Chapter 30 - Olivia #2
“They revoked my offer,” I whisper. “After I’d already accepted… We even already agreed on a start date.” A tear slips free, hot against my skin. “Nathaniel… I’ve worked so hard. I did everything right. I don’t understand how this is happening.”
“Oh baby,” he murmurs, pulling me into his arms before the next sob rises. I fold into him automatically, my forehead pressed against his chest as he strokes the back of my head with slow, soothing motions.
“Everything will be okay,” he tells me, tone soft. “You don’t need to panic.” His fingers glide through my hair with practiced gentleness. “You have another offer, a better one. You know that. My father already told you that the doors to Caldwell Ventures are open to you.”
His words give me pause. It’s uncharacteristic of him. He’s displaying neither outrage on my behalf nor instinct to intervene. Instead, he’s presenting me with a perfect alternative laid out as if he expected this.
“That’s…that’s not the point,” I mumble into his chest.
Nathaniel pulls back just enough to see my face. He cradles my head in both hands, angling me toward him, his thumbs brushing away the tears on my cheeks tenderly.
“Just listen to me, baby,” he says, eyes steady on mine.
“This is a better outcome. Caldwell Ventures is a stronger move for you. You’d get real responsibility from day one.
You wouldn’t spend two years building decks for people who don’t see half as clearly as you do.
My father already knows what you’re capable of.
He respects your instincts. You’d be in the room where decisions happen—where your voice actually matters. ”
My pulse spikes. He sounds almost…eager.
“You’d rise faster with us,” he continues, warmth blooming in his tone. “Learn more. Do more. And”—his mouth curves into a small, hopeful smile—“we’d be working side by side. Building something together. Tell me that doesn’t feel right.”
There’s an undercurrent beneath his voice—thrilled, nearly boyish. As if the world has clicked into place exactly the way he’s always pictured it.
My breath catches. His certainty feels too complete. Too ready. Too rehearsed.
“Nathaniel, you’re taking this very…” I search for the word. “Rationally.”
He laughs lightly. “Because it’s solvable. All of it. You’re not losing anything. You’re just choosing differently now.”
Choosing? My choices have just been stripped away from me.
I study him—the relaxed set of his shoulders, the lift at the corner of his mouth, the spark in his eyes he isn’t hiding well.
Then, it clicks.
“Nathaniel…” I begin carefully. “Did you…know about this?”
“Baby,” he murmurs, tilting his head, his voice almost placating. “Why don’t you eat first, and we’ll talk about whatever’s worrying you.”
I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to manage me.
“Nathaniel,” I repeat, steadying my voice despite its tremor, “look at me.”
His gaze meets mine, irises impossibly blue in the morning light, and I just know.
I shove back from the table, standing abruptly. I need space—any space—so I turn my back on him and move toward the living room.
My hands brace against the back of the sofa, trying to steady myself as the world spins around me. It feels as if the ground has shifted a fraction to the left without warning.
I reconstruct the last twenty-four hours in my mind, and the dots start to connect. His fingerprints are everywhere. All I need is for him to admit it.
When I turn around, he’s already there.
His expression remains impossibly calm, and something in me recoils at the sight of it. That serenity—in this moment—feels like a slap across the face.
I muster the courage to ask the question I’m dreading the answer to: “Was it you?”
Nathaniel doesn’t flinch. He looks me dead in the eyes as if he’s prepared for this exact moment, as if every path has been leading us here.
“Yes,” he answers unequivocally, void of remorse.
My vision blurs before I even realize I’m crying. A tear slips free, then another, and the rest break free in a rush I can’t control.
My grip on the sofa tightens, knuckles whitening, but it does nothing to stem the tremor that is spreading through my body. The sounds I’m making are small and wounded, nothing like the way I’ve carried myself my whole life.
The sob builds faster than I can swallow it down. It rises, breaks, and the next one follows. I heave, gasping for air as my whole body trembles. It feels as though a fault line inside me has split open, releasing everything I’ve ever held back.
And through all of it, he stands there watching me with that same devastating composure.
I see red.
My voice cracks, rising despite my effort to contain it. “Nathaniel, this is my future—”
“Our future,” he cuts in, firm and unyielding.
