13. Oliver
CHAPTER 13
Oliver
B eing in that meeting, having that powerful feeling surging through me, with Holland at my side, had been like nothing I’d felt before. I’d been strong, capable, and pretty fucking close to complete, despite my questionable parentage. Some key parts of my life had snapped into focus as I’d walked to the front of that boardroom. I wasn’t going to let those go again. And one of those things was Holland. We were an amazing team.
I wanted to talk, to recap, maybe relive a little of the glory we’d just shared, but Holland’s mood had darkened when it was over. She’d practically leapt from the car when I pulled up to her apartment. My hand was on the door latch, and I was about to follow her, to demand she talk to me, but I thought better of it. I’d dropped a bomb on her Saturday, and hadn’t heard from her for the rest of the weekend. It had been hard, wondering what she’d been thinking, but I’d handled it, knowing that as long as she didn’t tell me I shouldn’t come to the meeting, everything was fine.
But as she practically stormed from my car into her building, things were clearly not fine. She’d presented well—she’d been graceful and smart, articulate and so fucking sexy. But she’d been angry, too, and she had every reason to be. I’d been less than honest, and I’d surprised her.
As I pulled away with the beginning of a dark spot marring my newfound happiness, I hoped I hadn’t already ruined everything. We needed to talk. But she needed to be ready.
I couldn’t help sending the flowers—it was an instinct, and I’d been trained in these things by my dad. By Adam. He was the ultimate romantic, according to Sonja. And I’d been an eyewitness to his grand gestures on many occasions. I’d even sent Holland’s flowers myself, though Pamela had given me the florist’s number.
“Good to see you back, Oliver,” she’d said, smiling as she handed me the number on a Post-it note.
“It’s really good to be back,” I said. I meant it.
Everyone left me alone that first day for the most part. Rob stuck his head in and said hello, surprise written in the arch of his brows, the width of his eyes. But he didn’t say anything else.
When Holland texted that afternoon, I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding, and as I crossed the busy street to meet her, I couldn’t help the way my soul lifted. Light filled me when I thought of her—even when I thought of the angry way her eyes had flashed at me that morning. I’d take her any way I could get her.
I found her seated at a table in the corner, a martini glass balanced in her hand. I smiled, ready to have a civilized conversation over a drink. Holland had other plans.
“You fucking lied to me,” she said quietly, not looking at me. “You didn’t even tell me your real name.” She stared into her martini glass and I felt like I would do almost anything to feel her crystal gaze on me again.
“Holland . . .” I thought about what to say. “I’m sorry” would sound trite, too small a sentiment for what I felt for hurting her. I couldn’t explain why, but Holland O’Dell had become very important to me in a ridiculously short period of time. It wouldn’t be going too far to say I cared more for her than anyone else in my life. Knowing I might have ruined everything before it had even gotten a chance to begin made me want to tear apart the bar. I looked around, feeling desperate. “Holland,” I started again. “I made a shitty choice. And I don’t want to give you excuses about why . . . but I wonder if maybe you’ll be willing to give me a few minutes to explain.”
I felt like I was wheeling, searching for something to grasp, something that would click with her and bring her back to me. I was looking for anything that might indicate I hadn’t already lost her.
And then her eyes snapped to mine.
“Oliver,” she said. Her voice was soft and lush and I wanted to wrap it around me. Her chest rose as she breathed, and the rhythm of my heart accelerated. She squeezed her eyes shut and looked down again. “This is hard,” she continued. “Because I am really angry at you. But also because of what you told me, and what I know about everything that has happened to you.”
She’d put all the pieces together. I braced myself for the sympathy, hoping it didn’t go the other way—the misplaced honor granted me as CEO. Few people could avoid one or the other. I watched her, waiting.
“But it doesn’t fucking excuse lying.” She met my eye, a fire burning in hers that felt like a challenge, that made me want to pull her into my arms and let her take out her anger on my body. “This was important to me,” she said through clenched teeth. “You can’t even begin to understand how important. I don’t have a clear shot, Hale—fuck, Oliver, whatever the hell your name is! I’ve had to work really fucking hard for everything. And this feels like . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Now it feels like even if this happens, I didn’t do it myself.”
I waited, but she stayed silent after that, her chin pointed down and her eyes squeezed shut. “Holland, this was your idea. I just lent a hand.”
“You took over,” she said. “And you knew exactly what you were doing.”
I let that sink in and tried to decide what tack to take. “Look,” I said. “We did this as a team. We ironed out the technology application together, and we took the meeting together. Smart business involves knowing your weaknesses and finding someone on your team who balances them. That’s exactly what we did.”
“That’s what you did,” she said. She still wouldn’t look at me. “I didn’t get a choice in the matter.”
