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Chapter1
Exhausted and wanting nothing more than to go home and curl up on her couch with a glass of red wine the size of her head, Olivia Monroe pushed through the front doors of her agency’s office, nearly smacking the man currently exiting right in the face with the pane of glass.
Mustering her waning energy, she gave him her best happy realtor smile. “Whoops, sorry about that! I hope I didn’t hit you.”
“Just missed me.” With a reassuring smile of his own, he stepped to the side and held open the inner door for her to walk through. “Have a good day, Olivia.”
Pausing just inside the lobby, she watched him leave, her mind working to place if she’d seen him before.
Still racking her brain, she glanced over at the small, mousy woman seated at the front desk. “Who was that?”
The other woman’s eyes went wide behind her slightly-too-large-to-be-trendy frames, and her voice shook slightly as she answered the question. “Oh, um, he had an interview. For the open realtor position?”
MaryAnn Foster had been their receptionist for just over a year, and Olivia still wasn’t sure exactly how she’d gotten the job. She always looked like she was terrified of every single person who walked through the door, even the ones she’d known from the start.
“Right, right.” Olivia vaguely remembered James mentioning an interview that afternoon. With that mystery solved, she headed for the short hallway that led to the various realtors’ offices. “I’ll be in my office if anybody needs me.”
“Um, Mrs. Monroe?”
There was an undercurrent of fear in MaryAnn’s voice that had the hairs on the back of Olivia’s neck standing up. “Yes?”
“You know those papers you asked me to send over for the D’Angelos?” Eyes darting around the lobby, MaryAnn licked her lips nervously. “I, um, sort of forgot.”
Too stunned for a moment to even speak, Olivia stared at the tearful woman behind the desk. “The deadline on that was yesterday, MaryAnn. Tell me you’re joking.”
“I wish I was, Mrs. Monroe.” MaryAnn’s already too-quiet voice had dropped to a nearly impossible to hear whisper.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Olivia closed her eyes and prayed for patience. The D’Angelo deal was worth nearly eighty grand for the agency, and she was personally looking to take home half of that. And while the loss of her commission would be hard to swallow, the blow to her reputation worried her just as much, if not more. Which meant the patience she was praying for was in dangerously short supply as she opened her eyes and pinned her receptionist with an icy look. “Tell me how this happened. Tell me, in detail, how you could be so fucking stupid.”
MaryAnn opened and closed her mouth several times, reminding Olivia of one of the goldfish she’d won at a county fair as a child. “I—I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry.” A hollow feeling grew in her gut as Olivia barked out a laugh that lacked any humor whatsoever. “Well, then. You can call my clients and tell them you’resorrytheir paperwork wasn’t submitted to their lender on time. And while you’re at it, you can tell them how sorry you are they won’t be getting their dream house after all.”
“Is there a problem here?”
There had been a time, not so long ago, when that voice would have made her knees tremble. When she would have dreaded turning around, dreaded facing his disappointment and anger.
But these days, the anger and disappointment seemed to be all hers. Plastering a smile on her face, Olivia turned to face the broker who ran the agency she’d poured her heart and soul into. Her boss, who also happened to be her husband.
And, up until recently, her Daddy.
“No problem at all,” she said, letting an insincere sweetness infuse her tone. “Unless you consider being surrounded by complete morons to be a problem.”
The corners of his lips turned down, just slightly, in a look she knew all too well. Her heart rate kicked up, and her palms dampened with sweat. Had she pushed him too far? Memories of past punishments, of painful discipline at the hands of the man who ruled both their workplace and their home flickered through her mind. Hope and fear warred together in her stomach, doing far more damage than silly butterflies ever could.
But his eyes shifted from her to the front desk, and disappointment filled her once more.
“What’s going on here, MaryAnn?” There was no doubting the authority in his tone, but she doubted it had the same effect on their timid little receptionist.
Still, sympathy stirred in Olivia’s heart, and she stepped between them, forcing his attention back to her. “It’s really nothing, James. Nothing MaryAnn and I can’t work out between us. Isn’t that right, MaryAnn?”
From behind her, MaryAnn’s voice was surprisingly firm, given the circumstances. “Absolutely, Mrs. Monroe. I’ll take care of it right away.”
“Thank you.” Olivia gave her husband a small nod before turning on her heel and marching down the hallway to her office. With the door safely shut behind her, she leaned back against the wood, giving herself some time to tame her out-of-control emotions.
“Get a grip, Monroe,” she muttered. “It’s better this way.”
The logical, rational part of her agreed, cheering loudly at her resolve. But the little girl inside of her, the part of herself she’d fought for months now to ignore, wanted to weep at the unfairness of it all.
