Name Your Price

Chapter 11

They managed as best they could to keep out of each other’s orbit for the rest of the day. Olivia spent most of it sequestered in the office trying to distract herself with a book. She wasn’t sure what Chuck was up to and decided not to ask when she ventured out into the kitchen for a snack and found him weirdly pacing off distances with measured strides and glancing up at the ceiling over and over. He gave her the bed that night, and she made sure to lock the door and shove a chair in front of it for everyone’s benefit.

By the time Sunday rolled around and they were free of the camera crew, Olivia was looking forward to her phone call with Grandma Ruby as a break from the tension straining the house at the seams. She sat on the pool’s edge with her feet in the water, smoothly kicking them back and forth in slow motion. She’d put her earbuds in so that she didn’t have to hold anything while they talked.

“Olivia, my darling, how are you?” her grandmother answered.

“Hi, Grandma. I’m okay. How are you?”

“Oh, just fabulous, sweetheart. Vi and I have been taking walks before it gets too hot every day. I’ve almost finished the Sudoku book you gave me.”

“I’ll have to send you another,” Olivia said with a warm smile.

“I would love that. How are things with Chuck? Are you enjoying your time with him?”

Olivia flushed, weighing how much to say. “Sure.”

Despite the fact that we kissed the other night, got charged ten thousand dollars for it, are redeveloping problematic feelings, and have been avoiding each other since so that we don’t lose any more money , she silently added in her head.

“Well, that’s wonderful, sweetheart. Listen.” Her tone shifted into something more serious, and Olivia took notice. “I saw something in a magazine about you, and about the show.”

Cold dread seeped over Olivia like the sun had gone behind a cloud. “Grandma, please don’t read tabloids.”

“I don’t! You know I don’t, but Vi’s granddaughter left one behind the other day, and I thought I’d pick it up and flip through it. I saw this little story about you and Chuck, and it said he’d been fired from a movie! You never told me that, Olivia.”

Olivia flinched on reflex, feeling like she was in trouble. “I’m sorry, Grandma. It happened a while ago, and Chuck doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Well, what happened? I can’t imagine a boy that sweet doing anything worth getting fired over.” She clucked her tongue in dismay.

Olivia gazed back toward the house, wondering if she’d catch a glimpse of Chuck through one of the windows. The burning daze she’d been living in since the night in the hallway cooled and sharpened back to reality at the reminder that the world existed outside the house. “I don’t know what happened. He won’t tell me.”

“Hmm. Well, can’t you search for it? Google it?” She said the last part like she was proud of herself for remembering the term. It made Olivia smile.

“I could, sure,” she said, and decided not to go into detail over their lack of internet access. As she had the thought, she realized she had something better than Google, and she felt foolish for never having thought of it before.

She decided to finish her conversation with her grandmother before looking into the option she should have considered ages ago.

“Grandma,” she said, moving on to a topic she was reluctant to broach but felt the article had granted a rare opportunity to speak openly about. She lifted her feet up out of the pool and turned to lie back on the warm concrete. She closed her eyes against the brilliant sun despite wearing her sunglasses. “When you saw the article in the magazine about me and Chuck, did it say anything about…my parents?” She held her breath and hoped her question wouldn’t upset her grandmother.

Ruby paused long enough that Olivia worried she’d hung up. “It did, yes,” she finally said. “I wish they’d let your mother rest in peace.”

Olivia’s heart ached at the sorrow in her voice. Whatever grief she felt over her mother, she knew her grandmother felt it a thousand times more. “I wish they would too. Actually, the producers of the show I’m on asked me to do an interview about it.” Against her closed eyelids, a vision of the famed photo of her and her parents danced.

Ruby stayed quiet for a long moment. “Are you considering it?”

“Of course not!” Olivia at first blurted, but then she realized her grandmother hadn’t asked to accuse her, but to simply ask her.

The memory of her conversation with Chuck came flooding back, how he’d told her that if she ever wanted to tell her parents’ story, she’d be good at it. He’d also said that she was scared, and he was right.

“Do you think I should?” she asked her grandmother, utterly vulnerable and afraid of what she might say.

Ruby let out a long, slow breath. “I always knew this day would come. I did everything I could to protect you back then. They were so hideously mean to your mother—and you. The things they said about you, an innocent baby, I couldn’t—” She cut off with an angry breath. “And then she kept her mouth shut about everything and let the world believe my Rebecca was a monster.” Ruby had worked herself into a small fit, and Olivia was reeling.

