Chapter Twenty-Four
TWENTY-FOUR
Jake
“Whoa, whoa. Backtrack.” Oliver’s feet drop off his desk and hit the floor in a loud thump. “You almost got arrested tonight?’
“Charged—not arrested.” I run a tense hand through my hair.
Oliver’s office is quiet since his last patient left an hour ago.
Never thought I’d be making a visit here unless I was drunk, high, or otherwise incapacitated.
“And major emphasis on almost. The charges were dropped.” I lean two hands on the club chair that faces the desk.
Mid-lunge. Trying my best to unwind my muscles, but I’m not sure I can relax.
Oliver props his elbows on the mahogany desk and watches me. “You don’t look like someone who just dodged a stain on his spotless record.”
“You do know you’re not a real therapist?”
“Wrong, Koning. I am a real therapist. I provide very real services to my clients.” He tosses a glass paperweight between his hands. “I might just be lacking the real credentials.”
I let out a low groan. “I shouldn’t be here.
I don’t want to be complicit to whatever this is.
” I wave a hand around his office. The warmly lit room has camel leather chairs, a full shelf of self-help books and scientific journals, a box of tissues on the oak coffee table, and a con artist sitting behind the desk.
Oliver wags an unserious finger. “You’re okay with the death of your mother, but you draw the line at me actually helping people?”
I shoot him a glare. “You know that’s not it.”
“I know that your moral code is Swiss cheese when you act like it’s Gruyère.” He leans back, the paperweight soaring up in the air in a higher toss. “Lucky for you, I love both Swiss and Gruyère.” He winks.
“Lucky for me,” I repeat, meeting his confidence head-on. The intensity of Oliver should make me let go. Walk away. He’s like a monster under a bed, but instead of being scared, I just want to peek underneath and he just wants to play.
Then I think, What the fuck am I doing?
What are we doing?
Oliver is with Hailey. Even after the night she came back to Stonehaven crying from the brush-off on the job.
I’m with Hailey.
Oliver and I are…enduring each other? Circling each other? Competing with each other? Some days I feel like he’s trying to get under my skin to run me off, but most days, I feel like he’s the distraction I need.
I can understand why Hailey is drawn to him.
And he’s right. If I really thought he was bad for her, I would want him to change.
But they’ve known each other for as long as they’ve been alive.
The way they interact, their silent touches and quiet care, is built off history I will never know.
Even if Hailey spends hours sharing with me.
His gaze tracks down my chest. Which confuses me more.
I squeeze the top of the chair harder. “Can we not? Not today.” I wouldn’t even be here if Hailey didn’t send a text to meet her at Oliver’s office after work.
Oliver catches the paperweight and studies me harder, his humor settling into something more serious. “Is there more to it than the charges being dropped?”
“Varrick was the reason they got dropped,” I explain. “Took him five minutes on the phone with the DA. Threw Trent under the bus at the same time.”
Oliver lets out a low whistle. “Dear old Dad with the high-up connections.” He tips his head, impressed. “He’s good.”
I’ve had conversations with Nova and Phoebe about Oliver, about their fears that he might be more susceptible to Varrick’s manipulation, which makes me remind him, “He’s a killer.”
“He’s good at being bad,” Oliver rephrases.
“He’s a killer,” I emphasize. “Of children.”
“I don’t throw stones. Or else I’d have to launch one at our little psychopath.
” He tosses the paperweight again, and I can’t read him.
But he reads me with one stroke. “Don’t fear for me.
My heart isn’t melting over that imposter.
I’m not a fourteen-year-old boy yearning for a father.
” He rolls into the desk. “But you got out of the charges?”
I release my grip on the chair in a large exhale. “Yeah…It was a close call.” Too close.
I can’t shake the stress of learning I could’ve been charged for a crime my brother committed. Now more than ever, I need him out of my life.
I meander toward the bookshelf and slip off a hardback on attachment theory. Flipping open the dense text, I draw my eyes back to Oliver. “Have you read these?”
He sweeps me in a quick up-down. “Of course. You think they’re all for show?”
Maybe. Probably not. Oliver wouldn’t half-ass his research before turning into a character, but it dawns on me for a second. How much he must know. How intelligent he must be to have become hundreds of different people with different professions and skill sets.
I turn more pages. “Did Hailey give you any other info about this news she has?”
Oliver leans forward to remind me, “We were in the same group chat.”
