Olivia’s POV:It’s almost dawn, and I’m lying on my bed. I’ve barely slept, waiting for him to return, with a million thoughts running through my brain, tormenting me into oblivion. Thankfully, his phone is here, not smashed, despite hitting a marble floor. At some point, I regained enough sense to wander over and pick his things up, like a mute zombie trying to find something to do besides stare at a closed elevator. I left them on the kitchen counter. I paced like crazy, cried myself sick with heartbreak, disappointed in myself, then ended up in here hoping to try and sleep.I’m wretched and anxious, and I keep seeing that ragged, torn look on her face as though I had just slayed her entire family with a dirty spoon right before her eyes. I keep thinking about how he ran away and after her and the excruciating pain that causes me. To ponder what is even happening anymore. He chose to leave when the choice was thrown in his lap, and his instincts took over. His actions told me loud
Brandon’s POV:Two days have passed by since I left Olivia in that devastating scenario. I took the time off work because I couldn’t bear to see her. When I arrived at my office, all my stuff were gone. As if no one existed in that room. Not a speck, not a pin. It seemed brand new, repainted judging from the fresh white walls. My office walls used to be gray.“Joe?” I called for my assistant who was so punctual, he’s ten minutes early before employees clock in. His desk was empty. “Where’s Joe? What happened to my office?”A hotel employee who was passing by approached me. Her eyes gleamed with amusement. Obviously, there’s something she knows that I do not. “Hi, what are you doing here sir?”“W-what am I doing here?” I sputtered out of disbelief. “I work here! Now, I want to know where my assistant is and what happened to my office?”I looked around, assuming this was a prank but my guts tell me something is going down. I secretly hate myself for preferring to work at home than the o
Olivia’s POV:I thought I’d feel better after getting my revenge. I do not. He refused to leave my office. He was standing there for what seemed an eternity. So, I have to leave. I rose from my chair and left my office in haste. My destination? The top floor. It’s empty now.“Where are you going?”“What is it to you?”“I’m not done talking to you.”“Well, I am!” I shouted as I made my way to the elevator, ignoring guests and hotel staff throwing suspicious glances our way.The elevator is just a few feet away. The universe is in my favor because it’s empty. Only a few steps left. Three steps, two, one. Close. Wait. It’s supposed to close! “What?” Everything in me halts to some weird frozen moment, I know it was him.Brandon is standing in the there facing me while he holds the doors wide, only feet apart and so close to escaping. My body stills. I openly stare at him in complete shock. Brain stuttering on his words and unable to react whilst in a state of disbelief.“Liv, I love you.
Olivia’s POV:“You lying son of a b*tch.” I hate him for even trying.“I’m not lying. Why do you think I have spent weeks trying to show you that things are different? I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I knew this would be the reaction if I came out and said it. I needed you to have a reason to believe me first, so I had to prove it to you. I knew you would run otherwise because you had no reason to trust me.”He moves towards me suddenly, but I recoil and sink slightly into my weak position, shifting to the corner of the lift in a half-crouched fetal position. Still so afraid of this man’s ability. He pauses, seeing my apparent fear as it envelops me, and holds still. Raising his palms a little to indicate he won’t come any closer, he has to grab the door as it starts to close again quickly. Keeping his hands locked firmly on the sides of this box-like prison.I’m no fool. I’m vulnerable and unable to hold my own against him. He proved that so many times in the past. He d
Olivia’s POV:“Liv, I love you.”I let out a painful laughter. At this point, I no longer care what people are going to say. “I’m supposed to believe you now because you decided to stop playing with my emotions? Am I supposed to swoon at your feet and forget it all because … Oh, my Lord … Brandon Pembroke actually loves me?” I spit it at him, tears clouding my vision from the sheer force of everything coming out. Voice breaking, but I don’t care. He has me stripped naked and raw in all my painful glory, and now he can suffer the consequences of that.It’s nothing but a game to him, I don’t need a book to tell me that. I repeat this to myself like a mantra and try to block out how his eyes are devouring me.“It wasn’t like that. It was … complicated.” He looks around him uncomfortably, uneasy at his lack of control of the outcomes, but I don’t care. I want him to feel awkward and uneasy. He has no clue what it’s like not to be the man moving the chess pieces. The one in control. It’s n
Olivia’s POV:The hotel’s top floor was a presidential suite. The most expensive suite in the hotel and it’s reserved for a Moroccan prince two days from today. While my faith to my hotel staff was strong---I make it a point to personally inspect premium rooms. Before he showed up in my office, it was already in my to-do lists. Maybe that’s why I chose to flee here.If he isn’t lying, if he means what he says, it explains a lot from the past few weeks about his change. I don’t understand why, though. Nothing happened that made him suddenly grow feelings for me. I left, he found me; we carried on. Nothing at all to sway how he saw me. I had to support my body from falling, I was so confused I didn’t hear the elevator open again.“You just can’t take a hint, do you?” I snarled.“I’m not good at this.” He blurts it out in an almost painful rush of words as I glance at him again. That broad set of shoulders on that powerfully large body sagging slightly, the drop of his chin as he looks