“Grandma, what are you talking about? She who? Astrid Larsson?” She could hardly say the name aloud. She wasn’t even sure she’d ever spoken it to her grandmother before. It felt forbidden.

Ruby tutted. “Of course that’s who I mean. She’s not as innocent in this as everyone thinks. In fact, she’s complicit in your parents’ name being dragged through the mud.”

“Grandma, what—?”

“I’m sorry. You and I have never had the chance to talk about any of this because I wanted to keep you as far away from it as possible, but seeing it in print again has me riled up, and since you asked about it, I think it’s time I finally tell you the truth.”

Olivia thought perhaps she’d slipped and smacked her head on the concrete, and this whole conversation was a wild hallucination. “Tell me the truth about what , Grandma?”

Ruby paused for a long moment that had Olivia ready to leap out of her skin with anticipation. When her voice came back, it nearly hissed with the relief of a valve being opened. Decades of pressure let go on an exhale. “Darling, your parents did not have an affair. Well, they did in the sense that your father was married to Astrid Larsson at the time, but what he had with your mother was more real than their marriage ever was.”

Olivia blinked several times, still staring up at the sky. “What does that mean?”

“It means that there is a lot more to the story than the tabloids ever reported. You see, your father’s marriage to Astrid was a business arrangement. She was a Swedish supermodel who they wanted to turn into an American movie star, so they had her marry an American man. I’m simplifying things, of course; there were immigration requirements and paperwork, but the primary reason they married was for appearances. A rising starlet and a successful Hollywood manager made for a wholesome pair, and having roots in this country helped her career take off. It was a lucrative partnership for them both, but that’s all it was: business.

“It worked well until your father fell in love with your mother. I’m simplifying again.” She paused with a warm, fond chuckle. “Their love was the kind movies are made of and songs are written about, but of course they couldn’t do anything about it. A divorce would have hurt Astrid’s career—things were a bit different back then than they are today—and in turn, Bradley’s, so they kept it secret from the public, but not from Astrid.”

Olivia was reeling under waves of revelation, but she managed to speak. “She knew? That they were together?”

“Oh yes. Not only that, but she sanctioned it. It was another arrangement—between the three of them. Your father stayed publicly married to Astrid while he had a relationship with your mother out of the spotlight. Everyone got what they wanted. But when your mother became pregnant with you, she was already famous enough for the attention and interest to be unavoidable, which left it only a matter of time before the truth came out—well, what people thought was the truth.” She paused and harrumphed another breath. “And Astrid never corrected them. Not even after they—” She cut off, and Olivia filled in the heartbroken blank with died .

As she listened, an odd thing was happening inside Olivia’s chest. Her heart seemed to be shattering and piecing back together at the same time. Holes that had been there her entire life were sealing shut while new shards were splintering off.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” she asked.

“I should have. I really should have. I’m so sorry that I never did. It was all so ugly and cruel that I wanted to shield you from every bit of it,” Ruby said. “But I’ve done you no favors letting you grow up believing your parents are the villains of this story. They absolutely were not. Yes, they may have made some poor decisions, but they were guilty of nothing except loving each other.”

Olivia sat up and felt blood try to refill her spinning head. She’d always feared her parents were a toxic fling, and she the product of a regrettable, cheap tryst that ruined lives, but hearing her grandmother’s story made her brave enough to ask something she’d always been afraid to know. “So, they were…in love?”

“Oh yes, sweetheart. Tremendously.”

Her instant and affirmative response lifted Olivia’s heart as if she’d been scooped off the ground to float near the sun. “Really?” she asked, because the sense of relief spilling over her felt too good to be true.

A quiet, amused laugh bubbled from Ruby. “Yes. They were so smitten. He’d send her endless flowers and gifts. She’d tell me they were going away for the weekend, and then she would resurface a week later telling me they’d been to Paris and back. And they loved you, my darling. You were their absolute pride and joy. Your mother told me once—” She suddenly cut off with a tearful sniff. Her voice came back thick and strained though still filled with warmth. “She told me once that she was going to quit acting so you could have a normal life out of the spotlight. She wanted the world for you. That’s part of the reason I shielded you from the spotlight after her death.”

“She was going to quit? For me? But I thought she loved acting.” Olivia’s own voice had grown thick with emotion.

“Acting, yes. The spotlight, no. Your mother was a very private person, Olivia. She never wanted all the attention. The two of you are very similar in that way.”

