Chapter 50
STEFAN
“You did what?”
Mikayla doesn’t flinch at my tone. She never does. That’s what makes her invaluable—and right now, infuriating.
“Is that a trick question?” she asks.
“Don’t get cute with me, Mikayla.”
She scowls. “When have you ever known me to ‘get cute’ with anyone?”
“I didn’t ask you to do this.”
Dirty deals are part of the business. If this were anyone else, I’d be clapping Mikayla on the back and telling her to keep it up.
She knows it, too. That’s why she’s both pissed and confused.
“You didn’t have to ‘ask me.’ It’s my job.
This is exactly what I do every time you tell me you want to acquire a business.
And in this case, I executed standard acquisition protocol.
” She throws a folder across my desk. “I identified our target’s weaknesses, applied pressure, and created favorable conditions for purchase.
Just like I’ve done a million fucking times before, per your orders. ”
I don’t touch the folder; I know what’s inside.
Documentation of how she’s been systematically destroying Olivia’s clinic.
“Define ‘pressure.’”
“All the usual shit. Anonymous complaints to the medical board. Negative reviews on fertility forums. Strategic client poaching through intermediaries.” Mikayla’s voice remains clinical. “Just business.”
Just business. I hate that phrase more and more with every passing day.
Mikayla sees me brooding and lifts a brow. “Or did I get this wrong?” she asks sarcastically. “Were we willing to pay a fat premium for this sinking shitshow of a business just because little Miss M.D. puts out?”
My gaze flies to hers, scathing and hot. “I pay you to do my dirty work, not to question me. In fact, I pay you to do whatever the fuck I want and shut the fuck up about it afterwards. Is that clear?”
“What’s clear,” she fires back, “is that you’ve completely lost the fucking plot! You realize that Walsh is orchestrating a takedown of your little girlfriend, right? I have evidence that suggests she’s going to out your relationship and use the scandal to undermine AFS.”
“Let her do her worst. I can handle Rebecca Walsh.”
“Yeah,” Mikayla hisses bitterly. “Apparently, you can handle all these women, all by yourself.”
“Is there a fucking problem?” I demand. “Because you seem to have a stick shoved up your ass about something.”
Anger burns bright in those cobalt blue eyes, but she has the sense not to escalate things. “If you’re done with me, I have shit to do.”
I wave her away with a flick of my fingers, knowing that it’ll piss her off further. She leaves with a hiss and a slam of the door.
Jesus. What the fuck is going on?
It feels like Olivia has turned my world upside down. Even the stuff I counted on is no longer reliable.
Taras is questioning my every move. Mikayla seems to have forgotten that I plucked her out of obscurity and gave her a life that she never dared dream of having.
“Fucking ingrates,” I mutter as I pull open my desk drawer and get a crisp piece of paper.
The world may have moved onto spreadsheets and excel charts, but when you need clarity, there’s nothing like a piece of paper and a sleek ballpoint pen.
My father taught me that.
Write down your thoughts, Stefan. Workshop your feelings. It helps to put it all down on paper.
I pull out the Mont Blanc I stole from his collection before my mother could destroy it and start scribbling. But I don’t find clarity at the end of the paper.
I find only guilt.
The chessboard in the den set up for a new game takes me by surprise.
Olivia is sitting in one of the armchairs next to it, her hair still damp from a shower. “Hi,” she whispers when she hears me come in. She doesn’t look up and her voice is flat and lifeless, but it’s still an olive branch I don’t deserve.
I point at the game. “Waiting for someone to join you?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “Just sitting.”
The vodka bottle in the far corner tempts me, but I go to her instead and take the empty seat. I move a white pawn forward. Two squares. Nothing fancy.
After a moment of thought, Olivia mirrors the move with her own pawn. Her fingers hesitate on the piece before releasing it, like she’s not sure she wants to play at all.
“You came back to the room,” I say, pointing my chin at her change of clothes.
