Chapter Thirty-Three
Hayes
As soon as I set her on her feet, she’s pacing the length of the small kitchen, getting more heated with every pass. I don’t know if she’s going to wring my neck for manhandling her ex or manhandling her.
“What the fuck was that?”
“You didn’t want me to beat him to death. I had to make it hurt somehow.” I rub the palm that just slapped her ass, wishing I could have enjoyed that feeling a little longer, but I know I was out of line.
“You do realize that your actions have consequences, right?” She doesn’t give me a chance to respond. “You keep promising that you’re going to stick around, but the second someone scorns me, you’re begging to be thrown back in jail.”
“I can’t stand by and let someone disrespect you.”
She digs her fingers into her hair. “But I don’t care. Don’t you understand? Elliot can be as nasty as he wants, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
“He had his ring on your finger, Olive.”
“So?” She stares at me with furrowed brows. “Oh, I see. This isn’t about him being mean to me today. You’re mad that he had me and you didn’t.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting the anger building up. “Of course, I’m mad. He got everything! He got your heart… Your trust. He got to touch you… And, I hate him for it.”
“Well, clearly I shouldn’t have given him my trust,” she scoffs.
“What the hell did you see in him, Liv?”
“Really? You want to blame me?”
“No. I want to know why the woman who could have any man she wants chose some douche bag with a trust fund.”
She shakes her head and starts pacing again.
“Tell me!”
“Because he was nothing like you!”
I stare at her in shock.
“Do you think I could look at anyone with blonde hair and blue eyes and see anything but the boy I loved and then lost?
“I tried finding someone else. Someone better. I dated my way through my college campus and law school. Do you know how many men asked me out?”
Okay, this is not what I want to hear.
“I couldn’t look at anyone with a nice smile without wishing it was yours.
God forbid a man looked like he knew how to throw a punch.
So if you want to beat up every man I dated, and everyone I fucked, trying to erase you from my heart, then go ahead.
They’d probably give you just as much fight as Elliot could. ”
“Liv,” I start, but she cuts me off.
“No, Hayes. No. You don’t get to judge me. I never wanted anyone else. You forced me to move on.” She turns away, bracing her hands on the counter.
“Have you moved on?” I force the question from my throat because I’m terrified to hear her response. She doesn’t respond, hanging her head between her shoulders. “Does any part of you still want me, Olive?”
“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life,” she whispers, and all the air in my lungs escapes my chest. “But you destroyed me once, and I won’t let you do it again.”
She stiffens slightly as my front brushes against her back, reaching around her to cover her hands with mine.
“I’ll do whatever you need me to, for as long as it takes. Just don’t close the door on us. Not yet,” I breathe, nuzzling into the side of her neck.
She gasps, reaching back to grab my nape, pulling me in closer. My lips trace her skin, and I feel her tremble against me. Her body already knows she’s mine, but her mind won’t accept it.
“Did it work?”
“What?” She shivers as my hand skims up her arm.
“Fucking guys who were nothing like me.”
“No.”
My palm traces down her rib cage until I reach her waist. “Did you think about me?”
“Yes.”
I flatten my hand over her stomach, sandwiching our bodies together. My cock is stiff against her ass, and she whimpers when I shift my hips into her. “You know I’ll fuck you better than anyone else.”
She whimpers but doesn’t respond as I snake my other hand up her neck, capturing her jaw. “Tell me, Olive.” She shakes her head in defiance, and a smile quirks my lips.
“You fucked other women,” she spews as if that’s an argument.
“A few.” She jerks in my arms, trying to get away from me, but that’s not happening. “Turns out there are only so many leggy brunettes to choose from, and they don’t like being called the wrong name.”
She twists again, trying to escape my words. “Too many to keep their names straight?” She hisses.
“No, there’s only one name that leaves my mouth when I cum, dove,” I whisper, biting her ear.
This time, when she struggles, I let her spin in my arms, keeping her trapped between my body and the counter.
“You don’t mean that.” Her eyes narrow as she looks at me, but her pupils are blown wide, breathing shallowly as if she can fight how turned on she is.
“Ask me about my tattoo, again.”
Her gaze dips to the numbers on the hand she asked about before.
50.1.5
“How well do you know Roman numerals?”
Her eyebrows scrunch, and she twists her head to look at the numbers more clearly. Then she shakes her head. “No,” she gasps as she reads each number differently now.