The revelation was almost too much to process. Olivia had spent her life believing her mother loved the glitz and glamour of the spotlight—that the two of them had nothing in common because she was an introvert who’d rather die than be on camera. And here she was, finding out her mother was so similar, she was going to give up her career to raise her daughter away from the public eye.

“Grandma…”

Ruby sniffled, and Olivia would have given anything to wrap her in a hug. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You deserve to know everything you want about your parents—both of them.”

It sounded like an open invitation, and Olivia wasn’t sure she was prepared to go from a handful of biased facts to unlimited knowledge. It might drown her.

She tucked her knees to her chest. She felt like a child. “Was my dad—” She didn’t know how to say it other than bluntly ask what she wanted to know. “Was he a good guy?”

“Darling, your father was a prince. He worshipped the ground your mother walked on and would have done anything for you.”

A vision of the famed tabloid photo of her father with his arm out shielding her and her mother appeared in her mind, and for the first time ever, she saw it in a new light.

They were a family, not a scandal.

Her heart filled and ached at the same time.

“Too bad everyone thinks the opposite,” she said with a bitterness that surprised herself. Astrid Larsson, the angelic victim, had suddenly been recast as the villain in this story.

“Yes,” Ruby agreed without Olivia having to voice her thoughts. “Astrid knows the truth of it all, and only she has the power to clear their names like they deserve. Your mother confided the truth in me but told no one else. And with the way her name’s been tarnished, no one is ever going to believe anything I say either. The silence has eaten me alive for decades. At least the public has stopped paying so much attention to it.”

Olivia felt like her head had been unscrewed, had all its contents shaken up, and then been put back on. “Until now.”

“Until now,” Ruby said. “Interest ebbs and flows like with any scandal, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it has spiked again now that you are in the spotlight.”

Olivia chewed her lip, feeling emotions that had her wanting to run away from the storm as much as she wanted to run straight into it. “This interview that the producers want me to do, what do you think my mother would think?”

Ruby paused and took a pensive breath. “I think your mother would be happy to have the truth told about her life and her love, but I also think she’d leave the decision of inviting the spotlight by sharing it up to you.”

Olivia considered. “And my father? What would he think?”

“He’d think whatever your mother thought. Like I said: smitten.” Olivia heard the smile in her grandmother’s voice and couldn’t help the small smile that curved her own lips.

“Thank you for telling me all this, Grandma.”

“Of course, my dear. I’m sorry I kept it from you for so long.”

She’d given Olivia plenty to think about. When they ended their call with promises to check in again next week, Olivia decided to make another call.

She wandered over to the back wall of the property near the pool house. The camera crew might not have been there that day, but the ceiling and outdoor cameras were still active. She now had two reasons to call her trusted resource, and she didn’t want either of them getting caught on camera.

“Hey there,” Mansi answered after a few rings.

“Hey,” Olivia greeted her. “What are you up to?”

“Oh, you know. Out to brunch with myself because my best friend is imprisoned with her ex.”

Sounds of chatter and clinking dishware leaked through the phone. Olivia assumed Mansi was dining outside both because she heard a car go by and because her friend was too classy to answer her phone in the middle of an indoor restaurant.

“Don’t tell me you’re at—”

“The sidewalk place in Santa Monica with the hot waiters? Sure am.”

“ Ugh. Have a mimosa for me.”

“I’ve had three.”

“I miss you so much.”

“The feeling is mutual. So, what’s up? Are we graduating to phone calls to ward off temptation? Don’t tell me Chuck is skinny-dipping on a Sunday morning.”

“Please don’t put that image in my head.”

“Sorry.”

“And you should know that kiss from the other night cost us ten thousand dollars.”

“What?”

“Yep. No physical contact is one of the house rules. They dock our prize money if we violate it.”

“Yikes. No wonder he locked you in the bedroom to keep his hands off you. What do you expect him to do when you’re walking around with that body-ody all day?”

“Manse, stop it. You’re drunk.”

“Hey, you called me at eleven a.m. on a Sunday, so.”

Olivia smiled. “Fair.”

Mansi sighed. “Well, if I can’t provide my remote intervention services, what can I do for you?”

Olivia bit her lip, nervous again. “I just talked to my grandma, and—”

“Ruby!” Mansi lovingly sang. “How is she?”

“She’s great, and now I’m wondering if you’re sober enough to have this conversation.”