“I live there now, apparently.” She moves her knight out. “My shoes are there. My toothbrush. That ugly painting my mother gave me for my twenty-fifth birthday.”
“The one with the daisies?”
“Irises,” she corrects. “She knows I hate irises.”
I advance another pawn. “Why?”
“They’re funeral flowers.” She captures my pawn with her knight.
“Every funeral I’ve ever been to, there were irises.
My grandfather’s. My college roommate’s.
” A pause. “The babies that don’t make it.
” Olivia nudges the knight she just played, then leaves it crooked on the square.
“Every funeral had them. Always the same smell.” She rubs her palms together like she’s trying to get it off her skin.
“I can’t look at irises anymore without thinking of loss. ”
I don’t know what to say, so I move another pawn. The click of wood on wood fills the pause.
She finally lifts her eyes. “Funny thing is, my mother loves them. Sends them every birthday like it’s some kind of joke.” Her mouth twitches, but it isn’t a smile.
I reach for my bishop. “I shouldn’t have said those things last night.”
“But you did.”
“I was—” What? What was I? What the fuck was I, hm? “I was angry. About something else.”
“And you took it out on me.”
“Yes.”
She nods slowly. “My mother does that. Takes her bad days out on me. Failed surgery? My fault for existing. Dad working late again? Should have been a son who’d make him proud enough to come home.”
“That’s not—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“Isn’t it?” She finally meets my eyes. “You had a bad day, so you reminded me of my place. That I’m just the hired help. The rented womb.”
“You’re not—”
“Then what am I, Stefan?” she asks, the first sign of a crack in her perfect mask. “Because I can’t keep doing this. This push and pull. This… whatever this is where you fuck me like you can’t get enough and then treat me like I’m nothing.”
I want to tell her she’s everything.
Instead, I move my queen forward. “You’re Olivia.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I have.”
She stares at the board, and I watch her throat work as she swallows. “Camille came by this morning. She asked me if we were together. Really together.”
My chest tightens. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing. But I wanted to say yes.” She moves her rook. “How fucked up is that? I wanted to tell her that we’re together when I don’t even know what we are myself.”
“We’re—”
“Don’t say it’s complicated.” She looks exhausted suddenly. “Everything with you is complicated. Your business is complicated. Your family history is complicated. Your feelings are complicated. I’m beyond tired of complicated.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
“The truth is complicated.”
She laughs again, that same hollow sound. “I should’ve guessed you’d say that.”
I study the board, but the pieces blur together. “My father used to say that caring about someone was like handing them a loaded gun and hoping they don’t pull the trigger.”
“And?”
“He was right. My mother pulled the trigger.”
Olivia’s quiet for a moment. Then: “I’m not your mother.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because sometimes, I think you’re just waiting for me to prove you right. To betray you or leave you or whatever it is you think I’m going to do.”
She’s not wrong. I move my queen again. “Check,” I say quietly.
“And you can deny it all you want,” she continues, “you can pretend you’re too big to be hurt, but I’m not buying it.”
“That sounds like a ‘you’ problem.”
She wets her lips. “No, it’s definitely a you problem,” she retorts, jabbing a finger in my direction. “More specifically, it’s a self-preservation thing. Which I get.”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“Of course I do,” she murmurs. “No one wants to be hurt.”
“Have you seen the scars on my body?” I laugh. “I’m not afraid of getting hurt.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“The only people who can be hurt are those who look to others for help, for reassurance.” I put my fingers on my queen as all the lines of the board gleam in the sun slanting through the windows.
“I don’t, so I cannot be hurt. I expect nothing from no one, because the world is cruel and the motherfuckers who live in it are even crueler.
I don’t ask for anything from anyone—I take what I want and say fuck it to everything and everyone else. ”
Her eyes dim and darken. She sinks into the armchair like it will swallow her whole.
I make my final move. Queen to G5.
“Checkmate.”