Olivia’s POV:He sounds how I feel. Like he knows that this is pointless, and the past is more than can be overcome. I just wish he could make me understand more. My instincts tell me that he’s not completely honest with me and that’s what I want to know.“So, what changed?” My voice cracks. I promised I wouldn’t but here I am.“I can’t lose you…that’s what I know, Liv.”His voice is wracked with strained emotion. I never knew a sentence could rip my heart to shreds, but that one does. Choking me with a lump in my throat, so I have to swallow hard and breathe through another sob. He impulsively reaches one hand towards me, retracts and shoves them both in his pockets as though he assumes it will make him less likely to invade my space. He shuffles on his feet uncomfortably, looking ashen, and I start to go numb as my body takes over to shield me from hurt. Tears are rolling down my face, but all that goes with them dulls. I’m so exhausted.“If that’s true, then why did you leave me th
Olivia’s POV:“Why would I do that?”“I want you. That’s all there is to it. I want to show you that you don’t have to fear me and maybe prove you can trust me.” He gets straight to the point, lifting my hand into his and slides his fingers between mine to hold me tenderly. I stare at our entwined digits, feeling his heat flow into my cold, smaller one and gaze at it, disconnected. The space around me is surreal, as though I’m dreaming. I should lie down. I’m verging on passing out at this rate.“I didn’t know what love was, maybe I did but I was in denial. What was staring me in the face.It's softening me to him a little. Aware that I’m weakening, I slide my hand away quickly to pull myself together. I’m not that feeble or stupid. I move away to get some breathing space, my body giving in from holding itself up. I exhale heavily. So many emotions are flooding me, and I’m exhausted. It’s too early for this, and I’ve had an emotional few hours prior. This all feels surreal and crazy
Olivia’s POV:I lift a little higher, pausing and looking away to his chest, letting his eyes scan all of me as he stands motionless, listening, watching, taking it in and analyzing me with that quick brain. I get nothing from him, even when he slides his gaze down over my naked breasts and curves and comes slowly back up to lock on mine with a serious look that penetrates my soul. The smile faded away, but he still has a joyous aura surrounding him. “I will never give up on you. If you want this, you will never get rid of me again. I swear. I’m in this for the long haul, Liv.” “Good. Now take your clothes off, get over here and make love to me. It’s about time we stopped fucking around and got down to the real business.” I smirk as I say it. Hardly a sweet romantic seduction, but one thing I have learned is that I need to find my backbone with him.I was made to deal with this arrogant man. I need to remember that when dealing with him. He then breaks into the most gorgeous ungua
Olivia’s POV:I like this apartment; it somehow seems like I have been here before even though I have never laid eyes on it. I love the open space and simple furnishings. Nothing overly showy or flashy, nothing fussy. Just enough to feel comfy and relaxed in a way that invites you to come in and lounge your cares away. It’s peaceful and feels like home, even though I’m a stranger within its walls.It’s no surprise I like it, though; one thing I found when making the club gorgeous was that Lexi and I have a similar taste in décor, and we gel well in terms of style. We can argue about most things, but we never argued over styling choices.I waste no time in sinking into the hot bath and letting my weary bones blend with the water, turning my limbs to fluid weightlessness. I exhale with relief at the comforting feel of hot liquid overtaking my skin as it submerges and slides over all the tiny marks and grazes, littering the surface, cleansing them of grime and blood. Stings and nips beco
Olivia’s POV: She smiles again, nothing but warmth in that wrinkled little face, and I wonder if she was an attempt at giving himself a stand-in mother. She has that maternal vibe, and I could see why he wouldn’t want the hassle of a live-in maid whom he has banged. He hates women trailing around after him when he’s done with them.He made himself what he lacked, and I can see why he never let me come here before. A cozy home he never lets on is his, a dog and a motherly maid. Like his small apartment, this place is somewhere he can be someone else, and it feeds a side of him that his mother never nurtured. “Of course.” I falter, covering my sheer lack of knowing what’s happening or even something as basic about him as not liking reheated food. It’s not something that ever came up, seeing as I don’t cook for him or have ever had to get food for him. A girlfriend should know these things, though. I want to know these things about him.After today I guess that’s a moot subject, and I