“Uh-oh, this sounds serious. I’m here. What do you need?”

“Well, she brought up that tabloid article, which led to me asking about my parents, and her dumping a truckload of family history on me.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Turns out my mom hated the spotlight and was so in love with my dad, they’d fly off to Paris together without telling anyone, and my dad’s marriage to Astrid Larsson was a business arrangement and totally fake.”

“Come again?”

“I know. It sounds made up, but my dad married Astrid so she could put down roots in America and become a star here. And then when he met my mom, they fell in love and agreed with Astrid to keep it all a secret, and—”

“Wait, wait, wait. ” Mansi cut her off. “You’re telling me that the root of this whole scandal was a lie?”

“Yes. And I want to talk to Astrid about it.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. The prospect of actually speaking to Astrid Larsson was deliriously daunting, but there was no chance for it to ever even happen if she didn’t put the ball in motion.

“You— What?” Mansi asked. “You want to talk to Astrid Larsson? The beloved three-time Oscar winner whose storied career includes the earth-shattering scandal of your parents’ affair that resulted in your birth? That Astrid Larsson?”

“ Yes , Mansi. And I need your help. You’re the only person I trust with this. The production crew here is already asking me for an interview about it, and I don’t want word to get out that I’m even considering anything. I know you have all kinds of legal sleuthing resources. Is there a way you could discreetly figure out if she’s willing to talk to me?”

Mansi paused for a few beats, probably still in shock and running a list of her resources through her head. “Um, yes. I can do that for you.”

“Thank you.” Olivia let out a heavy exhale, dizzy at the thought of what she’d put in motion. “While we’re on the topic of your sleuthing resources, my grandma also brought up that article mentioning Chuck getting fired, and it made me realize that all along I could have asked you to look into the reason why.”

Mansi went silent again and stayed that way long enough for Olivia to overhear the full order of the person sitting at the table next to her (avocado toast with a poached egg and an Americano).

“Manse? You still there?”

“Okay, don’t hate me,” she blurted.

“What? What does that mean?”

Mansi’s voice lowered and took on a serious tone that said she’d sobered up. “It means that I may have already looked into it and never told you.”

“What?”

“Shhh! You’re going to blow out my eardrum, Liv. Also, you are literally calling me right now to ask me to use my resources, so don’t act so surprised.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the house to see if her shouting had drawn Chuck’s attention. No doors flung open, and no apparitions appeared near windows. She lowered her voice to a hiss. “Okay, you need to tell me right now what you are talking about, Mansi.”

Mansi took a big breath and perhaps another gulp of mimosa before she spoke. “Look, Liv. Your relationship with Chuck has always been…volatile—”

“That’s generous.”

“—and when he got fired and all those rumors started, I thought it might be a good idea to do a little digging just in case you ever needed the information. At the time, you were so concerned about supporting him and keeping him happy that you seemed willing to let it all go when he said he didn’t want to talk about it. And then it kind of blew over, so I didn’t bring it up. But I have connections at my firm who work directly with studios, so I asked around— discreetly —to see what I could learn.”

Olivia’s mouth was hanging open. She couldn’t believe the lengths Mansi had already gone to on her behalf. Not to mention, this bombshell boded well for her request regarding Astrid. “You are a terrifying and amazing friend.”

“I know.”

“So, what did you find?”

“Nothing.”

“Manse, you don’t have to protect me. Just tell me—”

“No, Liv. That’s what we found. Nothing. My guy knows a guy who can get the most off-the-books information, and even he couldn’t find anything. It’s like the truth about whatever happened…” She paused again. “It’s like it was covered up.”

The capacity for thought left Olivia like thieves fleeing a robbery. At the same time, her fear of coming near a scandal trotted up her spine. She could hardly string two sentences together.

“So, what. You’re saying Chuck is part of a conspiracy or something?”

“No! Yes? I don’t know!” Mansi was flustered, which was rare, and by the edge in her voice, Olivia could tell she’d been dying to get this news off her chest for ages. “I don’t know what happened but, Liv, people in Hollywood don’t fuck around. When something happens that they don’t want to get out, forms are signed, deals are made. Money is exchanged.”

Olivia reflexively snorted at the last part. “Well, I know for sure Chuck wasn’t bribed to keep quiet. He’s too broke for that.”

“Maybe not him, but someone else on that movie? I mean, there are a ton of big names on Safe Gamble . Who knows what it could have been.”

