AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pout and he chuckles.
But it’s when he says, “Let's get this show on the road,” that I know I’m well and truly screwed.
eighteen
Tav
It’s almost cute how unsure she is about making a move. Everyone has been here for a couple hours already, and she’s tried more than once to initiate contact. She’s awkward and clumsy about it, and I can’t help but find her innocence adorable. Addictive, even. Knowing just how inexperienced she really is, I can’t accuse her of playing coy to play me.
What I don’t understand, however, is how the girl can be inexperienced to begin with. It doesn’t make sense, not after knowing her sister as intimately as I had. Ophelia had never been innocent. Even before we’d fucked, she’d been a strategic tease. As an inexperienced boy, it’d been one of the things to draw me to her. All part of her allure. She’d been exciting, and so beautiful. As a man who knew the bitter taste of betrayal, being in the presence of a tease isn’t alluring at all.
Before Ian hacked into the doctor’s report, I’d thought Olympia was a tease. I thought her morning yoga routine, in those sinfully tight leggings—or worse, the little spandex shorts—was all part of her tease Tav routine. After the report, I’ve started to suspect that might not be the case.
Only last night, Ian sent me another report. This one had been the result of rogue digging. I hadn’t asked him for a background check on Olympia. I hadn’t asked him to dig into her friends—apparently of which she had only one. Charlie Santorini—another uncovered truth I’d refused to believe. If his report wasn’t mistaking, and I knew it wasn’t, Olympia also never went out with Charlie. Their relationship was exclusive to school, and their communication outside school was primarily through text messages with the odd phone call.
Unlike Ophelia, who had lived a rule free life, Olympia, from Ian’s report, had not lived at all.
Where Ophelia knew and used her sex appeal to acquire the things she wanted, Olympia seemed almost entirely unaware of how attractive she really was.
That report, short as it was, because Olympia simply did not to appear to have lived much of life at all, rubbed me wrong.
From everything Ian had reported to me, it was becoming more and more clear that Olympia had yet to lie to me. Still, I couldn’t shake the disbelief I felt at some of the things she’d claimed true. I’d grown up with the Laurier family. Remira had always been a distant, borderline uncaring parent, but to sell her daughter to my brother for money? I just couldn’t see that. And to punish Olympia? Remira never cared about what her daughters did, so long as she wasn’t being humiliated in the process. Based on the report from Ian, I couldn’t imagine Olympia ever did anything to embarrass Remira.
The last and final page from Ian’s report had been a copy of an email conversation between Remira and Darius. I’d been disgusted and fucking shocked to read the conversation between the two, because even though I still struggled to believe it, it’d been there in black and white. The deal they’d made. Olympia in exchange for monetary support. The caveat—Olympia must be pure and untouched. And no matter what Darius did to Olympia, Remira would not interfere in their marriage once Olympia was officially his, or all supports would be cut off.
Remira had agreed.
The puzzle was coming together piece by piece, and I was really starting to dislike the picture I was seeing. Because it appeared that the little woman who’d invaded my life might not be so scheming after all. It seemed a possibility, in fact, that I really had been her last desperate attempt at freedom. And I’d done nothing but make it shamefully hard for her.
Still, I wanted to push her. I wanted to make her squirm, crack her open so all the secrets she contained inside spilled into the chaos so I could finish the fucking puzzle, and decide what I was really going to do with her after the final piece was placed.
Taking a pull from my beer, I study the woman pretending to be mine. She’s sitting at the edge of the pool, dangling her feet in the water as she sips a drink Candace made her. Because Candace made it, it’s something with gin. She’s finally stopped fluttering around, refilling nachos and dips as she plays the perfect hostess. She finally looks like she’s enjoying herself.
Now that the sun has mostly set, the string of incandescent patio lights are on, and the party has really started. Cash is the only sober one, and he’ll be driving the rest home. When Nevaeh drops down on the chair beside me, it takes effort to pull my gaze from Olympia to give her my attention. When I do, I find hers is locked on the woman I’ve been staring at, studying, all night.
“I like her, Tav.”
“Yeah?” I feel a brow climb, my interest piqued. Nevaeh’s been trying to set me up with my forever chick since she got it in her head, I’m lonely. Only problem, in her eyes, no one is ever good enough for me. “Why?”
“She’s sweet. And I think she really, really likes you.”
“Why do you say that?” Why is my heart starting to slam in my chest?
Nevaeh shrugs. “It’s a gut feeling.” I scowl and she laughs. She’s got a great laugh. Pure light. It’s probably why Kane calls her sunshine.
“A gut feeling?”
“Don’t look at me like that.” She swats a hand at my chest. It lands with a wet slap that draws Olympia’s eyes. I pretend I don’t notice the way her attention holds on us. “I’ve got a great gut.”
I grunt.
Nevaeh’s mouth drops. “Hey! I do.”
“Didn’t say you didn’t.”
She glares. “I’m serious, though. I know there’s history with—well, you know who.”
I scowl. “I never should have told you about her.”
