“I intended to return—”
“Even after a week?” Olivia said, clutching her phone tight. “Were you still figuring out who the better option was?”
“I’m not like you, Liv. I’m... I know what I have with Alex is not the real thing.”
Her throat choking up, Olivia listened in silence as Kim apologized again and hung up with promises to catch up in New York. Only one thought ran circles in her head.
Kim and Alexander were over.
Her knees were shaking, her hands clammy. She grabbed her handbag and jerked it over her shoulder. She needed to get out of here, needed to get a grip on herself before she...
She ran straight into Alexander. Every inch of her tightened, thrumming with awareness.
His gaze raked her, a frown on his forehead. “Olivia, are you okay?”
She turned toward him, her internal balance instantly toppled by his consuming gaze. The light blue dress shirt made his eyes light up. Dear God, he was gorgeous, he was sexy and he was not her twin’s man. She swallowed and stepped back.
“I just spoke to Kim,” she whispered, staring absently at her phone. “She said it’s over...” She frowned, struggling to breathe. He looked as calm as ever, his gaze eating her up. “How long have you known?”
“Since yesterday.”
The news had toppled her entire world. Alexander hadn’t even betrayed himself by a flicker of an eyelid. “And yet you didn’t say a single word. Are you so incapable of feeling anything?”
CHAPTER NINE
ALEXANDER POURED A shot of whiskey from the decanter and gulped it straight down. He had spent the whole day telling himself why giving into what he wanted was not a good idea.
At that moment, he had absolutely no idea why.
He turned around to face her and felt the muscles in his stomach tighten. She looked glorious. He wanted Olivia, the intensity of that want, of that desire was feral, robbing any good sense from him.
Her breasts fell and rose with her anger. Color slashed those angular cheekbones at his thorough appraisal. “I don’t want to talk about Kim.”
Her chin lifted. “I don’t care what you—”
“I spoke to Vincent. I know you were—”
She blinked. “And you decided to believe me after speaking to him?”
“He denied it, said you were the one who came on to him. But I know he’s lying.” Paradoxically, Vincent’s defensive denial, the very tone of his words had done it. In the end, he hadn’t needed proof. So much for not trusting his heart. “I made a huge mistake. But there’s nothing I can do about it, Liv. The terms of his employment contract require proof. It’s your word against his.”
Olivia stepped back, her mind reeling. With every word he uttered, he was swallowing up the distance she wanted to keep. She could fight his arrogant accusations, even his low opinions of her, but when he was like this—a man who could admit to his mistakes, a man who wasn’t perfect, she was utterly lost, defenseless.
Panic bubbled up through her. She felt as if she was split in half, one half greedily drinking in every word he said, every look he leveled at her, reveling in it while the other half whispered constant warnings to stop this, to run as far from him as possible. And the worst part was she had twenty five years of experience ignoring the second half.
She searched for reason, for sanity, for anything that could scatter the web spinning around them. “Why aren’t you angry at Kim, at this whole thing? You were angrier with me for stepping into her place than you are with her. You hate scandal, remember, and this is only going to make you more interesting to the media.”
“Kim’s not eager to advertise her ‘marriage’. And, until I have Emily’s custody locked tight, I have you. Don’t I?”
She couldn’t understand how blithely he was handling the emotional aspect of this mess. He had to have felt something for Kim. Didn’t he? “She left you for another man. Even for a man who rarely allows himself to feel anything, she did throw a kink in your plans for a perfect life.”
A vein pulsed threateningly at his temple. “Why are you always so eager to find a weakness in me?”
“Anything is better than this unfeeling, ruthless man whom nothing touches. I hate that man.”
His jaw clamped down. “Fine. I am angry with her. She risked everything I value. But, Kim and I, I think, were over long before I learned of her wonderful news.”