It all seemed too impossible to be real. Olivia couldn’t even believe they were having the conversation with any seriousness.

But maybe?

She remembered how Chuck had said not today and glanced at the camera the last time she’d asked him what happened. Perhaps there was some truth to what Mansi was suggesting.

“So, what does this mean? I keep prodding until he tells me?”

“Liv, that’s what I’m saying: maybe he can’t tell you. Maybe you have to let it go.”

The thought that there was a secret between them, a true secret and not simply Chuck being stubborn, put a sour pit in her stomach. She hated that he might have been forced into the position, and she hated even more that he was choosing whoever had forced him over her.

“I always hoped he’d taken Richard Sykes’s parking spot or drank his coffee and was too embarrassed to tell me about it,” she said, half joking in an effort to lighten the mood.

“I mean, that’s possible but it seems like it’s something bigger than that.”

Bigger than that. She let the words simmer in her mind, not really sure what to make of them.

Suddenly feeling overwhelmed by her two phone calls, Olivia decided she needed to head inside and lie down.

“I have to go, Manse.”

“Have a good day, Liv. I’m toasting in your honor and will flirt with one of the waiters for you too.”

Olivia quietly laughed, which she assumed was Mansi’s intention.

···

Olivia repaired to the bedroom, where she stared at the ceiling for an hour, thinking, before she fell into an uneasy sleep fraught with strange dreams about movie stars, fake marriages, and shadowy men with briefcases full of money. She woke at nearly four p.m., groggy, and noticed someone had pulled a blanket up over her. It cut the chill of the air conditioning and made her consider snuggling deeper and forsaking the whole day in bed.

It also made her smile that Chuck had obviously come looking for her and covered her up when he found her asleep. She wondered what he’d spent the day doing and wandered out to find him and say thanks for the blanket. When she found the gym and office empty, she padded into the kitchen and found him rummaging in the fridge.

“Oh! There you are,” he said when he closed the door and turned to see her having sat on a stool at the island. He wore a pair of the loose athletic shorts he’d taken to wearing in the house and a black tee. He was her favorite combination of cuddly, soft clothing and all the planes and muscles she knew were underneath, like a mountain range in the clouds begging her to come explore.

“Hey,” she said with a yawn. “Thanks for the blanket. I didn’t mean to sleep for so long.”

“You must have been tired.”

She wasn’t sure if she’d truly been tired or maybe just overwhelmed. But she was sure that Chuck was bending over to find something in a low cabinet, and the sight had her fully awake. The thought of what she’d been overwhelmed about vanished from her mind like mist. The shorts strained over his sculpted ass and clung to his strong thighs, which could have crushed her like a grape. Why were the backs of his knees suddenly so hot? She wasn’t usually a leg girl but, holy shit , every inch of his lower half had her blood spinning cartwheels in her veins.

Perhaps it was because she hadn’t touched him in ages, and he was specifically off-limits now.

“What are you doing?” she asked for distraction.

He pulled a baking sheet from the cabinet and set it on the island like he wasn’t exactly sure what it was. “Making, um…cookies.”

“Cookies? You don’t eat cookies.”

He shot her a smirk. “Maybe I’m making them for you.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Well, that’s sweet of you. Do you even know how to make cookies?”

“Of course I do.” He spun around to another cabinet and pulled out a mixing bowl. Then he paused and looked at her with a tilt of his head. “Actually, I was looking for the sugar in the pantry and couldn’t find it. Could you help me?”

She arched a brow at him. “I’m sure it’s in there.”

“It probably is, but I could use your help.” He nodded at the pantry door, which stood open next to the fridge. “Come here.”

Olivia sighed, not wanting to get up. “Chuck, I trust in your ability to find sugar on your own. You can do it.”

He disappeared inside the door, and his voice echoed back into the room. “Sure, but it will be easier if you help me. I can’t find it.”

“It’s probably right in front of you.”

“Well…I don’t…see…it…”

With a roll of her eyes, she slid off her stool and marched over to the door.

Inside, he was bent over again, looking on a low shelf. In half a second, her eyes went straight to the sack of sugar smack in the middle of the shelf directly inside the door.

“It’s right here,” she said as she stepped in and reached for it.

He immediately stood up and closed the door behind her. The small space instantly squeezed in around them. The air thickened. They were chest to chest with hardly six inches between them.

“What are you doing?” she said on a hot breath even though she knew. Her body was already deliciously tingling at such close proximity to his.

