AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oliver didn’t care.
He’d lied to me from the start, and now I didn’t know what to do.
Suddenly, my phone rang and I yelped in surprise. I looked at the screen. I felt a pang in my chest when I saw it was Oliver.
No. I wouldn’t answer. He was an asshole and he didn’t deserve even a minute of my time.
I waited for the ringing to stop and exhaled when it finally did. I felt my tears welling up in my eyes again, and just as I was about to burst into crying again, my phone rang once more.
“I can’t believe him!” It was Oliver again, and this time it rang for too long. No. I couldn’t answer him. He was calling me to spread more lies. He didn’t respect me or care about me. “No. I won’t answer you, so you can give up.”
The ringing stopped, and I still stared at the screen, a little disappointed that this was it. Even after everything, I missed him and I wanted to hear his voice.
I closed my eyes. I was really screwed. I knew he was bad, yet I wanted to see him again.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
I looked at my phone in surprise. He was calling me again?
Sighing heavily, I grabbed the phone and finally answered the call. To hell with everything! “What do you want, Oliver?”
“Alexandra, finally,” he sounded so relieved that I felt guilt rising from deep within me. No, this wasn’t good. I wasn’t supposed to feel like this about him. “Please, I need to talk to you. Now I understand what the problem is here, and I want to explain some things to you. That place is not going to be torn down. Those are lies. Please, I beg you, meet me at the hotel.”
I gnawed at my lip. My heart accelerated in anticipation, a feeling of hope spreading through me. He’d just said it wouldn’t be demolished, and I was so conflicted. I didn’t know if I could trust him. What if this was just another one of his manipulations?
“I don’t know, Oliver—”
“Please, angel. Just listen to me. I want to explain everything to you. Nothing else. If you still think you won’t be able to trust me in the end... Then I will understand that, but please, just give me one chance. Meet me at the hotel and let’s talk about this.”
He sounded so desperate and for a few moments I didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore. I couldn’t be sure about anything. If what he’d just said was right, then why did that contractor say those things?
A part of me—the one that wanted me to believe Oliver—was urging me to give him a chance. It was telling me that there was a possibility he wasn’t a liar. It was reminding me that I loved him.
Oh my God, I loved him, and if there was even a tiny possibility that he was speaking the truth...
I took a deep breath. “Okay, Oliver. I will meet you at the hotel.”
Nineteen
Oliver
When she’d said she would meet me, I was beyond myself with relief and joy. She was giving me a chance to prove myself to her, and I wanted to do anything do make her believe me.
I’d seen the story on the news about the hotel being torn down and figured out what had made Alexandra so angry. She’d heard about the place being demolished and she thought I was lying to her from the start.
Shit. That was so fucked up. Not only I was pissed off because of that lie, but I was also mad that I could lose Alexandra just because of some misunderstanding.
I was so furious. I didn’t know who the contractors were or why they would want to spread lies about my project. It was absurd, and I shouldn’t be surprised that it had already reached media. These things happened from time to time when our competition tried to ruin our reputation. They would spurt nonsense and try to make us look like we were on the verge of bankruptcy.
I hated that side of our business. No matter how hard we tried to build our reputation and make more contracts with clients, there were the unscrupulous sharks that lied shamelessly about things that were far from truth.
How did they know about the project, though? Maybe someone at the bank leaked that the expense was higher than the value. Yes, that could be possible.
Shit. These things happened, but this time it was different. This time I could lose Alexandra, and I couldn’t allow that. I’d promised her she could make whichever design she wanted, giving my best to find the money she would need, and I had to show her all of that was real. I didn’t really care how this happened or why—I had to prove to her I was a good guy and didn’t mislead her about the project.
Now I understood why she was angry at me, probably thinking I j
ust wanted to use her. She couldn’t be more wrong and I wanted to give my best to prove to her what she meant to me. I got so addicted to her in this short period of time that I couldn’t imagine spending another day without her. I needed to see her. I needed her to believe me.
