought I’d never live to experience again.
She was brave, bold and strong. She could speak her mind when calm and be daring enough to confront me when she felt wronged. Most profound of all, sometimes when I was close to her, I felt like I was twenty-one again.
But I wasn’t twenty-one. Circumstances had forced me to grow up.
“You look… sad. Was it something I said?”
I shook away my thoughts and smiled at Olivia. “No,” I said.
She finished her glass of wine and a waiter immediately came to refill it.
For some reason, I didn’t mind talking to her. She was like a touch of ice on a scorching hot desert. She intrigued me. I didn’t know how, but she did. I’d met every type of person in the world, but no one quite like her.
“How does it feel when you do all these wonderful and generous things for people?” she asked.
I placed my right arm over the counter and held my glass with the other hand, slowly moving it over to my lips as I pondered her question. I took a sip, emptying my glass and a second later, a waiter came to refill it.
“When I give back to society, I don’t do it because of how it makes me feel. I do it because it’s my duty.”
“Why do you think it’s your duty?”
My mind took me back in time. “I’ve been in a situation where I couldn’t help… I guess I never want to feel that way again.”
“Is that why you went into healthcare? Because you wanted to help people?”
I remembered being in the hospital. Isabel’s frail features that had been so bright, beautiful and healthy a couple of weeks earlier were contorting in pain as machines beeped and a moment later, the room filled with doctors and nurses.
A sharp prick of pain went through me like a bolt of lightning. After all these years, Isabel was still buried somewhere within me. “I didn’t go into healthcare. Someone I used to know did,” I said.
“What happened?”
I looked up at the question. I’d never shared that part of my life with anyone. “I can’t talk about it.”
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said.
I met her soft gaze. Her eyes had that dark shade of green in them. I felt like she was staring deep into my soul and it was a little terrifying. I broke the gaze and a moment later, I felt her hand lightly moving over mine on the counter.
I wanted to break the physical contact, but she started to pull away before I could, stopping to rest the tips of her fingers over mine. It was a very simple gesture, but it was as comforting as it was unsettling.
“How can you give so much to the world and not allow yourself to experience the joy that comes with it?” she asked.
It was something I’d gotten used to doing, so I never experienced anything profound. But when I did something for her, there was a way that she looked at me and that made me feel strangely good.
“I haven’t given enough,” I said.
There was nothing I could give to the world that would ever bring Isabel back, but when I helped people, I knew it was what she would’ve wanted.
Strangely enough, when I helped Olivia, it felt like it was something I was doing for myself.
“You’re the most generous person I’ve ever met. Probably the most amazing person I’ll ever know,” she said.
Then there was that thing that stirred in me when she said things like that. “You haven’t met enough people,” I said, fully aware that her fingers were still touching mine.
She laughed at my statement and I wondered what I’d said that was funny. The sound of her laughter managed to draw a small smile from me.
“Maybe, but even if I ever get the chance to do so, I doubt anyone will ever compare to you.”
I cautiously pulled my hand away at that point, feeling as though we were drifting off topic. She said a lot of lovely things but at some point, I had to draw the line. She wasn’t my friend, she was my employee.
“I think we should get going,” I said.
A serious expression came across her face and she nodded and said, “I think I’ll get a cab. I don’t want to put you out.”
I smiled at her reassuringly. “You’re not putting me out.”
She smiled back and got to her feet.
The drive to her place was mostly quiet.
She seemed to have gone back to her shell.
I liked talking to her but I needed to draw some boundaries. It may have probably been a little too late, seeing as I had crossed those boundaries myself, but it was something that needed doing.
I couldn’t keep encouraging her and leading her on when in the end I knew she’d end up getting hurt. So to protect her, and maybe myself, it was only safe to keep a distance.
When we got to her place, James parked the car and stepped out. I thought Olivia would say goodnight, open the door and leave, but she hesitated in her seat.
She nervously turned to face me and I looked at her, waiting to hear what she wanted to say.
“Thank you for what you’re doing for Rex,” she said. “No matter how he takes it when he finds out, I just want you to know that it made me happy.”
Her words caught me off guard and momentarily lowered my defenses. When she leaned forward and captured my lips in a kiss, an overwhelming sensation moved through me.
I placed my hand over her cheek, intent on pulling away at the unexpected effect the kiss had on me, but Olivia gently brushed her lips against mine luring me, and I slowly started to respond to her.