A wicked grin curved his mouth. “Not baking cookies.”

“Clearly. Why did you just shut us in the pantry?”

“Because I want to talk to you. Privately.”

His implication raced through her blood. She squeezed her thighs together to control herself and took a tiny step back. “And what exactly do you want to say?”

His grin grew, and he stepped toward her, eliminating the space she’d just put between them. “I think you know.”

She was nearly trembling with want—no, need . The ache to touch him spread like fever, shooting out into her limbs and lighting her core on fire. “Chuck,” she said, barely above a whisper. The air inside the pantry quickly grew hot, becoming more exhale than oxygen as they breathed each other in and out.

He moved even closer. As close as possible without actually touching her. “ Please , Liv. I’m losing my mind. I’m going to die if I can’t touch you.”

“I think you’re being a little dramatic.”

“Maybe, but tell me you don’t feel it too.”

Oh , she felt it. She felt every goddamned bit of it screaming through her blood. She wet her lips and backed up again, only to be met with a wall of shelves. She sucked in a sharp breath and steadied a can of beans she’d bumped with her elbow.

“Just once,” Chuck said, his voice liquid hot and pouring over her. “To break this tension. Please.”

Say yes, say yes, say yes , her body screamed at her. But her brain fought its way through the cloud of lust.

“Chuck, did you forget the rules? They docked us ten thousand dollars for that kiss. How much do you think they’ll take away if we have sex?”

His eyes flashed with a blazing heat. “Whatever it is, it would be worth it. But anyway, they won’t know.”

“How? There are cameras everywhere.”

“Why do you think we’re in the pantry right now?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. I scoped out every square foot of this house looking for blind spots for this exact reason.”

She slowly blinked and remembered his odd behavior pacing out distances and looking up at the ceiling. This was what he’d been doing. Her lips were sluggish and heavy when she spoke, her voice hardly more than a breath. “Wh-where are they?”

A purely wicked grin lifted his mouth again. “It’s either here, the bedroom closet, the bathrooms, or the laundry room, which would require some impressive flexibility, which I know from experience that you aren’t capable of.”

Olivia’s mouth was hanging open. Her bearings were a scattered mess on the floor, so there was no sense in trying to gather them. He was obviously being serious, and despite herself, she humored him. “You mean to tell me the only places we can do it in this house are glorified closets or cold tile floors?”

He smiled again, and she wanted to lick his lips. “I would have sex with you literally anywhere, Olivia Martin.”

She was suddenly a radiant, bursting star. The pinnacle of his desires, this man who stood a breath away from her and was ready to do anything she wanted. She felt like a goddess come to life. All she had to do was say the word, and they’d cross a point of no return.

“You are such a bad influence.”

“Sorry, not sorry,” he said, and put a hand on her hip. Her skin instantly ignited beneath his palm, even through her dress. To be in his presence and not touch him was truly torture; she’d never realized how much until right now. The urge to touch him back burned her from head to toe, crackling out into her fingertips and fuzzing her thoughts. Her will to resist was quickly waning, even with everything at stake.

“Chuck, we are not having sex in this pantry.”

“Why not?” He put his other hand on her neck, curling his fingers around her nape.

“Because…” she tried, but the word came out feeble and half there.

He hungrily outlined her lips with his eyes, wetting his own, and moved closer. His breath spilled over her skin and sent a tingle all the way to her toes. By the look in his eye, she could tell he knew her resistance was only for show, and she wanted it as bad as he did. All he had to do was look at her like that, and she was a goner. This little waltz was simply a formality.

“Because…” she whispered again, and could not find an end to her sentence.

Chuck smiled in the remaining space between them, knowing he’d won.

“Oh fuck ,” Olivia said, and pressed her mouth to his in surrender.

Her body came alive with ten thousand volts of electricity. Her nipples pinched. She moaned into his mouth, finding painfully sweet relief. Her low belly grew hot and heavy with a delicious ache. Like he knew she needed it, he grabbed her hips to move his thigh between her legs.

“Hello there,” she panted, and ground herself against the bulge already pressing into her hip.

“Hi. I’ve been dreaming of this for days. Actually, I never stop dreaming of this.”

“You dream of having sex with me in a pantry?” she said, and grazed her teeth against his jaw, absolutely ravenous for him.

“Like I said, I dream of having sex with you literally anywhere.” He scooped his hands under her thighs and lifted her up around his waist.

