I haven’t done the group bar scene since I was in my early twenties. I buy the first round, hoping that buying drinks will make up for the fact that I’m about to slip away from their group and drink on my own.
Aja finishes her martini in two sips and decides to make me her sole prey for the night. She is joined by Lauren from the accounting department. I’ve tried for the last ten minutes to have an adult conversation with the two of them, but if I talk about anything other than office gossip and movies, their eyes glaze over. Aja suggests that we leave and go to her place.
A whip, I mentally tell her. Use it as a whip.
“Dude,” Ryan says when they’re distracted by their third round of shots. “You could have both tonight if you wanted to. Loosen up, man. Every time Olivia is around, you become celibate.”
I love Ryan, but in that moment, I want to slam my fist into his jaw. I stand up, looking around for the bathroom.
“I didn’t mean anything,” he says, catching the look on my face. I nod and pat his shoulder as I walk by to show no hard feelings.
My friends never liked Olivia. None of them could understand how a man that went from sleeping with every girl on campus could wait to cash in on a girl’s virginity for two years.
Ryan had relentlessly tried to get me to cheat, to the point where I’d eventually stopped hanging out with him.
My other friends had been no less direct.
“She’s a f**king c**k tease. There are other girls who look like her.”
It was true … most of it. She wasn’t an intentional c**k tease, but that didn’t mean that ninety percent of the time I was with her, I didn’t have blue balls. There might have been other girls who looked like her, but there was no one who moved like Olivia. She was like water. She moved through everything no matter how hard it was. If there was something she couldn’t control, she’d flow right over the top of it and keep going.
I splash water on my face in the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. She’s in my eyes tonight.
I feel ridiculous being here. Clubbing like I’m a kid. I wipe my face and head out. I would say my goodbyes, call a cab, and stop acting like a twenty-year-old douchebag. I am weaving through the suddenly packed bar, when something flashes in the corner of my eye. An emerald green dress curved around a truly magnificent ass. Her hair is up, coiled like black snakes and falling down in places that make her look like walking sex. Two things happen: I get immediately hard, and I get immediately angry. Where the f**k is Noah? I search the crowd for his dark hair and can’t find it. Maybe he went to the bathroom. I flinch at the thought of meeting him at a urinal. I’ll wait here until he comes back, then I’ll call a cab and leave before they see me. I stand glued to my spot for five minutes.
Olivia. I should have known she’d do this. When her life is in turmoil, Olivia hides on the dance floor. I find it disturbing. The girl knows how to move, which makes every male in the near vicinity move toward her. I watch as she lifts her arms above her head and sways from side to side. I see Cammie’s blonde head bobbing around next to her, and I grit my teeth. I look to the bar where my group is still lingering, and then back to Olivia. In a split decision, I move toward her. I am shaking I am so angry. I want to get to her before she—
She climbs onto a speaker. I stop short. She now has her own stage, and everyone is watching her. Including me, I’m watching her. I stand transfixed. If what just happened in my pants is happening to the other men in the room … I need to get to her before I kill someone. Where the f**k is Noah? If he’s ever seen her dance, there’s no way he’d allow her to go out alone. Maybe they aren’t working things out. I brighten up at this. She’s dancing so seductively, a guy is trying to climb onto the speaker with her. Cammie smacks his back and shouts something at Olivia — who bends down to hear her. Her dress gapes and I see cleavage.
I shove someone aside and shoulder my way through her admirers. When I reach the speaker, I grab the guy by his shirt collar before he can hoist himself up and shove him to my left. Cammie turns around to see what’s happening, her eyes growing wide when she sees me. She tilts her head up to look at Olivia — who is still oblivious. All I can see are legs — toned, tanned — I reach up and wrap both hands around her waist, lifting her down. Her mouth drops open. I make sure to run the full length of her body down my own as I lower her.
She swears at me and smacks my chest. I hold her against me so she can get the full effect of what I’m about to say.
“Do you feel that?” I say into her ear. She glares up at me. “That’s what you’ve done to every man in this room.”
It’s fairly dark, but I can see the effect my words have on her. She doesn’t like to be the subject of sexual fantasy — little prude. I glance over at Cammie who mouths, Get her out of here.
I nod and push her in front of me. She’s had too much to drink already or she’d be fighting me. The bar is packed, and it’s hard to move us both through the throng of bodies. I press her back against my front and wrap my arms around her. We walk that way until we reach the doors. My lips are pressed together as a result of having one of her best assets bumping repeatedly against me. When we reach the fresh air, she’s quiet as I take her hand.
“Where’s your car?”
“At the office. Cammie drove me.”
I swear. Her office is a good eight blocks away from where we are.
I tug her along the sidewalk, her heels making clipping noises as she tries to keep up.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re walking to your car.”
“No!” She yanks her hand away. “I’m not spending an hour with you.”
I stride toward her, grab her face in my fingers, and kiss her roughly on the lips. I don’t let go of her face. “Yes, you f**king are. I’m not letting you go back in there to get molested.”
Her nostrils flare as she glowers at me.
“What?” I say. “What snarky little comment are you going to make? Keep your mouth shut, and let’s go.”
We walk two blocks before she starts complaining about her shoes. I yank her into an upscale corner store and snatch a pair of rubber flip-flops from a hook hanging next to the ice cream cooler. Tossing them onto the counter, I reach for the nearest bottle of liquor — which happens to be tequila — and hand that to the cashier who is openly eyeing Olivia.
I hand him my card and watch him, watch Olivia. He hands the card back and thanks me without ever moving his eyes from her body.
God, I’m going to f**king kill someone tonight.
