Chapter 20
Leo
Leo stood in the cool, damp air of his greenhouse, staring blindly at the rows of potted herbs, but his mind was miles away.
He was haunted by the ghost of that kiss.
Weeks had passed, but the memory clung to him, making him feel vividly alive and ashamed all at once. He had wanted to kiss Olivia for years. He had imagined it, buried it, and fought it until his chest ached. But now that it had actually happened, the timing felt impossible.
He replayed the moment on an endless, torturous loop.
The way she had frozen at first, her wide eyes staring up at him.
The agonizing second of hesitation before her hands pressed flat against his chest. The way she had kissed him back, a soft, yielding response that had nearly brought him to his knees.
And then, the abrupt end—the way she pulled away, her fingers touching her swollen mouth, looking utterly stunned.
Leo felt the lingering sweetness of the moment, a physical ache in his blood, but it was heavily overshadowed by guilt.
He knew he had crossed a line. Olivia was heartbroken.
She was legally trapped in a marriage that James was actively weaponizing.
Leo knew the kiss, no matter how real and desperate it felt, could become another piece of ammunition in James’s hands.
He didn't regret wanting her. He didn't regret loving her. But he regretted giving her one more heavy thing to carry when she was already buckling under the weight of her shattered life.
The distance between them now felt agonizing.
Leo thought about the day Olivia left his house to stay with her parents.
Leo knew it was the right move. Olivia needed her parents.
She needed her family. She needed a neutral place to breathe that did not hold the emotional confusion of his house, Brooklyn’s presence, his heavy confession, and that badly timed kiss.
But watching her leave had still hurt like hell.
Leo remembered carrying her suitcase out to her parents’ car. He had tried to act normal, offering a casual smile and a supportive nod. He completely failed. It felt as though Olivia were moving to another planet, not just a rented house a few miles away.
Olivia had looked at him through the passenger window. She looked like she could tell something was wrong, but neither of them knew how to speak about it. The goodbye had been strained, trapped behind glass and unspoken fears.
How quickly everything had changed. A few weeks ago, Olivia had shown up at his door, shivering and broken, because James had ripped her life apart. Then she was standing in his kitchen, smiling as she baked an apricot pie. Then he kissed her. Then her parents arrived. Then she left.
Now, she was back at the bakery. Leo felt a fierce wave of relief knowing she was trying to return to herself, standing in her own kitchen with flour on her hands.
But a dark, suffocating part of him was also afraid.
He was afraid James would find a way to get to her.
Afraid her friends would keep doubting her.
Afraid the looming lawsuit would make Olivia retreat into her shell again.
Most of all, he was afraid his own poorly timed feelings had made everything worse.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, jarring him back to the present.
Leo pulled it out and answered. It was the private investigator.
For the next five minutes, Leo listened in silence as the PI delivered yet another report with no real or useful updates.
No definitive hotel records. No smoking-gun text messages.
Nothing that could officially prove the affair in a court of law.
Leo ended the call, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached.
He thought about everything Olivia was going through.
James was actively trying to make Leo look like the homewrecker.
James, who had cheated for a year. James, who had humiliated Olivia in their own marital bed.
James, who had the absolute nerve to paint himself as the abandoned, heartbroken husband.
A dark, primal anger surged through Leo’s chest. The alpha-male instinct to hunt James down and beat the truth out of him was nearly blinding, but Leo forced it down.
He knew he could not just go after James without making things catastrophically worse for Olivia.
Her lawyers needed hard, undeniable evidence.
The PI hadn't found enough yet, meaning James and Amanda had been meticulously careful.
But careful was not the same as clean.
There had to be something. Hotel records paid in cash. Security footage from a parking garage. Receipts for expensive dinners. Deleted files on a corporate server. Rental cars. Work-trip inconsistencies. Witnesses.
Someone saw something. Someone knew something. Leo just had to find the right person to dig deep enough.
Leo stared down at his phone, the screen glowing in the dim light of the greenhouse. He swiped past his usual contacts, scrolling down to a name he had hoped he would never have to use again.
