Chapter 18
Olivia
Olivia stared at the device resting on the granite island, stunned. At first, her brain simply refused to process the words the lawyer had just said.
Then, the meaning landed with a sickening weight.
James had filed an alienation of affection lawsuit against Leo.
The lawyer explained that in North Carolina, it was a recognized civil claim handled in the county Superior Court civil filings division.
James was legally claiming that Leo had intentionally interfered with their marriage.
James was claiming Leo had caused Olivia to leave him.
James was trying to turn Olivia’s escape into a betrayal, and Leo’s protection into a punishable offense.
"That is absurd," Olivia said, her voice trembling as she leaned over the counter. "They cannot do this. James is the one who lied to me. James is the one who stole from our marital funds. James is the one who has been sleeping with Amanda for months!"
The lawyer paused. When he spoke, his tone was dead serious. "Olivia, can you prove the affair?"
Olivia froze.
Her mind violently snapped back to the master bedroom.
To James scrambling for a duvet, panic flashing in his eyes.
To the heavy smell of perfume, the smug curve of Amanda’s lips, the sharp crack of the slap, and the way James had instantly reached out to check on his mistress before looking at his wife.
She knew what she saw.
But knowing was not the same thing as proving.
Her throat tightened. She could not look at Leo when she realized the glaring hole in her defense.
Leo stepped closer to the phone, answering for her. His voice was tightly controlled, though the strain bled through the edges. "We haven't had any luck securing hard proof yet."
He explained to the lawyer that, aside from the work trips James and Amanda took together, there was nothing solid tying them romantically outside of the office.
The trips alone did not prove infidelity; James could easily excuse them as business travel.
The private investigator had not yet found hotel records in both their names, unauthorized messages, or a financial trail that explicitly linked them.
"But the PI is still working," Leo added, his jaw tight. "No one carries on an affair for that long without leaving a trace somewhere. We will find something."
The lawyer agreed, but he warned them they needed to be exceedingly careful. He laid out the next steps in clear, blunt terms:
James filing the lawsuit does not guarantee he will win. A complaint is filed based on allegations; proving those allegations in court is another matter. Leo will need to be formally served by the court. Once served, Leo’s attorney will officially respond to the complaint.
They must preserve every text message, call log, photo, document, security record, and communication that establishes a timeline.
Olivia must not communicate with James alone under any circumstances.
Leo must not contact James directly.
They must avoid giving James any ammunition that helps him claim Leo is controlling or isolating Olivia.
The fact that Olivia is currently staying at Leo’s house gives James a narrative to exploit, even if the truth is that Leo only offered her shelter after James destroyed her life.
If they could prove James’s affair, his financial misconduct, and his deliberate manipulation of Olivia’s friends, it would severely weaken the story he was trying to build in court. But right now, James held the cards.
The lawyer also reminded them that the signature issue remained a massive complication.
Because the handwriting experts believed the signatures were physically Olivia’s, it was no longer a simple forgery case.
They had to investigate whether James had misrepresented documents, attached signature pages to different paperwork, or manipulated her into signing things she did not understand.
The threat to her bakery and her assets was still very real.
They were not without options, the lawyer assured them. But they desperately needed evidence.
After a few more practical instructions, the call ended.
Silence descended on the kitchen, heavy and suffocating. The word lawsuit kept repeating on an endless, terrifying loop in Olivia’s head. Against Leo. Because of her.
As soon as the screen went dark, Olivia started pacing. The adrenaline hit her all at once, overwhelming and chaotic.
"This is insane," she gasped, her hands tangling in her hair. "He can't prove anything because there is nothing to prove! We are just friends! You took me in because I had nowhere else to go. And now he is trying to punish both of us for it!"
Leo stood near the island, tense and watchful, his eyes tracking her frantic movements. "Liv, breathe."
"He is doing this to scare me," Olivia continued, the words spilling out in fractured, breathless pieces. "He's doing it to punish me. To make me look guilty so nobody looks at what he did!"
"We will handle it," Leo said, keeping his voice steady.
"How?" Olivia asked, thoroughly frustrated. "People keep acting like there is something between us! Like I couldn't possibly have come to you just because I trusted you. Like a man cannot help a woman unless he wants something from her!"
She paced to the window and back, her chest heaving. "What is wrong with everyone? Why do people keep insisting there is something more?"
Leo goes rigid. “People?”
She let out a weak, breathless scoff. "Sophie and Claire sat in my office and told me you've had a thing for me since college. Isn't that ridiculous?"
Leo did not laugh.
He just stared at her. Intensely.
The silence abruptly shifted the gravity in the room. Olivia felt the change in the air before she fully understood what it meant.
Leo took one slow step toward her. "No."
Olivia’s weak, defensive smile faded.
"It's not ridiculous," Leo said, his voice dropping into a quiet, unwavering register. "And Sophie and Claire aren't wrong."
Shock moved through her veins like ice water. For a second, her brain simply refused to make his words fit inside the foundation of everything she knew about him.
"But, Leo," Olivia stammered, shaking her head. "We’ve always been friends and—"
"Because you wanted it that way," Leo interrupted. He said it with the quiet devastation of years of truth finally breaking through a dam.
