“I—”
He wanted to reassure her that she could trust him. Yet it could turn into a false promise in the blink of an eye. With any other person on the planet, he could give his word knowing that he would keep it. With Olivia, there was no telling what she would say and how he would react.
She rubbed her trembling hands over her eyes. “LifeStyle Inc. has a new marketing director.”
“Yes, Vincent Gray. I appointed him three days ago. What’s that...” His words faltered as things clicked into place.
She had slapped Vincent at his engagement party to Kim, broken a contract with him before. “Vincent knows better than to hold personal grudges in the work environment.” When she didn’t elaborate, he continued. “But no one can change the fact that it will make working with him a difficult situation for you.” He softened his words, hating that he had to speak them. “Nothing justifies unprofessional conduct.”
“No, it doesn’t. That’s why I have been re-assigned. So that I don’t jeopardize the agency’s chance to win the contract, even though it’s my idea that got us shortlisted.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Nate’s afraid that if I head the pitch, Vincent, at best, would make it hard for the campaign to go successfully, at worst, won’t grant the contract to our agency.”
He frowned. “Irrespective of the content or the suitability of your campaign?”
“Yes.”
“You do have a lot to learn if you think that’s how my companies do business. This is not a campaign to sell lemonade on a roadside stall, Olivia. What you’re suggesting is not only highly unprofessional but unethical. If someone made such a statement publicly, it would be grounds to sue for defamation.”
“It’s not that simple, okay? You can spout all kind of rules from here but the reality is that....”
“What?”
She walked away from him, wound up in her own world.
“Don’t do this,” he said, pulling her back to him. He didn’t know why he cared so much, only that he couldn’t let it go. “With the reality show, you had to have a relationship with the lead guy. With the jewelry campaign, you up and quit, and instead of making contacts and building a reputation in advertising, you slapped Vincent at that party. Why did you quit that campaign if you’re serious about a career in advertising?”
For the first time since he’d met her, she didn’t meet his gaze. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“He...harassed me sexually.”
Alexander froze, wondering if he heard her right. “I’ve known Vincent for ten years. We started working on our first business venture together. I’ve never even...” He ran a hand through his hair, things he’d always been confident of in his life shifting before him. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand him, you didn’t...”
Olivia laughed, a bitter sound that echoed around her. Tiny cracks inched around her heart. It was what she had expected him to say. And yet she couldn’t believe how much it hurt. Just because they’d spent a few days under the same roof looking beneath the surface, coming to an uneasy truce didn’t mean Alexander saw her any different from a car crash. If she’d expected any different, even on a subconscious level, then she was an even bigger idiot than she had thought.
“Am I sure if from the minute I started working at the jewelry firm, Vincent kept hitting on me? Yes. Am I sure if I heard him right when he said, ‘Women like you can never say no’? Yes. Am I sure if he criticized every tiny bit of work after I, somehow miraculously, managed no? Yes. At your engagement party he said the reason Nate had given me my job was because I was putting out. So, yes, I slapped him.”
“I just can’t believe Vincent would—”
She clenched her teeth, holding the dam of ache rearing to burst through inside. “Whereas I’ve had an affair with a married man, have no material success to give me even a little bit of credibility and have no talent to speak of. So of course, it’s not a big leap that I would be lying.”
Alexander closed his eyes and swore softly. Her words could have been plucked from his mind. He didn’t want to think them yet his rational mind couldn’t stop. And yet hearing her give voice to it, nauseated him. “I didn’t say that.”
She sidestepped him, and made her way to her bedroom. “You didn’t have to.”
He pulled her back toward him, perverse anger rising through him. “I’m not done —”