Olivia's POV:Walking in the door, ushered by Orlie, we are all in complete silence. I don’t even take the time to acknowledge him. I have no words anyway. I'm disheveled, filthy, and broken inside as I’m led into a massive open plan penthouse apartment that I would never think of putting him in. A building in Upper Manhattan’s most luxurious area.“He owns this.” Orlie stated as if reading my mind.It’s warmer and homelier than the other one he took me to. There are substantial soft corner couches, side tables, and furniture for lounging and laying cups by your side, in front of vast windows spanning entire walls and showing New York at its finest in sweeping views. I feel like we are on top of the world as we are so high up in a vast modern yet comfy home. My eyes scan the roaring glass fire in the natural brick pillar standing imposingly in the middle of the room, giving no natural heat, so it’s a digital screen. It serves as a divider to the metal railed stairway behind it at the
Olivia’s POV:Oh, God no.He twists my wrist painfully, causing me to release the shoe finally and its clatters to the ground with an anticlimactic little noise as it slides from his gaping wound. My only hope of fighting a man this size. He overpowers me cruelly, and all I can do is grasp at his legs to stop myself crying out with the pain he’s inflicting. He is going for a broken bone.And then, she’s there. Alice.“Well, look at you. Not so pretty in a disheveled state are you?”“Boss, we can play with her, right?” The other man insisted.“Not yet. I’m waiting for Harvey. He’s on his way here, say, fifteen minutes with the documents because Olivia here will transfer all her money to me. Did you know, it was our original plan, me and Brandon? Unfortunately, he fell in love with you----so the money comes first and then, I’ll take him back. And we live happily ever after because you are dead.”“You’re lying.”“Oh, wait until Harvey shows up. I sent him the photos and the record and hop
Brandon’s POV:I stopped just when Harvey was about to ride with us. An idea dawned on me. I know Alice. I know how she thinks. “Harvey, go back to your office. Alice will call you. She will want Olivia’s money in exchange for her life. I’m sure. Don’t let her know that you already know. I’ll open my GPS, you know what to do.”Harvey nodded. I thought he was going to be difficult. “Okay, be safe. Take care of her. I’ll take of things on my end.”I hope I know how Alice mind works. Or else.Olivia’s POV:The noise in the alley comes back down towards me, echoing eerily, and I completely freeze, pushing my attention fully on Brandon to zone out the fear. He is quiet, but I can hear noises on his end as I clutch it to my ear. I think he is checking his screen for my location and leaving the call open, but he isn’t listening. I can hear voices in the background, Orlie and the other men as he tells them which turn to take. I can hear so much of where he is and the fact they are on the mov
Olivia’s POV:These are not from the hotel’s security. They might be the men Brandon warned me about, I just gave them all of me, with my stupidity. God knows how long they have been hanging at a distance watching the comings and goings in case they got a chance at picking me off. It’s horrifying to imagine they may have been out here this whole time, waiting for a time like this.I glance at him moving in, and the man from the car is now behind me, blocking my path. Eyes doing a quick scan of every avenue around me. I am aware of both, and my senses tell me how far away from actually touching them. I am more aware of the one behind me as it instils a higher fear factor, but my brain calms, and the part that works well in a crisis moves in to formulate an exit strategy. Adrenaline kicks in, and I do what I do best. I lift my feet and run like a bat out of hell crazy woman with no desire to die, to my right, down the alley.I used to be an athlete so I’m pretty swift in my departure. T
Brandon’s POV:“Where are you, Olivia? I told you to stay. Damn, how stubborn can she be?” I asked myself out loud, pacing her office for the nth time.“Relax, for all we know, she’s here and there’s nothing to worry about, sir.” Orlie tried to calm me but I can’t help myself.I’ve given her strict orders not to go anywhere alone. My guts tell me that Alice was just biding her time and she’s not really walking away even if I bribed her with money. She’s better than that, cunning and dangerous all rolled into one. My phone is in my hand and I’ve dialed her number so many times and sent her text messages that went from pleading to threatening if she didn’t show up any moment from now.The door knob to her office moved and I braced myself. But it wasn’t her. It was Harvey and the moment the lawyer laid his eyes on me----he was instantly enraged. He scanned the office before returning his gaze on me.“You…” he seethed. “Where is Olivia?”I shrugged. “That makes the two of us. I can’t find
Olivia’s POV:I wander a little further onto the cracked concrete pavement and walk in small circles for a while, hidden from view by the tall half-standing wall that used to be some sort of barrier. It’s high enough to act as a shade for me. I pace absentmindedly to try to calm my erratic swishing insides and breathless angst until the air penetrates my clothes and cools me down to a mild shiver. One eye on the group of men for no real reason and satisfied they haven’t acknowledged me over here at all.It’s not overly freezing today, and my dress is made of wool, so it’s warm enough not to go in for a jacket. I keep moving until I’m around fifteen feet from them, gazing out into the street and the traffic coming and going at the far end of the long lane ahead. The hotel nestles in a side alley not far from the main road, so the immediate area in front of me is car-free even though it's noisy out here. It can be peaceful if you walk far enough from milling security groups.I stare up