He moved closer. "I have wanted you since the first day I saw you, Liv. The way you looked at me, the way you smiled, the way you seemed so completely unimpressed by me, yet so alive right in front of me... it hit me like a punch to the chest."
Olivia shook her head, backing up until her hips hit the edge of the counter. She did not want this to be true. Not because the idea disgusted her, but because the truth rewrote the history of her entire adult life.
Every dinner. Every herb delivery to the bakery.
Every ride home. Every late night. Every time he showed up just when she needed someone.
Every time he let her talk about James. Every single time he swallowed his own feelings and handed her friendship, simply because that was all she had ever offered him.
"I didn't date anyone else for the rest of that year," Leo told her, his blue eyes locked onto hers. "Not until I graduated. Not even after I left college. Not until you met James and looked at me and told me you were in love."
Olivia remembered pieces of that time rushing back with startling clarity.
Like every girl on campus, she had noticed Leo.
He was impossible to ignore. She had even harbored a brief crush on him at the very beginning, but she knew his reputation.
He seemed like the kind of man who made girls hope and then moved on.
But then he had become her friend. Her best friend.
He had clung to her. He sat with her in the library, brought her coffee, walked her to her dorm.
He became so constant, so deeply woven into her daily routine, that she had stopped thinking of him as a romantic possibility and started thinking of him as something much safer.
She had never looked back at those early months and wondered if he was trying to be more.
Now, staring at him, she wondered how she had ever been so blind to miss it.
"No," Olivia said weakly, her voice trembling. "It can't be."
Leo closed the remaining distance between them. He reached up, his large hands cradling her face with exquisite gentleness. He did not hold her tight; he gave her all the time in the world to pull away if she wanted to.
"This is the worst possible time to say it," Leo whispered, his thumbs tracing her cheekbones. "I know that. But I can't stand here and lie to you anymore. There are more than enough lies in your life."
He looked deeply into her eyes. "I love you."
Olivia’s breath hitched in her throat. "I love you too."
Leo interrupted her softly, a flash of pained, self-deprecating humor crossing his features. "Yes, I know. As a friend. At least you never said 'as a brother,' or I would feel really awful about everything I feel for you."
Leo looked down at her lips. Olivia stared back at him, stunned, profoundly confused, and unable to force herself to move away.
Then Leo bent down and kissed her.
It was not a casual brush of lips. It felt like half a decade of desperate restraint breaking at the absolute worst possible moment.
At first, Olivia was too shocked to respond. She stood frozen.
Then she felt it. The searing warmth of his mouth. The tender, reverent care in the way his hands held her face. The deep, suppressed hunger he was trying so hard not to unleash. He smelled like cedar and clean soap, a scent that was overwhelmingly familiar, yet suddenly completely new.
Her body reacted before her grief-stricken mind could throw up a shield. She reached for him, her hands landing flat against the solid, racing heat of his chest.
The kiss made her feel things she knew she had no right to feel right now. Not while her heart was still broken and bleeding. Not while she didn't know where the grief ended and the wanting began.
But the kiss also awakened something deep in her chest that she could not deny. Something that terrified her because it was not empty. It felt like Leo. It felt like safety, and fire, and something infinitely more.
That was what scared her the most.
Olivia gasped, pulling back sharply. She touched her swollen lips, staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.
Leo realized what he had done instantly.
He cursed under his breath, stepping back so fast he nearly stumbled. He dropped his hands, swiping a hand roughly through his hair. "I'm sorry. God, Liv, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't have done that. Not now."
Olivia did not know what to say. Her thoughts were a chaotic, scattered mess.
Her lips still tasted like him. Her heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
Her mind was full of college memories, his devastating confession, and the terrifying realization that the kiss had not felt wrong in the way she expected it to.
And then the brutal reality of James, the betrayal, and the lawsuit came rushing back in to crush the air out of her lungs.
A sharp beep cut through the heavy silence.
The oven timer.
Olivia remained frozen against the counter, unable to move a single muscle.
Leo turned away first. He grabbed an oven mitt, opened the hot door, and pulled the apricot pie out.
He set it down carefully on a wire cooling rack near the stove.
The delicate, sweet scent of baking fruit and honey filled the kitchen—a painful reminder that something so lovely had come out of a moment that now felt utterly impossible.
"I think... I think I am going to go upstairs," Olivia said. Her voice sounded distant and hollow, like she was still trying to find her way back into her own body.
Leo stopped her gently, holding a hand up. "No. You stay. You don't have to run from the room just because I made a mistake."
He grabbed his keys off the island. "I'm the one going out. I need to clear my head."
He paused near the archway, his voice rough with heavy regret. “Brooklyn will be back soon, so you won’t be alone for long. Call me if you need anything.”
Olivia stood there, watching him walk out of the kitchen. She did not ask him to stay. She didn't even know if she wanted to.
She heard the front door open, and then it closed hard behind him.
Olivia stood in Leo’s kitchen with the scent of apricots around her and the taste of him still on her lips.
For a moment, when Leo kissed her, her heart had moved toward something that was not pain... And that scared her more than anything.