Liar

“Please,” I scoffed. “You don’t hit that hard.”

He rolled his eyes. Before he could walk out, he turned back and leveled me with a serious stare. “I’m going to take care of my niece, but when I’m done, we need to talk. You don’t get to just sleep with her without answering a fuck-ton of questions.”

“I know.”

With a nod, he was gone. I never doubted talking with Daniel would have its issues. I just knew we’d make it through it because we were both open to conversation. I hoped Olivia opened herself to hearing him too before she shut herself off completely.

Groaning, I fell back on the floor, my mind swirling from the abuse and the hope that maybe now that Daniel knew, Olivia would change her mind. That maybe somewhere there was a place for us to work it out.

Or maybe she’d take the out and move on with her future without me. Maybe it wasn’t just Daniel that weighed her down, but a future with me.

Jacob’s words flooded back, fueling the doubts that maybe once she talked to Daniel, she’d figure out she didn’t want me anymore. Maybe she’d only wanted the forbidden, and now that it was gone, so was the love.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Too many to keep track of.

Especially with the world spinning as hard as it was.

29 Kent

“Hit me again.”

Jackson cocked his brow and looked down at my empty shot glass. “You sure?”

“Do I not look sure?”

“You look drunk.”

That was putting it nicely.

“Not drunk enough.”

I’d spent the better part of two days blowing off meetings and hoping to drink enough to ignore the fact that I couldn’t get Olivia to answer any phone calls, and Daniel had ghosted me. I expected Olivia’s avoidance. I expected to have to work on her.

I had not expected to not be able to get a hold of Daniel. Had something happened that I’d missed? Had he decided I was some perv that was preying on his niece. If he did, then he could have the decency to say it in person, so I could laugh in his face at how ridiculous that was.

Maybe I’d played this all wrong. Maybe Olivia was right, and Daniel hadn’t understood.

Maybe I’d drunk too much because even the thought of Daniel abandoning me without a word over loving Olivia, was ludicrous. He’d at least go out with a bang.

“You want to talk about it?” Jackson asked, leaning his elbows on the bar.

Voy was mostly empty. Not many people stayed past lunch to get shit-faced.

I tossed the shot back, and maybe that was the reason I muttered my next words so easily.

“I fucked Olivia—a lot. And I love her. And I think I fucked it all up.”

“Uhhh…” Jackson’s eyes widened almost comically. “Daniel’s niece?”

I gave him a wink and the gun. “One in the same.”

He stood and whistled, pouring another shot. “Damn, Kent.”

“Aaaaaaaand, he walked in on us. That’s how he found out.”

“Fuck me,” he muttered, taking my shot and downing it, pouring another for me.

“Yup.”

“I take it D didn’t take it well?”

“Nope.” I squinted, recalling him leaving on, not horrible terms. “Well, I’m not sure.”

“What did Olivia do?”

“Bolted.”

“You go after her.”

“Daniel did.”

“But you didn’t?” He looked at me like I told him I kicked puppies. Which now that I was saying it out loud, maybe was just as bad as not chasing after her to be by her side.

“She needed Daniel more than me in that moment. As much as I wanted to hold her close to me as tight as I could, she didn’t need reassurance from me right then.”

“You love her.”

“More than anything.”

“Does she love you?”

I rubbed my thumb up and down the shot glass, terrified of that answer. “She did.” Maybe she got away from Daniel before he could talk to her, and she was alone, blaming me for it all. “I wanted to tell him, and she didn’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think enough people tell Olivia how brilliant she is, but Daniel always did, and she was scared to lose that if he found out, we were together.”

“That doesn’t make sense. He’s Daniel. The most understanding guy I know.”

“We know that.” I huffed a laugh. “Olivia is mature in too many ways to count. Hell, she’s more mature than all of us combined most of the time. It makes it easy to forget she’s still just a twenty-one-year-old girl without all the experience to get her through this.”

“So, what does Daniel say?”

“Wish I fucking knew. He hasn’t returned any of my calls and took yesterday off from Voyeur.”

“He,” came from behind me, “needed time to process that his manwhore best friend was in love with his niece, who he thinks of as a daughter.” Daniel pulled out the stool next to mine and plopped down. “He needed time to wipe the sight of you two together from his eyes.”