Chapter 39
Reed
I fold my arms across my chest, glaring at Lionel as he paces back and forth in front of my desk. With every word out of his mouth, I’m getting more and more irritated. That’s the dance we do, me and my father; he talks, I listen, I seethe.
“I just hope you know what you’re getting yourself into,” he says. “She’s going to have you right where she wants you.”
“And is that such a bad thing?” I mutter. I’m tired of his constant insinuations about Olivia. That she’s a gold digger. That she’s using me. It needles at me, like a constant attack on my self-esteem.
Does he really think that low of me? That a woman would only want to be with me for my money? That there’s no other possible appeal?
Lionel, if he even heard me speak at all, ignores me. “This isn’t going to be as easy to clean up as your other mistakes.”
“This isn’t a mistake.”
“There’s still time to stop it from becoming one. You need to call it off. You need a clean break, and you need to find a more suitable woman, if you’re suddenly so interested in long-term partnerships.”
“There is no ‘more suitable woman,’” I say through gritted teeth. “There’s Olivia. End of. I don’t know how many times we have to have this conversation.”
“The two of you don’t make sense on paper, I’ll tell you that much.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re my son,” Lionel says, as if the answer is obvious. “You’re the heir to Eastwood Hotels. She is the help’s daughter.”
There’s a derisiveness in his tone as he says the help that makes my skin crawl, and suddenly, I have to restrain myself from leaping out of my chair and lunging at him.
Instead, I clear my throat. When I speak, my voice is calm, but cold. “You should watch what you say about Olivia. That’s my future wife you’re talking about.”
My father scoffs, shaking his head, like I just made an unfunny joke. “Oh, please.”
“I’m serious.”
He purses his lips, his tone frosty when he speaks again. “She’s not the right woman for you. She could never have been the right woman for you, and it’s time for you to face that fact, son.”
I sit quietly, glaring at him. I don’t know what to say, but I can tell he has more of this nonsense in him. Better to let him spew all of it, rather than letting him interrupt me when I try to argue.
“It’s for the good of the entire family, and your image. You know that you made a rash choice, and the only reason I didn’t put my foot down to stop you was because I knew that it had an end date. That there was documentation protecting you.”
At that—the insinuation that my father cares a single iota about me, about protecting me—I can’t help but retort, “Protecting me? Is that what this is about?”
The truth of the matter is, he doesn’t give a shit about me, and I’ve always known that. He doesn’t even care about my image; he cares about his own, and he sees me as nothing more than an extension of that.
A wayward offshoot of himself, not an independent person. Not a man who can make his own choices.
Part of me thinks he might have been angry no matter who I chose as my fake fiancée. He was angry from the moment I insisted on choosing. He wanted to control the situation from top to bottom.
“Of course.” Lionel resumes his pacing, up and down the side of my office. As if he owns the place. As if this is his domain. “At the end of the day, I think you and I both know that the Quinn girl isn’t wife material.”
The words send a shock of fury through me, but I hold my tongue for a moment, collecting myself rather than yelling at him immediately as is my first instinct. I grip the arms of my office chair, fixing him with a glare.
“You’re right,” I say quietly, “Olivia isn’t… wife material.”
He nods in agreement and opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.
“She’s not someone who will expand our business empire. She won’t help me network. She won’t connect our family with some other influential family.”
For an instant, my father looks triumphant, but his smile fades as I continue speaking.
“So it’s a damn good thing that none of that matters.”
A scowl twists his features. “Boy—”
“Because Olivia is the best woman I’ve ever known,” I interrupt, a fierce edge to my voice.
“She’s more than ‘wife material.’ More than some superficial match that makes sense to you on paper.
Because she makes sense to me. She’s everything I could ever ask for in a partner.
I fucking love her, and that’s all that matters. ”
“Be careful of your tone.”
“I’m not going to do some arranged marriage or some bullshit. I’m not going to let you choose for me. It’s my life, and my love, and I’ve already made my choice.”
My father snorts, shaking his head. Silence falls between us for several seconds.
Then he says, “I don’t think you know that woman as well as you think you do.”
“Excuse me?” I frown.
