AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I am going to spoil my niece or nephew,” I declare. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Chapter 37: Jace
They think I don’t notice how they keep looking at each other. Coming for dinner at Ivy and Alec’s was a mistake.
I can’t even pretend to make conversation. I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone the way I miss Olivia. I thought that by the eight-week mark, the pain would have lessened. It feels like it’s multiplying. Eating me up. I can’t remember the last time I was interested in anything. For the last two months, I’ve been going through the motions, hoping after a while, I’ll start living.
I should have stayed at my apartment and kept my misery to myself but I couldn’t bring myself to say no to Harper’s pleas. It’s her first evening out of the house since she gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl in the world as far as I’m concerned.
“You should call her,” Ivy says after dinner when we’re having wine.
“She lied to me,” I say.
“I’m so jealous,” Harper says. “I’m the only one who never got to meet Olivia. She sounds so intriguing.”
“She was wholesome and smart,” Alec says. That’s a hell of a compliment coming from him.
“I’m with Ivy,” Dylan says. “I don’t mean to sound disloyal but I kind of understand her position.”
I look at Dylan. “Tell me what you understand. About why she lied to me.”
Dylan sets his glass on the table. “I try to put myself in her shoes. The world of journalism is cutthroat and competitive. She gets an assignment to work undercover as a PA in The Anderson Clinic. It’s an opportunity to show what she can do.
“So she starts working but there’s an attraction between her and her boss. She figures she can have an affair. Why the hell not? She’s young, she’s attracted to him and they are both single. So she does. In the process, she meets her boss’s family.”
“Things move faster than she imagined,” Ivy says, taking up the scenario. “Her boss’s sister-in-law drops on her the exact kind of story she’s looking for. She writes it but she can’t bring herself to give it to her editor.
“She keeps it but now there’s a problem. She’s fallen in love with her boss and he with her. Then it gets worse. The couple that her boss’s sister-in-law had a surrogacy agreement with come to the magazine wanting to tell their story. What to do?”
Dylan says, “Jace, Olivia did her very best to make it as painless as she could for you. She was just doing her job. It just happened to clash with the fact that she had fallen in love with her boss.”
“So she invites the sister-in-law surrogate to give her side of the story. Cover both sides of the issue and keep the clinic in good standing in the public eye.”
I’ve never really looked at it from Olivia’s point of view. Hearing my family phrase it that way makes me see what an impossible situation she had been in. Slowly, my feelings of betrayal are replaced with admiration.
“I think she’s wonderful,” Dylan says.
“I do too,” Ivy says.
“I second what my wife says,” Alec says.
“Me too,” Ivy says.
“You sound like puppets.” I grow serious. “You really think I can trust her?”
“Yes!”
I look at my watch. It’s only eight o’clock. Olivia keeps late hours. Okay, so I know that because I’ve fucking driven by the magazine and spotted her car still there.
“I have to go.” I push my chair back and stand up. If I hurry up, I might catch her before she leaves.
I drive like a madman to Lifestyle Magazine. Luckily there are not many cars on the road. I’m relieved to spot Olivia’s car in her usual parking space. I know she’s close to going home so I lean on the wall next to the exit and hope no one calls the cops on me.
It takes another twenty minutes before Olivia emerges from the building. She notices me a second before she goes past.
“Jace?” she says softly.
I take in her appearance. Dear God, she’s so beautiful. So precious. So pure-hearted. How could I have thought that she had it in her to be calculating and malicious? I allowed myself to be controlled by anger and pain.