She did text us together. Just a simple I have news. Meet at Oliver’s office at 7pm.
I rotate toward him. “You’re actually admitting you don’t have a secret text chat with her?”
His forearms lie on the desk, hands cupped lightly. “And why do I need to secretly text her when I can talk to her face?” He locks eyes with me. “Slip my hands down her back. Underneath her shirt. Snap off her bra—”
“We get it.”
“The royal we. Fitting for a king.” He relaxes back, then spins in his chair to face an ornate mirror on the wall and fixes his hair. “No, I don’t have any other details about her news.” He catches my gaze through the reflection. “Do you?”
“No. I just hope it’s good news.” I tense more. “Today has been full of shit news.”
“Like?” He spins back to face me, and I almost believe he’s interested in my problems.
I lift a shoulder. “The club needs new members, or I might have to start firing some staff. I can’t choose favorites and”—I exhale roughly and shove the book back on the shelf—“Hailey and Phoebe were the newest hires. They’ll most likely be the first cuts.”
“And why haven’t you asked me to join your club?”
I give him an intrusive look. “Do you have the money for that? Initiation fees aren’t cheap.”
Oliver puts a hand to his chest. “I’m a trust fund baby who didn’t lose his inheritance, unlike my wonderful sister, Phoebe.” His alias. He doesn’t explain further, and I wonder how much money from his past jobs he still has at his disposal. But I let the temptation to ask go.
“I don’t want your money,” I state firmly.
He looks me up and down again. “Power dynamics?”
“Something like that.” I walk over to his desk. Closer to him. “I’ve seen your cock. I don’t feel like taking your money.”
“I could put it under your pillow like the tooth fairy if it’d help you sleep at night.” He tugs a string to a stained-glass lamp, and it casts a soft glow over the desk and his dark eyes. “I am an expert at helping people sleep.”
Flashes of him fingering Hailey until she writhed against him, until she cried, invade my mind. His gaze plants on me in challenge, and I don’t break away. He fucking wants me to have that visual, but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of thinking it makes me uncomfortable.
It doesn’t.
We’ve spent over a month sleeping in the same bed together, Hailey wedged between us. I enjoy the competition more than he realizes. Maybe because I know this is one that’s decided by Hailey. Not by him. Not by me.
In the end, we’re at her mercy. Which is where we both want to be.
Whatever this is between Oliver and me is just a side quest. Entertainment. I’m having too much fun for a guy who might lose everything: The family estate. The family legacy. My own reputation.
“It’s my night helping her sleep,” I remind him. Just a polite way of saying, I’m fucking Hailey. I’ve given in to the idea that it has an added benefit of making her relax and fall asleep.
She’s stopped losing time since she started summering at Stonehaven, she’s said. Maybe it’s been less stressful having me and Oliver with her together.
“I have it penciled in my calendar.” Oliver smiles, slipping a ballpoint pen behind his ear. “Thanks.”
“You put it on your calendar?” I ask, disbelieving.
“With little hearts around my dates.” He draws a heart in the air with his finger. “And little frowny faces around yours.” He drops his lips in dramatic fashion.
“Sure,” I say, and check my watch. Our arrangement has been working well so far.
We’ve split up the nights we have sex with Hailey.
We’re allowed to watch, which has been…interesting.
We don’t climb in the bed together until she’s fast asleep.
So one of us is inevitably standing, most of the time in the bathroom doorway.
It’s become a contest of wills, where we refuse to walk away and just let her be fucked by the other one so easily.
And there’s definite intrigue rooting me.
Oliver is so rough with her. The first time I saw him thrust his cock inside of her, I wanted to throw him off.
His pace was relentless. He never let up on her, not even when she started crying, and if I didn’t know she liked going past the sensitivity, I would’ve stopped him.
When he wasn’t kissing her, he stared at me. He wanted me to either get hard or get timid, and when I didn’t do either, his breath staggered and he lost pace just slightly.
So, yeah, it’s become a game between me and him. Hailey seems enthralled by it, often asking me questions in the morning. “Did you come, too?”
“No,” I said. “But I didn’t mind watching.” That’s been…evident for me and him.
Oliver will act like it does nothing for him.
Still, when he’s on his feet and I’m on the bed, he’s trying to unnerve me.
He’ll smile, which will flicker in and out.
He can’t stand how long I take with her.
How slow I am just tracking my lips up her body.
It drives him mad just standing and waiting and seeing her squirm beneath me.