“You mis-estimated her.”
“What do you mean?”
Lionel smirks, an insufferable expression that stokes my anger all over again. “At least the women I would want you to marry wouldn’t just be after your money. The Quinn girl only wanted one thing from you, and now she’s got it.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, unable to keep the hint of unease from my voice.
“She took ten million dollars to leave you,” he says, offhand. “She was clearly only in it for the money.”
My hands ball into fists, and I inhale sharply through my nose. “Bullshit,” I growl. “Don’t say shit like that about her.”
My father shrugs, raising an eyebrow. “Well, it’s true. I don’t know what you want me to say. She took the check.”
I rise to my feet suddenly, my hands braced on the table. “Get out.”
“You’ll thank me for this someday,” he says, his demeanor still infuriatingly casual. As angry as I am, he doesn’t seem in a hurry to leave. “Trust me.”
Then he saunters over to the door and lets himself out, his hands tucked into his pockets.
I remain standing for a few moments, glowering at the artwork on the walls.
I feel as though every muscle in my body is taut, every nerve alight with anger.
It takes several deep breaths before I’m calm enough to sink back into my chair, and several more before I can escape the urge to follow my father from the room and strike him in the jaw.
I’m beyond pissed—and I’m stressed. I can’t believe my father. I can’t believe he would say anything as vile as the shit he said today.
I don’t know what to think. Did he really offer her ten million dollars? It seems like something he would do, but… I can’t see her taking it. Never.
So why would he say that she did?
Was he just trying to get to me? Just to rile me up, so that I’d hate him even more later when I find out that he was lying?
I take a few deep, calming breaths, letting my rage run its course. Then I pack up my briefcase. I’m heading out early today.
I have to. I need to see Olivia. I need to speak to her, to run damage control.
I need to find out if my father actually pulled that stunt. And I need to apologize for it, if he did.
As my driver takes me home, I keep running through the conversation with my father on a loop in my head.
Who does he think he is?
A pit of regret lodges in my stomach as I remember my promise to protect Olivia’s reputation. I might have been able to do that with the press, but it seems like I couldn’t when it came to my own family.
After all, my father seems to think so low of her. He won’t stop trying to defame her, no matter what she does.
As the car pulls up outside of The Luxe, I’m out of the door before it even rolls to a stop. I rush into the lobby and hop into the elevator with a nod to Henry.
I won’t feel better until I see Olivia. I need her. I need her presence. I need to know that she’s okay.
When I step into the foyer of the penthouse, though, it’s quiet. Empty. No tell-tale clicking of her knitting needles from the other room. No echo of her voice in the hallway as she talks to her mother or Riley on the phone.
Nothing.
“Olivia?” I call out; there’s no response. Worry seizes me. I pace into the living room, but there’s no sign of her at all. Usually, she’d have a knitting project draped over the back of the couch, or a book resting on the coffee table.
But now… it’s like she was never here.
I’m filled with a sudden sense of sheer panic. I head into the kitchen, hoping to find her there cooking something, or brewing a cup of that tea she likes so much.
Instead, I find a yellow post-it note attached to the counter.
Reed, I’m sorry we couldn’t make things work. I wanted to, more than anything. Goodbye. - Olivia
That’s it. That’s all it says.
I stare at it, reeling. Goodbye? Why is she saying goodbye?
This can’t be happening.
Was my father telling the truth? Did she take the money and leave me? I want to believe anything else, literally anything else, but when I rack my brain for answers, I come up empty.
I feel like my thoughts are starting to spiral. Really, the only person who can give me the truth—who can tell me what I need to hear—is Olivia.
So I fish my cell phone out of my pocket and call her.
And listen to the droning sound of the dial tone in my ear. I’m not sure whether my call didn’t get through or she declined it on purpose.
But either way, she’s not answering.
Olivia
I lie on my back, sprawled across the four-poster in my childhood bedroom. The mattress is like a rock beneath my spine, but I can’t even bring myself to care.
Beside me, my phone vibrates again; someone’s calling, for the fifth time in the past hour. I glance over at it numbly, and see Riley’s name at the top of the screen.