“I offered to let you go alone,” I reminded her quietly.
She squeezed her eyes shut again and her words were so quiet I almost missed them. “I needed your help.”
That was it, then, that was the issue. She hated that she had needed help. “That is not a weakness, Holland. We all need help sometimes.”
When she said nothing, my blood began to pulse faster through my veins, and I considered whether I still might lose her over this.
“Holland,” I said quietly, trying to keep my voice from rising with my frustration. “I needed help, too. I just wasn’t as graceful about asking for it. I was spinning, and the thing that stopped me was you. Your idea. The chance to make a real contribution again to something that actually mattered.”
I watched people move around inside the bar as my mind spun. “I mean, it mattered to me. You were working on something that reminded me of who I used to be, and you gave me a chance to be that guy again for a while. The fact that you didn’t know exactly who I am, where I fit—that let me just be myself.” I shook my head, taking a breath.
Holland’s face was inscrutable, her bright eyes staring into space. I shrugged, unsure what to think or feel. “I’m sorry if it felt dishonest, but I was never purposely deceitful. After everything that’s happened to me, lying is one thing I cannot tolerate. And it’s something I’ll never do.”
She raised her chin slightly, and I knew she’d heard me. She sniffed and turned to face me, her eyes less furious than they’d been.
“There’s nothing wrong with needing help,” I continued. “In business, in life. The key is trusting the right people to help, and we made a good choice in trusting each other. It’s going to pay off.”
We sat a moment longer, saying nothing, and then her face softened and she said, “I’m so sorry, Oliver.”
I shook my head. “Don’t be.”
She reached across the table and took my hand. In that moment, every fear I had fell away. Every sound in the increasingly busy bar faded to a pleasant background hum, and all I could see was Holland—those clear blue eyes holding my own. “You told me you were adopted. I understand what it feels like to know you weren’t . . . wanted.”
Her voice trailed off, but her fingers stayed on mine, warm and comforting. And her words . . . I didn’t know exactly how to respond. One part of me wanted to scream that no one in the world had ever been more wanted than she was. I couldn’t imagine wanting anyone more . . . but I knew that wasn’t what she meant, and casting her words into a sexual realm would cheapen them. I just kept my eyes on hers, letting the words sink in. She was right. Someone had decided I wasn’t enough, long before I’d ever had a chance to prove them wrong. It was a dark thought, one I hadn’t let myself focus on much since finding out.
“It doesn’t mean anything about you, though.” She squeezed my fingers softly. “I’ve had a lot of years to think about that. Someone made a bad decision, got into a situation they couldn’t handle. It doesn’t make them a bad person, and it doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with you.”
I got the impression she was talking to herself as much as to me.
“What matters is what happened afterward.”
Her face crumpled for a split second and then cleared.
“Holland . . .” It felt like my heart might split in my chest at the sadness written in her eyes.
She shook her head and pulled her hand away. “No, sorry.” She took a long sip of her drink and then sat back in her chair, putting distance between us, or maybe just getting distance from the topic. “The point is, I get it. It’s a hard thing to get your head around, no matter how much time you have to think on it.”
I nodded, wanting to do so much more. I hated the hurt I saw on her face, the question that lived in those eyes. How had anyone ever let her go?
“I’m just saying . . . to find out so late . . . that would be hard.” She cocked her head to the side. “When they told you, how did they explain waiting so long?”
For a split second I couldn’t speak as the truth welled up in my throat, choking me. I swallowed hard and chased the bile with a sip of whiskey. “They didn’t tell me. Ever. The lawyer did when he went through the paperwork.”
She sat up straight, looking like a lightning bolt had gone through her. “Oh God.”
I could feel the darkness threatening at the edges of my mind and I shook my head, trying to clear the anger away, but it didn’t help. My hand gripped my glass hard. “They lied to me my whole life. They let me believe in something that wasn’t even true—never told me where I came from, who I really belonged to . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering how much it had hurt when I’d first learned about it, how hard it had been to process this new reality. My entire life had been a fucking lie. A fucking pile of lies.
“Oliver, no.” Holland’s hand was on mine again, her voice pleading as she leaned in, pulling me back from the edge of the darkness. “I don’t know why they didn’t tell you . . . but I do know something else, something really important.” She squeezed my fingers and waited until I met her eye. “Oliver . . . they wanted you. They loved you. Chose you.” It was a whisper, and her voice broke as the words slipped from her perfect lips.
I looked up to find tears welling in her eyes, and the darkness inside me cleared, forgotten, as I took in her pain and wondered how to make it disappear.
“No one ever chose me.” Her eyes shut and the tears squeezed past her lashes, rolling in lines down the pale skin.