The interruption stuns me for a second, then the words rip out of me.
“You had no right! I’ve spent years—years—working toward this. I made every sacrifice I could think of, and you—” My hand claws at my chest as if I can hold myself together physically. “How could you? Is my life just some kind of joke to you?”
At that, his gaze sharpens.
“I assure you,” he says, voice low, “I’ve never taken anything more seriously. You are my whole life, Olivia.”
The words should soothe, but they don’t. They scrape raw against the wound that he’s inflicted on me.
“Then make this make sense to me.” My hands rise to my face, scrubbing furiously at the tears I can’t seem to stop. “Why would you do something like this when I’ve already given you everything, Nathaniel? I chose you. I always choose you. Isn’t that enough?”
His jaw tightens, and for a moment, I think he won’t answer. But then he exhales long and slow, as though he’s been holding this in for far too long.
“No,” he says simply. “It’s not enough. And it never will be.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, and I blink at him, unsure I heard him correctly. But Nathaniel isn’t looking away. If anything, he seems to be leaning into the moment, letting it crack open the facade he’s carefully maintained since we first met.
“W-what?” I stammer, willing myself to hold his gaze even as my heart breaks open in real time.
“I need you in ways that you can’t begin to comprehend, Olivia.” He takes a step toward me. “You think this is about control? About power?” He lets out a mirthless chuckle, shaking his head. “No, it’s not. It’s about survival. Mine.”
He keeps advancing, and every inch of distance he closes makes my pulse climb higher.
“I know what my life becomes without you. I’ve played out every version, and I don’t survive any of them.
” I step back, but he closes the gap with ease.
“Instinct drives me, baby. It pulls me toward you, and it pushes me to eliminate anything that could take you away from me.”
My back hits the wall and I realize too late that he has me cornered. There is nowhere else to go. His mere presence is overwhelming, suffocating… And god help me, I can’t bring myself to look away.
“Nathaniel…” I choke out his name, but I don’t know what else to say.
His hand comes up and caresses my cheek.
“You think you’ve seen the worst of me?” he asks, tone almost indulgent.
“You haven’t. You’ve only seen the version of me I let you see, the man I hoped you could love without running.
But…” His fingertips trace the line of my jaw, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.
“I’m done pretending. So will you let me be honest with you now? ”
His hand slides to my throat, warm and possessive, while the other hand lands on the wall beside my head. He braces himself as he leans closer, his breath brushing my temple, his scent enveloping me.
“I love you like a sick man,” he whispers, his lips so close to my ear that I can feel the vibration of his words. “It’s consuming me alive, but I let it happen.” His grip around my throat tightens, and shamefully, it incites a rush of arousal through me. “Do you know why?”
My breath hitches as he pulls back enough to meet my gaze again. His eyes are dark, fevered, and so beautiful, like the calm before a storm that promises to destroy everything in its path.
“It’s because you’ve held my heart in the palm of your hand the whole time,” he confesses, voice thick with emotion. “And I’d ruin myself a thousand times over to be with you. I’d burn my whole life to the ground before I’d let you go.”
My lips part. A question slips out before I can stop it. “But…what would you do if I walked away? If I left this all behind?”
“What would I do if you walked away?” he repeats slowly, tilting his head as if considering it. Then, a small, knowing smile touches his lips—the kind that curls heat and dread together in my stomach. “I’d follow.”
“Even if I didn’t want to be with you anymore?” I whisper.
I regret saying it instantly when I see the wounded look that slashes across his face.
But then he tucks it away, the hurt sealing off behind a cool, terrible calm. “You think I would just let you go?” He lets out a rueful chuckle. “Let you disappear into the world, to one day belong to someone else? Fuck no.”
His thumb strokes my bottom lip, in a gesture so tender it feels at odds with the sharpness of the words that follow.
“Try to walk away from me, if you think you can bear it,” he murmurs, voice dropping into a sultry rasp.
“But know this: I will follow. Even if it’s to the ends of the earth, I’d find you, and then I’d bring you home. ”
His thumb pushes in between my lips like he can’t help himself, and when my tongue darts out to lick it, he shudders visibly with pleasure. The air between us sparks with tension and I press my thighs together involuntarily.