The heat coming off of her body seemed to merge with mine, drawing a surprising response from me, and I pulled her closer and deepened the kiss. She sighed softly against my mouth and I ran my fingers through her hair.
She always seemed to draw such a powerful and baffling reaction from me. She wasn’t the type I’d usually go for. Not because she wasn’t beautiful or anything, but because she was as much an alien in my world as I probably was to hers. She was also too young for me.
I think though, what disturbed me the most was the fact that she was the second woman I’d ever kissed who provoked such strong sexual yearning from me. I’d never thought I’d meet anyone who made me feel anything close to what Isabel had once made me feel.
It was similar but extremely different. Isabel had taken me on a journey of sexual discovery but Olivia was reminding me of needs I’d long buried, needs that h
ad gone far too long forgotten. She was starting to make me feel… alive.
She broke the kiss, but didn’t pull away. She was panting and surprisingly, so was I. How was she doing this to me?
In Paris when we’d kissed, she’d lit a fire in me. That fire had grown when I’d taken her in my arms and kissed her again.
I had hoped some time and distance would help clear my head because I thought I’d gone a little insane to do something so uncharacteristic, but I was coming to realize that fire had never fully gone out and kissing Olivia again only continued to intensify it.
“We can’t keep doing this, Olivia,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s blurring the lines, I’m your boss.”
“Are you going to fire me?”
I didn’t want to have to. “If circumstances force me to, yes.”
“Then before those circumstances present themselves, can you do just one thing for me?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “What?”
“Can you touch me?”
Her request came as a surprise. I met her gaze and could see her desire. I could always sense when she was fighting to restrain herself, but that night she wasn’t. If anything, she seemed vulnerable, innocent but completely sensational.
“Olivia, if I touch you, I’ll be opening a portal to something we can never come back from,” I said, gently running my fingers over her cheek.
I wanted to touch her. I had wanted to touch her from the very first day she’d kissed me, but I’d put it out of my mind and pretended that night had never existed.
She closed her hand over mine and drew it closer to her lips. I closed my eyes at the tender effect of her lips caressing the palm of my hand and tantalizing sensations continued to spread through me.
I held my breath when she pulled my hand from her lips and moved it over her knee, slowly trailing it up her thigh. I drew in a sharp breath as her unwavering gaze stayed on mine.
Then as though something was pulling us back together, our lips recaptured in a passionate kiss and she pulled away her hand, leaving it to me to decide if I wanted to continue with the quest she’d entrusted me with.
Apart from Isabel, I had never really felt intimately connected to another woman or another soul so I was too afraid to take this journey. But there was a deep contained thirst in me begging to be quenched.
Olivia’s skin was soft, smooth and warm as I hesitantly trailed my hand under her dress. I was desperately seeking to know her more intimately but I wasn’t ready and I wasn’t confident I could actually go through with it. I couldn’t do this. I was getting everything mixed up again.
I almost continued when she moaned against my lips, but I summoned my inner strength and stopped touching her. It was harder trying to stop myself from kissing her because her lips were so soft and wonderful against mine, but somehow, I managed.
I moved back on my seat, creating some distance because the erotic heat reverberating between us was making the situation too hard to resist.
Olivia took a deep breath and a moment later, she wordlessly opened the door. James offered his hand and helped her out. The second the door closed, I leaned back against my seat and exhaled.
I had settled into a life of calm, but Olivia was starting to create some turbulence which was unwelcome. This wasn’t something I wanted to explore. I couldn’t go down this road again. I had lived it once and while it had been completely fulfilling, it had ended up damaging me.
Isabel’s death had affected me more than I’d ever wanted to admit. Because of it, my work had suffered and my mother, being the predator she was, had seen the weakness in me and deviously exploited it.
I’d not had the will to fight her at the time so in six months, I’d been engaged to a suitor of her choice. His name was Patrick Gallagher, my husband and father of my children.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
When I asked her to touch me, I didn’t really think she would. She had too much control, too many rules and yes… for a second, I did consider the possibility of her firing me. But I didn’t care, because her touch was the drug I craved for, to death and back.
Maybe a little bit of wine had something to do with this surge of confidence, but all my life, I’d never had the courage to do anything so bold. So when I asked her to touch me, I put everything on the line.
I was terrified, but courageous enough to see it through. That was why I made the first move by taking her hand, placing a tender kiss on it and gently resting it over my leg.
