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This bar is not my scene.
Not the mood, the people, the music...the blatant hunger.
It’s carnal, animalistic, and the walls pulse with it.
Only I have no interest. For four years, I’ve been celibate. Four years avoiding anything close.
Yet here I am, and all for her.
Olivia Carmel.
The woman I’m supposed to help.
The woman whose PR image is going down the pan and taking her brand with it. And when I say brand I mean her company, her charity, her. All three. She’s a celebrity entrepreneur, an icon, but since the death of her husband a year ago she’s steadily gone off the rails and I’ve been sent to rein her back in.
To bring the Olivia the nation loves back.
To fix her.
I stroke my jaw as I watch her, my frown building, my curiosity too. She’s all cool, suave and sophisticated against the seedy backdrop and I can’t marry the two together. Not the venue and her. Not the tabloid gossip and her.
She’s an enigma.
An enigma that’s steadily pulling me out of my comfort zone.
I roll my shoulders beneath my tailored jacket and run a finger under my shirt collar, cock my head side to side. She’s far, far from reach but her presence does something to me; it creeps beneath my skin, teasing, taunting, goading out the old me.
‘Can I offer you another?’
I turn to my left, to a scantily clad waitress who I’m sure is offering more than the drink on her tray, and smile. It’s tight and she backs up a step.Easy.
I’m six foot four and broad; a tight smile isn’t going to soften my look. Especially with the jagged scar through my eyebrow that looks like I spend too long inside a boxing ring when the truth is far simpler and comes with a dark tale of its own.
‘No.’ My voice is gravel thick, another side-effect of the same event, and it only makes her back up further. ‘Thank you.’
My gratitude has her smile returning, her shoulders easing. ‘No problem. Just wave me down if you change your mind.’
I nod and go back to Olivia.
She’s perfectly poised on the bar stool. Her platinum blonde hair, smooth and sleek, snakes down her exposed spine in a ponytail that ends just above the low curve to her dress. Her eyes are all made up, the dark shade making her crystal-blue eyes strike out across the distance, her lips far more subtle in their blushing pink gloss.
The entire look is sexy, sultry, and so far removed from the polished businesswoman and wholesome charity organiser the press were once accustomed to.
She’s not the official face of the charity any more; she stood down months ago when her wild behaviour first hit the tabloids. In all fairness to the press, they did cite mitigating circumstances. She’d recently lost her husband after all. But it wasn’t long before they started putting the boot in anyway.
And I get her behaviour. I feel it. The ache of loss. The mark it leaves and the interminable chasm. I understand. And I know that’s why Alan, my friend and mentor, her chief operating officer, came to me for help.
So that’s why I’m here. To witness it for myself. The truth. Not the persona the press now project, the rumour mill doing its thing. I’m here to get a feel for what lies ahead, to decide if it’s worth the battle that’s bound to ensue and the raking over old wounds that I seek to forget.
Issheworth it?
My head says yes. She doesn’t deserve the hand she’s been dealt in life and the PR shitstorm brewing. Not to mention the potentially grave consequences if she takes it one wild step too far.
But my gut...that’s a whole other ball game.
I’m too interested. Too intrigued. I feel it build with the atmosphere as I wait for her next move. Just how far does she partake in the illicit fun under this roof? Is it natural curiosity that has her coming here as an innocent bystander, an observer? Or is it something more...is she seeking to indulge another side to her?
A side I long ago denied myself...
