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“No. I don’t appreciate it.”
“And I don’t appreciate your tone. Keep your voice down.”
Aiden glances over at us as he heads out the door with Leo. We emerge onto the street and Aiden gives me a goodbye nod before he veers off, on the way to another bar, no doubt.
When the valet brings the rented Corvette around, Olivia is still fuming.
In the car, my hand makes a fist on the gearshift. Yeah, this will not fly with me, as she’ll soon learn. Throughout the short drive to the hotel and on the elevator up to the room, she’s silent.
Once we’re in the room with the door closed, she takes off her shoes and goes out onto the balcony, which wraps around the corner of the suite. She sits on the edge of the lounge chair, staring down at the beach. I watch her as I remove my suit jacket and unbutton my shirt.
If she’s got underlying anger issues that she plans to direct at me, this won’t last. I’ve had more than my fill of volatile women.
Pushing the sliding glass door farther open, I step out. “Come inside, Olivia. Whatever you’re upset about, let it go.”
She stares straight ahead as she says, “Did you know ahead of time?”
“Know what?”
“That your friend has a mistress he takes on vacation and parades around in public? Aiden knows her. I guess you do as well?”
When I don’t answer, she wraps her arms around herself. Something in her posture strikes me as wrong. It’s as if she’s curling in on herself out of vulnerability, not anger.
I move so I’m standing in front of her, blocking her view of the ocean.
“Hey, look at me,” I say in a voice that won’t be disobeyed.
When she raises her chin, tears spill out of her eyes and run down her cheeks.
“Hey,” I say more softly, squatting down so we’re at eye level. “What’s going on?”
She rubs the tears away. “We shouldn’t talk about it. Just… leave me alone for a little while. I need a few minutes.” Her anger is gone, replaced by a weary sadness. And that’s even harder to see.
“Not a chance.” My voice is soft but resolute. “If it’s that bad, you need to tell me.”
“The thing is… you won’t think it’s that bad. And that’ll make it worse.” She sinks her teeth into her lower lip and turns her head to stare out at the long stretch of beach.
“Liv, listen,” I say, squeezing her knee. “If you’re upset enough to cry about it, I’m not going to tell you it’s not bad. Even if I wouldn’t feel the same way, I understand that things hit people differently. I have three brothers, and each of us has a different take on life. There are things that don’t bother Aiden and me that Luke would go to war over. And vice versa.”
She shrugs.
“Come on. Tell me.”
“My dad cheated on my mom. Apparently for a long time. His family knew and even enabled it. She was someone he knew for years, from like high school. My mom learned about it in a really hard way. They fought about it, of course. He swore it was over. Come to find out, he never ended it. When he went to stay with his sister for a week to help them move, the mistress came to the housewarming barbecue and stayed over.” Olivia’s eyes sparkle with unshed tears as she blows out a breath through pursed lips.
“My mom got her diagnosis about six weeks after she found out about the affair. My dad just… tuned out. After they knew it was cancer, he took her toonedoctor’s appointment. Within two weeks of that, he was gone.” A teardrop falls over her lower lashes. “It was so devastating to her. And to me. I felt abandoned and terrified. And to this day, I’m convinced the heartbreak he put her through made her illness worse.”
Sucking on her lower lip, she shakes her head. “My dad’s family covered for him and defended him. I could never reach him. Left voicemails, texted. My own dad ghosted me at a time when my mom was literally dying in front of me. And his family had the nerve to tell me how hard he was taking things. Really?Hehad it hard? Divorce papers came during her first round of chemo. My mom withered and died while he moved on.” She puts her hands over her eyes and rubs them as she cries.
The fucking dick abandoned his teenage daughter? His whole side of the family left her completely alone?
The rage that builds inside me is like nothing I’ve ever felt. I want to put a bullet in her father’s head and to burn his sister’s house down to the ground.
“Yeah, that’s bad of the worst kind,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “It’s the kind of betrayal that breaks hearts.” Blowing out a breath, I clamp down my anger. There’s no place for it here and now. Instead, I lean forward and kiss the top of her head. “You’ve got the moral high ground, baby. No doubt about it.”
“I hate that guy Gio’s mistress so much for trashing his wife’s looks. And I hate him for letting her. If he doesn’t love his wife anymore, he should break up with her, not run around behind her back with some catty, gold-digging bitch.” She shudders with emotion. “I wish you weren’t in business with him, Liam.”
She looks up at me with her big brown eyes, and the urge to blow off a multi-million-dollar deal hits me hard. But this isn’t just about me. Aiden and I have outside partners, too. Old man Sullivan and his clan are important allies. There’s no way I can blow up this deal because of my new girlfriend’s tender feelings, especially considering I didn’t blow it up for my own personal reasons.