She hitched onto him with a gleeful squeal and fisted her hands in his hair. “Anytime too.”

“Always.”

Her body melted to his. She couldn’t get close enough. She swept her hands over his broad shoulders, his arms flexed and holding her up, his chest. Every inch of him was divine, and she wanted to drown in him. At the same time, she felt like a rebellious teenager making out in a hidden closet.

“We’re going to get in so much trouble if we get caught,” she slurred against his lips with a laugh.

“They’ll never find out,” he mumbled, and moved his lips to her chest.

“I mean, we may not be on camera in here , but they’ll know we came in here and didn’t leave for a while.”

“You’re helping me find sugar, remember?” he said, and bit her nipple through her dress.

“ Yes! ” she cried out, and arched into him. Her head tilted back, and her eyes fluttered closed. She bumped up against a bag of rice. Chuck loosened his grip and let her slide down his body to stand again. Her legs were hardly functioning when he slid his hands under her dress and hooked his fingers into the waistband of her underwear.

“Liv, I haven’t been with anyone since you,” he said, and gave them a tug.

Somewhere in the depths of her drowning brain, she knew he was telling her he was healthy, and everything was safe. The same went for her, but instead of a simple affirmative on her part because she was too distracted by the feel of him peeling her underwear down her thighs, her chaotic mind offered up, “There’s only you.”

He looked up at her from his knees like a man before a shrine as she stepped out of her panties. “Everything else still in place?”

“Yes.” Her voice was an impatient, ragged whisper. She appreciated his mind for safety and precaution, for confirming that her IUD was still positioned, and they could get as close as humanly possible without worry, but the fact that they were really going to do it right here in the fucking pantry had her ready to explode.

“Good,” he said, and hooked her leg over his shoulder.

She flung out her arms to grab the shelf behind her and sent a box of macaroni and cheese tumbling. Unfazed, Chuck pressed a hot kiss into the inside of her knee and then worked his mouth higher and higher up her thigh, closer to an epicenter that would guaranteed undo her completely. She squeezed the shelf and breathed hard, absorbing the feel of his luscious mouth and wondering how she was going to survive this standing on one foot. He pushed her dress out of the way to grip her hips and tilt her toward him, nipping and kissing and scratching the soft skin inside her thigh with his stubble so exquisitely that she half whimpered, half moaned his name. Stars had already begun to prick her tunneling vision as his lips pressed into the aching apex of her legs, and—

The doorbell rang.

They both froze.

Olivia’s heart thundered, and her legs were shaking, but the feeling that they’d been caught instantly refocused her attention. She scrambled to stand up straight, almost kneeing Chuck in the face in the process.

“Oh shit,” she said, and smoothed her dress.

“Who’s here?” Chuck said, and looked at the closed pantry door but stayed crouched on the floor.

“I have no idea. It’s Sunday. Everyone is supposed to have the day off.” Her mind was scrambling and fighting hard to come back from the lurid land of Chuck’s hands and mouth all over her. “They couldn’t possibly know already, right?”

“Know what?” Chuck said, still on the floor.

“About this ,” she hissed, and waved her hands around the small space.

He shook his head. “No. That’s impossible. Even if it was on camera, there’s no way someone could get here that fast.”

Olivia wrung her hands, already embarrassed. “I don’t know. Tyler delivers pretty instantly when we need something. Maybe they have him on standby to dole out punishments too. I knew this was a bad idea!”

He looked up at her with a dark grin. “You seemed like you were enjoying yourself.”

“Shut up.” She scowled at him although it was completely true. “Come on, let’s go see who it is.” She moved for the door and cautiously pushed it open. At least no one had barged inside uninvited. She turned back and waved him along. “Are you coming?”

He was still crouched on the floor with one hand on his thigh and staring up at the ceiling. “I just need a minute. I’ll catch up.”

She understood his implication and left him there, realizing it would be best for all if he didn’t answer the door with evidence of their tryst pitching a tent in his shorts.

On the way to the front door, she took several deep breaths and tried to get her head on straight. She had no idea who would be calling late afternoon on a Sunday: Parker, TJ, Tyler with another angry red envelope informing them they’d lost more money for breaking rules. Perhaps a solicitor selling solar panels who’d somehow made it past the security gate.

She reached for the front door’s knob, and nothing could have prepared her for who was standing on the other side.

“Um…Chuck?” she called over her shoulder after she managed to close her gaping jaw. “Your parents are here!”