Once outside, I bend down in front of her and unstrap her shoes. She steadies herself on my back as I gently pull them off and slide on the flip-flops.
When I stand up she’s so much shorter than me, I grin.
She holds out her hand for the tequila bottle. I give it to her. She twists off the cap and lifts the bottle to her mouth, all without taking her eyes from mine. She takes a sip, licks her lips, and hands the bottle back. I take a longer sip, and then we start our long walk.
Sometimes I fall back a little so she’s walking in front of me.
“Have I ever told you, that you have the single greatest ass I’ve ever seen?”
She ignores me.
“Of course, I’ve only seen it once…”
She stops, snatches the bottle from me and takes an especially long drink.
“Can you just not flirt with me for five seconds?”
“Fine, let’s talk about you and Noah.”
She groans.
“You were supposed to be working things out … or thinking … or-”
“I am!”
I scratch my head and look at her out of the corner of my eye.
“Where is he?”
She sniffs. “We had a fight.”
“About?”
We cross the street and head west.
“You.”
My skin tingles. I don’t know whether to feel guilty, curious or happy that I’m important enough to cause discord.
“You told him that you saw me?”
She nods.
“I can’t imagine he liked that.”
“He knows everything about us. I never tried to hide things from him. I thought you and I were over, and I wanted to be honest with him.”
I grab her hand and pull her to a stop. “Olivia, he knew how you felt about me, and he still married you.”
I can’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. What man would sign up for that? I rub my hand along the back of my sweat-soaked neck.
“Don’t take that self-righteous tone with me when you did the same thing.”
“That was different. I stayed with Leah because she was pregnant. I thought it was the right thing.”
Olivia’s mouth pops open. “Leah was…” She shakes her head. “It’s none of my business. And you’re right — it was different. Noah is a wonderful person, unlike that black-hearted bitch you married.”
We’re nearing her office building. She fumbles in her purse until she finds her keys. Instead of going to her car, she opens the door to Spinner & Kaspen and punches the code into the alarm system.
“We were on a cruise when he asked me to marry him. We were taking a walk on the deck, and he just turned to me and said, ‘If you weren’t in my life anymore, I’d be devastated. I want you to marry me.’”
I search her eyes trying to figure out why she’s telling me this.
“He said he knew what I felt for you was real, but he was willing to love me through it.”
I swallow. Damn. He’s a better man than me.
“I forgot you for a year. Noah was good at making me forget.”
I interrupt her because I don’t want to hear this. “Olivia-”
“Shut up.” The door swings shut behind us and we’re standing in the dark waiting room. All I can see are the outlines of her face. “I am in love with him, Caleb. I am.”
I grind my teeth together.
“But when I won the case, and I went into panic mode, it wasn’t him I wanted to talk to.” She sounds almost ashamed to say it. I remember how she showed up at my condo. “I just wanted you … and when Dobson escaped from the institution — I wanted you. When I had a miscarriage…” She places a hand over her mouth and sobs into it.
“Duchess…”
“Shut up and let me finish.” She uses her fingertips to wipe underneath her eyes. “When I had a miscarriage, I wanted your arms around me,” she says again. “Caleb, it hurts him. I don’t know whether to scream I told you so at him, or to drown myself in the ocean for bringing destruction into everything I do.”
She turns and stalks to her office. I follow her blindly. She flings the door open and flicks on the desk lamp instead of the halogen bulbs that hang from the ceiling. Walking over to her filing cabinet, she opens it and pulls out a stack of papers. She hands them to me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
My eyes water, my throat burns. “I was going to — that night.”
Her chin rises and her lips tilt downward. “She was-”
“An old friend — she was in charge of building the house.”
“And when I saw you-”
“We were going over the plans. I told her I was going to propose that night. She asked to see the ring.”
She sucks in her cheeks and turns her face away until she’s looking at the wall to her left.
“You were going to propose to me?”
The tears are already cutting across her cheeks, dripping off her chin, and I haven’t even gotten to the worst part.
“Yes.”
She looks at the floor and nods. “So what did I see — when I walked in?”
“We were just talking. She told me she had feelings for me. I was trying to reassure her it wasn’t mutual.”
She punches her fists on her h*ps and cuts a circle around the room. “So, why didn’t you tell me that?”
“You started throwing things at me pretty fast, Duchess. I could barely open my mouth before you’d called me your father, told me you loved me for the first time and stormed out. I went after you — to your apartment first. I waited for a few hours and when you didn’t come back, I figured you must have gone to the hotel. By the time I got there…”
“So, it’s all my fault?”
I grab for her. “No,” I say. “It was my fault. I didn’t fight hard enough. I should have grabbed you, made you listen.”
“You didn’t even kiss her?”
“No, but I was attracted to her. I had thought about it.”
“Oh God, give me a minute…” She begins pacing between her desk and the window. I slide down the wall until I am sitting, one knee propped up.
Finally, she says, “Noah asked me if I still love you.”
I clear my throat. “What did you tell him?”
She sits down, sliding her feet out of the flips-flops and back into her stilettos. I watch as she bends down to tie the clasps on each one, her hair falling over her shoulder and grazing the ground. She’s buying time, trying to look busy while she thinks.
“That we’re dysfunctional and toxic!”
“We were dysfunctional and toxic,” I correct her.
She shoots me a dirty look and runs her hands along her thighs. I get the feeling she’s trying to wipe me away.
“You and I are in love, baby.” I take a swig from the tequila bottle and rest my arm on my raised knee. The liquor is beginning to burn my throat.
“No … nope.” She shakes her head. “We’re drunk,” she informs me, “and drunk people have crazy, sporadic thoughts.”