He hesitated, his thumb hovering over the screen.
This person was not part of Leo’s ordinary life anymore. They operated in the gray areas, the places where legal boundaries blurred. Leo had cut ties years ago for a very good reason. Keeping this framed purely as investigation and evidence-gathering, at all costs, was a dangerous game.
Leo stared at the number. He thought about Olivia’s tears. He thought about the malicious lawsuit. He thought about James’s smug lies, and Olivia standing in his kitchen, claiming they were just friends because she truly did not know the burden he had been carrying for years.
Leo pressed call.
The line rang twice before it clicked open.
"Well, well," a smooth, amused voice echoed through the speaker. The man sounded unsurprised, perhaps even pleased. "Didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again, Leonard Maddox."
"I need your services," Leo said, his voice cold and hard.
"What kind of services?" the contact asked, a hint of dark curiosity in his tone.
"I need answers," Leo replied, his eyes locked on the greenhouse glass. "Things people are trying very hard to keep buried."
The man paused. "You want the full package?"
"Yes," Leo answered without a second of hesitation.
"It’s going to cost a lot," the voice warned. "My rates have gone up since the old days."
"The price doesn't matter," Leo said, his grip on the phone tightening. "I will pay whatever it takes to get all the answers and put an end to this.”
***
Amanda
Amanda sat on her plush velvet sofa, swirling a glass of expensive Cabernet as she stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows of her apartment.
Things were working. The plan was brilliant, and she was the one who had engineered the most crucial part of it.
The story of poor, hardworking James, abandoned by his volatile wife who had run off into the arms of her best friend, had already started spreading through the company like wildfire.
The executives were whispering. People were taking sides.
Some felt deeply sorry for him. A few were angry on his behalf.
The rest were simply enjoying the high-stakes corporate drama.
Amanda was satisfied. It was exactly what she wanted.
If everyone believed Olivia left because she was having a twisted affair with Leo, then James looked like the wounded, honorable husband instead of the cheating fraud he actually was.
Leo looked suspicious. Olivia looked unstable.
And Amanda? Amanda got the gift of time.
Time to secure her place right beside James while the dust settled.
But there was a new, infuriating problem that set her teeth on edge.
Other women at the company were starting to approach him.
Amanda noticed it immediately. The female executives, the analysts, the eager new hires—they all hovered around him like vultures.
They touched his arm in the breakroom. They offered him sympathetic smiles in the elevators.
They lingered outside his office door, acting as if his sudden grief had made him available to the highest bidder.
Amanda hated them. She hated their pathetic, desperate opportunism. She called them cheap and transparent in her own thoughts.
She had spent nearly a year playing the dangerous game.
She was the woman James had risked everything for.
She had been the one on her knees under his desk.
She had been the one he chose over his own wife.
There was absolutely no way she was going to let some basic office vulture step in and take what rightfully belonged to her.
James was hers by right. Olivia might have had him first, but Amanda believed she was the one who kept him. She believed she was the one he truly wanted when forced to make a choice. She had earned the future he promised her.
Lately, though, that future felt out of reach. Since Olivia had caught them, James had become paranoid.
They could not meet openly. They could not take the same thrilling risks.
They could not spend entire weekends together.
They had to settle for brief, stolen moments in his office, tense text messages sent through a secure app, and rushed encounters that left Amanda feeling both intensely wanted and deeply insulted.
She resented the secrecy, but she told herself it was only temporary.
James was only being cautious because of the impending lawsuit, the bloodthirsty lawyers, and Olivia’s aggressive connection to Leo.
Once they flipped the narrative completely, once Olivia looked guilty enough in the public eye, once James was legally free of the marriage without sacrificing his wealth, Amanda would finally get what she deserved.
She would be Mrs. Williams.
She savored the thought, taking a slow sip of her wine.
The click of the lock pulled her from her reverie.
Amanda smiled, setting her glass down as the front door opened.