Oh God. Seeing Holland upset had hit me hard, but seeing her cry? It almost broke me. I stood up and moved to her side, gathering her into my chest and burying my head in her hair, not caring where we were or who might be nearby. “I do,” I whispered into her hair. “I choose you.”
I wanted to take Holland home with me that night, but she refused. She insisted that she was fine, but that she needed time to think. I let her go, hoping against hope that she’d come back to me, that I hadn’t lost my chance to make those incredible eyes shine again.
The next morning, I headed into my office. I flashed my badge at the security guards, who both seemed to struggle not to look surprised at my appearance for the second day in a row.
“Mr. Cody,” they said as I walked to the elevators.
When the doors slid open at reception, I walked directly to the tall desk where the young receptionist appeared to be frozen, her eyes wide.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Mr. Cody,” she said, her voice soft. She didn’t try to hand me messages or tell me anything else, so I smiled at her and turned to walk to my office.
Pamela lifted her head of long brown hair and watched me approach. I saw something like relief cross her face, and imagined she must have been wondering if I’d be back today. I stopped in front of her desk, finding it hard not to grin at her. “Good morning, Pamela.”
“Mr. Cody,” she said, a faint twinkle in her eye. “It’s nice to have you back.”
I nodded. It was nice to be back, actually. Something had clicked back into place inside me, and the world seemed less drab, less drained of life.
“I’ll get you some coffee if you’d like, and then when you’re ready, we can review your day and go over a few of your more urgent messages.” Pamela was standing now, and she pulled open the door to my office, looking a bit uncertain. “I mean, if you’re really back. Like, back to work.” I got the sense she’d been waiting all day yesterday for me to bolt again, but now she was willing to risk believing I might stay.
“I am. Thanks,” I said, walking into the wide space overlooking Santa Monica. It was like seeing it all again for the first time. The day before, after the excitement of the MLB meeting, I hadn’t really taken it all in. My desk, my low leather couch, even my cup full of pens—it was all exactly as I’d left it months ago. It was strange to see this space without seeing Adam here. We’d spent so much time in this office, strategizing, planning. I bit back an ache of sadness and took off my coat, slinging it over one of the chairs facing the desk. “Whenever you’re ready,” I told Pamela.
“I’ll give you fifteen minutes to get settled,” she said, and then turned and left the room, closing the door behind her. I had no doubt there was a buzz just beyond that door. I knew the secretaries were probably talking in hushed voices and that Rob had been alerted to my presence for the second day in a row. Rob should have come bursting through the door, but he didn’t. I returned to the many emails that had been sitting way too long in my inbox.
Pamela returned with the promised coffee and settled herself across from me, where she began reviewing everything I’d missed in a competent, straightforward manner, as if I’d just been on vacation, not away having a nervous breakdown.
Most of the morning passed that way, with my secretary’s clear voice explaining in plain terms not just the correspondence I’d missed, but describing some of the political issues that had floated around the executive floor in my absence as well. When she wound down, I leaned forward and thanked her. “I appreciate you staying in my absence,” I told her. “I won’t be taking off any more time. And you can expect a raise.”
She ducked her head when I said this, surprise coloring her cheeks before she hid her face from my view. I had the sense she didn’t want me to see her reaction to this news. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I need you to arrange something else as well,” I told her. Then I described the transfer that would need to be orchestrated through human resources, the move of one Holland O’Dell from sales to analytics. “I’ll give you the details of what I have in mind.”
“I’m not sure they’ll believe I have the authority to request that,” Pamela said. She was grinning, though, as if hearing about Holland’s promotion affected her personally.
I gave her a frank look before continuing. I’d undervalued Pamela, but the way she’d stood up to me when no one else would, talked to me like I was a misguided human being instead of some kind of fearful morose monster—that all told me that she could do much more than she’d been doing before. “I’m not going to need a secretary anymore, Pamela.” Her face fell slightly and I quickly corrected myself. “I need you to step up, to be much more than that. We’ll find a more appropriate moniker, but what I need is a right hand. I want you to be more involved in the day-to-day business, to handle things on my behalf so there are almost two of me. The way you did while I was out.”
Pamela was nodding, a smile lighting her brown eyes. She was pretty, I realized. I’d undervalued her in lots of ways, it seemed.
I punched in a key on my phone and had the receptionist transfer me to the head of human resources. “This is Oliver Cody,” I told him. “I have charged Pamela Verity with some new duties, one of which will be to dictate a few personnel changes and some office moves. Please respect her authority when she calls, and if there are any issues, know that they come straight to me.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, sounding nervous. “Good to have you back, sir.”
I hung up and raised my eyebrows at Pamela, who smiled and nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“Call me Oliver,” I suggested.
She nodded and left.
I spun in my chair and looked out over the city below. It was good to be back.