She’s been trying to reach me this whole time, but I don’t answer. I can’t bring myself to. I don’t really want to talk to anyone, not even my best friend.
I’ve been staying at my parents’ house, avoiding everyone to the best of my ability. Luckily, both of them know better than to pry; they welcomed me home, but they’re mostly staying out of my way, giving me the space I need to nurse my broken heart.
I couldn’t stay at the penthouse after I came back from Reed’s office. It was too painful to be in this place, a place that I had, that very morning, considered my home.
Olivia isn’t wife material.
I couldn’t do it. So I left a note, gathered up my things to the best of my ability, and came here.
Of all the facets to my heartbreak, this is the one I expected the least: the pain of how little I had to do to remove myself from his life. To gather up my scattered belongings, call my father, and walk away.
Did I ever really belong there at all? Did I ever have so much as a foothold in his heart, or was I just a more elaborate distraction than most?
There’s a soft knock at my door, and my mother’s voice, muffled, from the hallway. “Sweetie? Are you in there?”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice raspy from crying. “Come in.”
The door swings open, and my mother shuffles into the room, smiling sadly at me when she sees me. She settles down on the side of the bed, reaching to stroke my hair like she used to do when I was a child, any time I was scared, or upset.
“How are you?” she asks gently.
“Bad,” I reply, my eyes stinging. I can feel the tears welling up again. I thought I’d cried the last of the moisture from my body, but apparently, there’s more in reserve.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says sympathetically, “I know. I know.”
I bring my arm up to cover my burning eyes, not wanting my mother to see me cry. She’s seen me cry plenty of times before, but I’ve never felt more vulnerable than this. I’ve never had my heart broken like this.
She strokes my hair in silence for a few minutes, then says, “I’m worried about you, you know.”
I sniff, wiping at my eyes, and say instinctively, “You don’t have to worry about me, mom.”
“Of course I have to worry about you. It’s what mothers do.” She pauses, then sighs. “I was so shocked when you told me that you and Reed had broken up.”
I know that, to a certain extent, she’s trying to coax the story out of me. I didn’t tell my parents what had happened, only the broadest strokes of the situation—that it didn’t work out between me and Reed, and that I needed somewhere to stay.
“You just seemed so in love,” my mother continues, which sends a fresh wave of heartache coursing through me. I swallow, trying to force the lump out of my throat.
“I know,” I say hoarsely. “I thought we were.”
She rests her hand on my cheek for a moment, her eyes sad, but loving. “You’ll be okay, sweetheart. You just need time to heal.”
I know that, logically, she’s right. But at the moment, it doesn’t feel like I’ll ever be okay again. I’m not sure how a broken heart heals from something this shattering. I’m not sure if it ever could.
My mother shifts her weight on the bed, then winces. Immediately, I sit upright, alarmed.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She grimaces a little, taking away from the confidence of that statement. “Just a little tired. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about?” My father’s voice, in the doorway. I look up to see him standing there, gazing at my mother with love in his eyes. “Dear, you look exhausted. Why don’t I help you lay down? You deserve some rest.”
“It’s the middle of the day,” my mother protests, waving aside the suggestion—though I can tell that she really is tired, and in a bit of pain, too. “I’ll be fine.”
“Please.” He steps forward, holding out a hand to her. “Let me bring you to bed. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable.”
She looks like she’s about to disagree, but as she meets his gaze, her eyes soften. She nods. “Alright, fine.” She glances back at me. “Are you going to be okay, sweetie?”
“I’m fine, mom,” I assure her. “You go rest.”
My father helps my mother to her feet, and slowly, the two of them make their way out of my room. My father closes the door partway behind him, but I can still see them as they make their way through the hall.
My father’s arm is around my mother’s waist, his other hand resting gently on her shoulder for support. As I watch them, she stops for a moment and turns to gaze up at him, adoration in her eyes. He smiles at her, then leans down to plant a soft kiss on her forehead.
They work, I think to myself. They just do. Undeniably. And it’s because they would each give anything to make the other happy.
I wonder if Reed and I were ever like that.
Maybe we never were.