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“I’m sorry, Ben!” she cried as tears threatened to fall from her beautiful hazel eyes. “I—I shouldn’t have invited you over. We both knew the risks of this, but I took advantage of your exhaustion to—”
I didn’t let her speak any further and placed a gentle finger against her pretty lips.
“It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you for any of this,” I assured her, placing a quick, chaste kiss on the side of her mouth. “You’re right, we both knew the risks of this, but Olson threatening to disclose my personal life to cover up his scandal is something only the devil would think of.”
I kissed her lips a couple more times. It was at that moment where I promised to myself that I would never let anyone harm this woman in front of me.
“I’m just scared, Ben,” she admitted as she pressed her forehead against mine. She closed her eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths.
“I know,” I said as the tip of our noses met. It was calming to match our breathing for a couple of seconds. It felt like I escaped into another universe where none of this was happening to us and it was just Olivia and me, but I knew it wasn’t the time to be ignoring our problems.
“But I’ll protect you, I promise,” I vowed, and Olivia stroked my cheek gently before pulling away.
She smiled at me, warmly, like nothing else in the world mattered at that moment.
“I know you will,” she replied, breathless and shaky. “But I want to protect everyone, including you, and I’m the only one who knows how to deal with Jebediah Olson.”
She stood up and started to get dressed.
“We have to hit him hard with these questions. He will try to drown you out with his naturally loud voice every time the topic would steer against his favor, and he will use every dirty trick in the book, including that photo, but I know of a way to hit him back,” Olivia started to relay her plan to me as she got all of her clothes on in one swoop.
“How do you do that?” I asked aloud before I caught myself. Honestly, this far in with her, I wanted to know the answer to that question so badly. Olivia, however, had no idea what I was talking about. “How do you just quickly adjust from being downtrodden to being the most confident person in the room? You’ve done it a million times. You did it when I singled you out during your first day, and you’re doing it again now.”
That earned a slight eye-roll from her.
Olivia then proceeded to tie her hair up in a ponytail, with a self-assured grin.
“It’s part of being a woman.”
I smiled back and nodded.
“And what a woman you are,” I stated, physically in awe of her strength. “But before we deal with Olson, there’s one other person we have to deal with first.”
Boy, this was going to be an awkward family talk.
Olivia
Listen, I would never deny that Johnson DuPont was an intimidating man. His very presence could part the entire ocean straight down the middle. His voice was as frightening as a violent thunderstorm, and his gaze could slice through the entire universe. So, it wasn’t a necessarily pleasant memory for me to be standing in the middle of his office in the middle of the night being berated for having relations with his son, who also happened to be my boss.
“An affair!? How could you allow yourselves to be this dense!?” Johnson DuPont’s words were harsh, but he was always known for that. I never thought I’d be on the receiving end of them, however, and it was no doubt the most frightening moment of my life.
I firmly believed that nothing would ever top this moment. I could experience a plane crash or even be sent to the depths of hell, but the devil cannot hold a candle to Johnson’s fierceness. Hell was mercy compared to what Ben and I were experiencing.
“You make all this talk about making OVT Broadcasting Network becoming the harbingers of unequivocal truth whenyouyourself, Benjamin, have relations withyour own newly-hired reporter?And a reporter that's also been gettinga lotof attention lately. What were you thinking?”
Even Ben flinched at that one. It was a different kind of pain when your own father pointed out your hypocrisy. I had known for a while that what we were doing essentially did go against the code that we upheld as people of OVT. It was in those moments where the saying “ignorance is bliss” really did feel like it, even though it felt wrong. The thing Ben and I continued to have was wrong, but sometimes, there were just moments where yearning was more powerful than rationality. Of course, it would be fool-hardy of me to think that everyone would see that.
In a sudden turn of events, Johnson DuPont’s face morphed into a calmer one as he sat down in his chair. I was beginning to think the old man was having a heart attack with how angry he was, and I was about to get out of there and get help when I was observing his ragged breathing. However, almost instantaneously, his enraged expression returned, but he wasn’t yelling at us this time. He was only staring Ben down, and if looks could kill, his son would have about a million stab wounds by now.
“You know,son,” Johnson started with a rare moment of him acknowledging his child. “When I allowed you to take over this company, I never thought you would make it very far. I thought that if I couldn’t do it, then no one could.” His words remained harsh, but Ben didn’t dare sway away from the overwhelming pressure of it. “And then you did, and for a moment, I thought I would be able to die knowing that my son could take care of himself. I never thought in a million years that the reason you would fail is from your own actions.”
Now that was stone cold, even for him. It was absolutely exhausting to hide my relationship with Ben. I wanted nothing more than to let the whole world know about us. With Johnson’s hurtful words, I finally had enough. There was no way I was going to stay silent any—
“You think I fell for her because she was my reporter?” Ben’s hardened voice stopped me in my tracks. As I saw the father and son duo about to go at it, I stepped back, knowing that there was a bigger part of this conflict that I wasn’t necessarily a part of. “You think that I only allowed myself to act on my emotions for the thrill of doing something seen as taboo?”
Johnson raised his hands up to shrug. “Can you blame me if I do?” he taunted. “The facts state themselves, don’t they? You’re her boss, she’s your employee. You’re thirty-six, and she’s, what, twenty-eight? Is there something else that needs to be said?” I began to clench my jaw as Johnson put our entire relationship out of context. It was so easy to be misunderstood, especially when they refused to hear us out. “You’re lucky that this photo hasn’t been released online yet. Olsonmayhave worse intentions for it, but you’re still fortunate to have this time of peace.”
Ben chuckled darkly, shaking his head in disbelief as his father stared at him with a judgmental gaze.