I figured she already knew how I felt. She had voluntarily kissed me once before that night. Why not go a step further and seek the one thing I craved from her most, her touch.
The soft feel of her lips against mine when we kissed arose my sexual hunger for her. God, I wanted her so bad and whether or not I’d ever have her, the touch, her touch, was golden.
When she ran her fingers through my hair and deepened our kiss, every part of my being went entirely under her spell. Her mouth was like the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted. When I kissed her and she kissed me back, it felt like I was in a sacred place where my dreams grew bigger and came alive.
She made me feel like a whole new person, like I could do just about anything, but those dreams as I was coming to learn, were short-lived.
Despite it all, her touch, no matter how minimal, was worth everything. She was worth everything.
“Olivia?”
I looked up at the insistent voice to find Colin Peterson blankly staring at me.
“Where were you?” he asked.
“Uh…” I couldn’t come up with a plausible excuse.
He retained a serious expression.
“I’m sorry. I’m a little distracted.”
“You’ve been distracted all week,” he complained.
All week? Oh yeah, it was Friday. “I’m just a little bit tired,” I said.
“This whole week your mind has been elsewhere, you need to focus. What I’m teaching you is important if you want to keep this job.”
“I know, Colin. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to waste your time.”
“You’re not wasting my time, Olivia. I get paid to do this, remember?”
He slumped himself onto the seat facing my desk.
I liked him. He was a good guy. We didn’t know each other well, but we got along and he kept the learning experience professional.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Amelia Gallagher.
I thought about her every day, all the time. I thought about that Friday night every second of every minute. It wasn’t just about our intimate encounter… okay, mostly it was. But also, I thought about our talk.
She wasn’t open, but she made an attempt to be. It was a poor attempt but at least she tried. I must have appeared like a nervous wreck to her. God, I hoped she didn’t see me that way.
“Nothing, just a little bit of stress,” I said.
My evening classes were going to start the following week and I wasn’t prepared, I had managed to avoid Rex all week and seeing his calls made me feel even worse and to top it off, I couldn’t think about anything else other than my boss.
“Why don’t you go out tonight and blow off some steam?” Colin suggested.
Maybe that was exactly what I needed.
“A friend of mine is having a party. You can come with me if you want.”
Colin was sweet, but I missed Rex.
I was sure he suspected something was amiss. But I still wasn’t sure I could face him just yet. I was trying to prolong the moment where he’d learn the truth and get mad at me, but maybe I should’ve just ripped the band aid and gotten it over and done with.
“Sounds great,” I said.
Colin peered over his wristwatch and got to his feet. “I think we’ve covered enough for the day.” He put his things together and picked up his jacket.
“What’s the hurry?” I asked.
It was past five so we were free to leave.
<
br /> “I have a few errands to run. I’ll call you around seven?”
I nodded. I should’ve probably been getting ready to leave too.
I hadn’t seen Mrs. Gallagher all week but I wasn’t surprised, I’d come to learn she was an extremely busy person. Every single minute of her time was booked. Even when she was in her office, she was always constantly working.
“Hey,” Colin said at the door, pulling me back to the present.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I got up and walked over to the door where he stood watching me with what appeared to be concern on his face.
“I will be,” I said, opening the door for him.
He placed his hand over my shoulder, lightly squeezing it and a second later, Mrs. Gallagher’s office door opened and she stepped out looking as enormously stunning as always.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Colin said to me, then silently acknowledged Mrs. Gallagher as he walked away.
Since she opened the door, my gaze didn’t leave hers. I’d worked with Colin for two weeks now and since we’d started, Mrs. Gallagher had been so preoccupied we barely saw each other.
Seeing her at Rex’s art gala and spending time with her had been a real treat, but since then, we’d hardly spoken during the week.
Now I was standing right in front of her and I was at a complete loss for words. What did you say to a person as deeply complex as she? I didn’t have to wonder for long because she broke our gaze and walked right past me.
You’re my employee, Olivia. Her words echoed in my mind as her scent lingered long after she was gone.
I constantly wondered if she meant those things she’d said that night, but I was in denial. There was a part of her––it didn’t matter how small––that cared for me. Why else would she do anything she’d done for me? Why would she go to any trouble to help out my friend?
When I got home that evening, I was more exhausted than I’d thought I would be. I called Colin to inform him I wouldn’t go to his friend’s party and instead settled down with my school work to study.
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