Now, three years later, she had a thriving multi million-dollar company handling publicity for the majority of DC’s biggest names in sports, politics, real estate and business. Which meant Tate and Lisa would continue to run into each other. It had already happened twice since their divorce. Once at a charity event, once at a sponsor event. And each time she’d been with a different man.
“Thanks for the heads up,” he told Beckett.
His friend was pulled into a conversation nearby. When he stepped aside, Tate had a perfect view of Lisa and Kessler. She looked as amazing as she always did, trim, coiffed, jeweled, her plastic smile in place. Tate’s guts churned with emotions—anger, bitterness, hurt, betrayal. And here she was with man number three—or thirty for all Tate knew—while he was so scarred over what she’d don
e, he couldn’t even date.
Olivia’s smile flashed in Tate’s head. “Maybe later, if you’re still here when I’m done…”
The stark difference between the emotions Olivia elicited and the emotions Lisa elicited struck Tate, and he made a decision right then and there: he was ready to move on the way Lisa had.
He may never have been a one-night-stand kind of guy, may have never had a fling, but if Olivia wanted him, he sure as hell wasn’t going to walk away tonight. Because over the last year, he hadn’t found anyone he’d wanted to move on with more than Olivia.
2
Olivia Essex wasn’t short on men in her life. From the moment she’d moved overseas, they’d come easily. Being blonde and American had always been an attractive novelty. Over the last decade, she hadn’t just learned a lot about men, she’d become a connoisseur. She truly did love them and all their eccentricities.
And as she smiled at Tate before letting the swinging door close behind her, she hoped the smokin’ hot American was still here when she finished putting out Quinn’s fire. Olivia was a sucker for a wounded soul, and Tate Donovan was one big muscled mass of darkly charismatic, brooding man. She wanted to take him to bed and bring him so much joy it took him months to remember what—or who—caused him the kind of pain she saw in those pretty chocolate eyes.
Her fingertips finally brushed the edge of the door and it slipped from her grasp, cutting off her view of one of the best looking men she’d ever met. And she’d met more than her fare share. From all over the world.
Olivia smiled, sighed and laid a hand over her heart. Turning she floated deeper into the large space much like the one she’d come from, just not dolled up for guests. Cement floor, twenty-foot open-beamed metal ceilings… Confusion filtered in. This wasn’t a kitchen. It looked more like a storage—
A moan rippled through the air, chilling Olivia’s spine and stopping her feet. A tortured, agonized moan followed by a choked sob. Then a round of insistent hushes while the moan was muffled.
What the…?
Olivia’s mind darted back to Quinn’s panic-edged voice over the phone, something Olivia had chalked up to tightly-strung Quinn being tightly-strung Quinn. Now, urgency drove her forward. “Quinn? Mom?”
She passed stainless steel shelving units and turned into a portable kitchen setup. A crew dressed in black pants and white dress shirts created a half circle around the source of the moan.
After a decade working in kitchens of every kind, from third world huts to billionaire’s mansions, Olivia’s head filled with a hundred different scenarios for the injury causing the sounds of pain. Scanning the crowd for her sister and mother, she moved forward, pushing shoulders and to make a path to the center.
“Quinn? Mom?”
They shouldn’t be in here. They should be out among the guests, making sure everything was where it should be. That everyone had what they wanted or needed. Acting as liaisons to the kitchen to keep food stocked, but not working in the kitchen.
When Olivia finally reached the source of the moans, she stopped dead and stared, mouth dropped open in shock. On the floor, a very pregnant woman in a white chef’s uniform lay on her back. Quinn knelt on one side of the woman and their mother knelt on the other. The pregnant woman pressed her hand to her belly, scrunched her glistening face in pain, clenched her teeth and groaned loud and long.
“Breath, Charlotte.” Olivia’s mother’s smooth voice attempted to focus the woman whose hand was cradled between Teresa’s. “Come on Charlotte, focus and breathe. One, two, three…”
“Quinn,” Olivia said, alarm ringing in her normally controlled voice. “What the hell’s going on?”
She hadn’t seen her family in over a year, but when her sister looked up at her, it was still like looking in a mirror. “Oh, Livvy. Thank God.”
Her mother stopped counting and glanced up too. Unlike Quinn, their mother smiled. “Olivia, baby.”
Olivia dropped into a crouch beside her mother and wrapped her in a quick hug. “Hi.” She pulled away and looked down at the woman on the floor. “I’m Olivia,” she told her. “Are you hurt?”
The woman huffed a little laugh, but fear clouded her eyes. “Depends on how you look at it.”
Olivia shot a look at her twin across the woman’s pregnant belly.
“Olivia, this is Charlotte, our caterer.” Then she told Olivia, “Charlotte’s water broke. We called an ambulance and her husband’s on the way.”
“And ambulance?” That seemed like overkill. “Maybe I’m used to the European way of doing things, but water breaking isn’t generally an emergency when you have top notch hospitals on every corner.”
Her mother smiled. “She’s only seven months pregnant.”