L.I.V.
“Yes.”
“You put my name on your hand?”
Each step is painful as I back away from her, taking off my white dress shirt. She watches me slip each button out of its hole until I pull it off and drop it to the floor.
I lift my arm to show her the inside of my bicep. “A marigold.”
Her mouth pops open, recognizing her birth flower, and she doesn’t fix it.
“You’ve seen these.” I pull at the collar of my undershirt to reveal the olive branches.
When I pull at my t-shirt to remove it, her eyes pop open wide.
“Stop!” She rasps, desperately. “I don’t want to see any more.”
“All I’ve done is think about you, Olive. There’s never been anyone else for me.”
“I can’t do this, Jensen. This is too much. I just broke things off with Elliot a few weeks ago.”
“But you were never truly his, were you?”
She jerks her head to the side as if my words slapped her. “I need some space. The Porter trial starts tomorrow, and I need to focus.”
I shake my head in frustration. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
Her palms meet her temples, and she squeezes her head between her hands. “I can’t be near you all the time. I need time to think, and I suffocate around you.”
“Olive…”
“Please.” Her voice cracks, and I know I can’t be the cause of her suffering.
I’ll do whatever she asks.
“Right… Get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Only to and from work. I need you to leave after you drop me off.”
“Liv…”
“You cut me off without any explanation, and I had to live with it for years. At least I’m taking it easy on you,” she whispers.
“I guess I deserve that.”
“I’ll call if I need you,” she states softly, but coldly, bottling herself up again.
I know it’s my fault, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. I’m slowly dying, being tortured by decisions of the past, and all I can do is take the pain and bear it.
Hoping that it makes her pain even a millimeter less.
* * *
She gathers the paperwork she needs, double-checking each page as she files it away in her briefcase, ignoring me as if I’m not even in the room.
It’s a painful reminder that she holds our fate in her hands. With each breath, I’m waiting for her to tell me to go and not to come back.
I don’t know how I’ll survive if she chooses life without me. I was barely living already before she came back to me.
Miley brings her a hot tea, and without a word, we’re making our way to the courtroom. The way she catwalks in her heels is terrifying, because a woman that confident will eat your heart out, and every person in this building knows it.
Me, especially.
She takes one last sip of her drink, handing it off to the intern again, who scurries away to dispose of it, and takes her place behind the prosecutor’s table. She’s comfortable here, and without a hair out of place, she looks like she owns the room.
“Hi,” Jo whispers, sliding in next to me in the first row. Lochlan beside her.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“Liv didn’t think she’d need Lochlan to take the stand today, but she said it would look good for us to be here. To show a stand against Randall Porter and what he did.”
This trial shouldn’t be as intense as Jeremiah’s next week because Randall didn’t actually get his hands dirty. But we all know he’s the evil mastermind.
The judge enters and goes through his normal motions, and nerves creep down my spine. This is the first real trial I’ve witnessed Liv partake in, and as confident in her abilities as I am, I don’t know how she handles the pressure.
“Mr. Porter has fired his legal counsel and chooses to represent himself today. All testimony will be done under oath. Do you have any objections, Miss Greenwood?” Judge Fulton asks.
“No, your honor,” she replies coolly, but there is humor in her voice. Porter is an idiot.
“Very well, proceed.”
“Thank you, your honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” she starts. “We have an obligation as a society to adhere to the laws that keep us safe. Protected. We’re here today because Mr. Porter did not believe in following the law. He tried to take shortcuts, and people got hurt because of it.
“I realize that many of you might recognize the man in the courtroom today. He’s from a local astute family. He was even the mayor of the neighboring town of Langston. Don’t be fooled by his outward appearance. He has only let you see what he wants you to see.
“If you’ll look this way.” She points to a projector that the intern is manning. “These are the documents that he does not want you to see. Intimidation. Falsifying penal codes. Blackmail. Extortion.”
Some of the jurors scribble in their notepads as the different images flash on the screen. Images of papers that I’ve seen on Lochlan’s kitchen table. All the attempts by Porter to steal his property.
“Mr. Porter wanted Mr. Dane’s property. He didn’t like that it wasn’t for sale, and he really didn’t like that he couldn’t bribe his way to it. Mr. Porter is a bully–”
“Objection!” Porter screeches, but the judge puts his hand up to calm him down.
“Miss Greenwood,” Judge Fulton urges.
“It’s relevant, your honor.”