Chapter 3
Hudson
Olivia Icinda. All the times I’d pictured her through the years, and none came close to how beautiful she’d become. She’d always had an air of beauty about her, but now power, style, and confidence enhanced it.
Never in a million years had I imagined seeing her again. Not after the way things had ended. The abrupt rupturing of my heart and the vicious defensive words that had followed. Self-preservation that hadn’t worked because she’d left me decimated.
Seeing her reopened the wounds, ones that had never healed but that I had covered as best I could.
I rested my hands on the island. She would leave, go back to the city and to her life, and I’d return to living my life just like I had since the day she walked out of it.
With a deep breath, I walked to the window and peeked out.
She was shouting into the phone at her brother, her brown hair bouncing with her frustration.
I’d met her brother only once when she’d brought me home one weekend.
He’d been a lanky teenager, sharp with hazel eyes that matched his sister’s and that keenly observed me almost as intensely as her father had.
That man had made me glad she’d never taken me back to their house in the Hamptons.
Steely brown eyes, curt questions. Unfriendly was a compliment for what he had been, and the tension in the room had been so thick I didn’t think my steak knife could have cut it.
She stomped her feet and lowered the phone before looking down the lane. Her reaction caused me to think her brother had been of no help. Damn, if she was stuck here all weekend, I’d lose my shit. I was barely keeping it together as it was.
I moved to the door and opened it, leaning on the doorframe with my arms crossed as she punched something into her phone.
“I’m guessing your brother wasn’t helpful?”
Her eyes shot up.
“Not the first time,” she griped, her lips, a light mauve stain, pouting. I couldn’t stop my eyes from dropping to them. “I’ll use my car service app.”
My snort had her hazel eyes flashing with irritation.
“You find that funny?”
“I do. No one comes this far. You’re two hours from the city. There’s a bus that runs—”
“I’m not taking a bus.”
I stared at her, wondering what had happened to turn her into the spoiled rich woman she’d always said she would never be.
But then again, it had been fifteen years.
Years that had hardened me, starting the day she’d said goodbye and growing worse every year.
Women had tried to break through the wall I’d built, but it always ended the same.
With them disappointed because they couldn’t change me.
Couldn’t get me to love them because Olivia had destroyed that possibility.
“I’ll stay in town until my brother gets his head out of his ass. We drove through a town.”
“Sure, about thirty minutes out. Russ and Bridget have an extra room; their son moved to Utah last year. If you don’t mind Bridget’s pet pig or Russ’ snake collection.
” The sheer horror that twisted her features was worth teasing her.
“I hear the pig, Barney is his name, likes to rut in your bathwater. With as prudish as you are now, you could probably use the thrill.”
Her jaw went stiff, her eyes flaming in shades of green and chestnut that shimmered in the sunlight.
“Sounds better than what I’ll find here,” she snapped.
“Eh. At least the screams I evoke are the good kind.” Not the response to give, considering I hated this woman.
With her mouth dropping before she slammed it shut, she went silent as a gorgeous flush filled her cheeks and she looked away.
“Just stay here,” I grumbled without thinking.
Her eyes darted back to mine, and I questioned my sanity.
A slip that went against my usual gruffness when it shouldn’t have.
“The spare room is already made up. I’ll give you a tour of the ranch and go through all the numbers, then you can go back to your life, and I can go back to mine. ”
I stepped to the side and gestured for her to come into the house. It wasn’t ideal, but she’d never survive a day in town.
“I thought the deal was off?” she asked, not moving. Suspicion clouded her eyes, making them a shade closer to brown.
“Guess it’s too late now that the ink has dried.”
She looked back down the lane before she sighed and headed for the house. When she was almost on the porch, I said, “Are you forgetting something?”
Motioning to her bags with a nod, I waited for her to retrieve them, but she only looked between them and me.
“No, why?”
Shrugging, I replied, “I just assumed you brought a suitcase for a reason, and won’t you need your laptop?”
It was all I could imagine was in the massive handbag. Why else would someone carry something so big?
“Of course, I do, but you’ll bring them in for me.”
I gaped at her, my jaw twitching. I was certain my eye was twitching as well.
Taking the final step and crossing the porch, she walked past me into the house, her eyes scanning the interior.
“Very country chic,” she muttered, continuing her path to the kitchen where she ran her perfectly manicured fingernails over the island.
She was serious about the bags, and I contemplated slamming the door and leaving them out there, but from the tantrum she had thrown on the phone, I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with her wrath.
“Fuck,” I grumbled, tromping out and getting her bags.
I tipped my head to the sky, noting the chill in the air.
The sky looked clear, but rainstorms were blowing in from the west, and forecasts showed them heading our way.
I briefly wondered if her brother had known before booking this weekend.
His wife had been insistent that it had to be this weekend when she’d called me earlier in the week.
Some elaborate plan to force us together? It sounded too far-fetched, but so did the idea of Olivia Icinda in my house. Carrying her bags in, I stomped past her.
“Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll stay. Since I’m sure you won’t carry the bags up, I might as well just take them up.”
“I just got my nails done.”
“Of course you did. Is that the excuse you always use?” I asked, walking toward the back of the house where the stairs were.
“No. The driver usually gets them for me, or the valet, or someone. You’re the only one who’s ever complained.”
My teeth were loud as they ground. I dropped the bags on the stairs with only four steps to go and continued walking.
“What are you doing?” Her voice had a high-pitched squeal that was more amusing than annoying.
“I’m not one of your lackeys, and I don’t work for tips. Carry them yourself.”
“You’re serious?”
“I don’t joke…not anymore.”
I left her there and made my way to the guest room, hearing her annoyed complaints. Maybe she stood there expecting me to return because it took her several minutes to reach the room.
I lifted the shade, glancing over to see her lips pursed, a determined look on her face as she dragged the suitcase behind her with one hand and kept the other on the strap of her bag, which kept slipping from her shoulder.
“Why bother buying a bag that doesn’t stay?” I asked as she dropped the bag on the bed before inspecting her fingernails.
“Why would I buy some ugly off the rack purse that doesn’t look good?”
My eyes flicked to the oversized gray bag.
“That’s not ugly?”
Those eyes could have had fire coming from them, with as pissed as she looked.
“That is a one-of-a-kind designer handbag that cost two thousand dollars.”
“Good God, what a waste of money. It looks like a saddlebag. In fact, you could have saved your money. I have extras in the stable.”
Wicked. That was the expression she gave me.
“I don’t need to save money.”
I strolled past her. “Suit yourself. The bathroom is at the end of the hall if you want to wash up and contemplate why blowing two thousand dollars on a purse is your kink.”
I was a few steps out of the room when I heard her mutter, “Because that’s all I have.”
My step faltered, and for a moment, I thought maybe I’d been too hard on her before I remembered that I hated her for what she’d done to me.