Chapter Eleven
Chapter
Eleven
Olivia looked over the dance floor and wished Gigi
hadn’t felt the deep need to dance tonight. Her friend was still out there.
She’d done the latest line dances, but a slow song had come up and now she was
in some cowboy’s arms.
The Barn was hopping again, but she kind of wanted to be
back in the playroom. They’d been staying in it for days. They would hang out
in her house in the early evening. Someone would cook dinner for the six of
them or Gabe or Garrett would go out and bring back take-out and they would
talk and have a glass of wine. And then Keane would stand up, and her heart
would flutter in her chest.
It seriously fluttered. Like a damn butterfly. All because a
hot cowboy Dom would hold his hand out, and she would know it was time to play.
He would lead her over to the main house and up to the playroom where he would
instruct Garrett to prepare her while he watched with dark eyes.
Damn it. She was getting hot right here.
Those men were going to make her crazy.
Miranda put a margarita in front of her. Cold and frosty,
with a perfect ring of salt around the rim and a little umbrella. The umbrella
wasn’t traditional. It just marked it as hers. She was bougie about her
margaritas. She sat down at the table they had to guard or they would lose.
“You survived a whole afternoon with your ex. You deserve a drink.”
Olivia took it. She did deserve it. “He kept trying to bring
up our past. The problem is the subscription boxes could work. I want to tell
him to fuck off, but the idea is solid and handles some of our distribution
issues. I’m pretty sure he didn’t come up with it.”
“He wasn’t an idea man,” Miranda agreed. “How did Garrett
handle it?”
“He let me deal with it.” Mostly. Though he sat next to her
and kissed her during breaks and talked to her about the future.
Which made her wistful. Garrett talked about taking
vacations together. Her and him and Keane. Finding some beach and relaxing and
being together. It was all so Scott would hear and back off. Garrett talked
about their next club night. Not that they had one, but he was good at this
game.
She was starting to wonder if it had to be a game.
“It’s good that he trusts you,” Miranda said.
He did, although he had a point about the Gladen account.
She should have handled it with a bit more finesse, and she was going to have
to explain that to her father when he got back. Garrett pointed out all the
legal implications of the potential defamation suit. He was smart. He was
putting an investigator in the small town to see if anyone would talk. Gladen
was a popular figure in his town, but there was always someone with an ax to
grind.
She looked over where Gabe was sitting with Garrett and
Keane. All three men had beers in front of them and seemed to be talking about
something serious.
That felt like danger.
Gabe could be protective over the people he considered
family, and they’d been like brother and sister growing up. He could be giving
them “the talk.” The one where he threatened grievous bodily, emotional, and
financial harm to anyone who dared to break her heart.
The relationship was fragile. They could totally get scared
off.
Could they?
Miranda seemed to understand the thoughts going through
Olivia’s brain. “It’s not a bad thing. He’s not doing that alpha male,
don’t-hurt-the-women-in-my-family thing. He likes them. I happen to know Gabe
thinks Keane is an excellent Dom. He was talking to someone about how happy he
was you finally found a real top who can handle you.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. Handle her? Except Keane
really did handle her beautifully. He seemed to know when she needed control
and when she wanted him to take it. He was the kind of man who sat back until
he was needed but then nothing would stop him.
He was the kind of man she could trust.
“Let Gabe get close to them. He could use the friends. You
know he’s been standoffish since Pax left.”
Olivia sighed. Paxton Cruz. He and Gabe had been best
friends in high school. They went to college together. While they’d been
private, there was no question that they were intimate. Pax had been Gabe’s
sub. He was a switch who topped whatever woman they were sharing but bottomed
when it came to Gabe. Everyone expected them to select a woman and settle down.
Instead, Pax had disappeared, leaving Gabe a note telling
him not to contact him ever again.
It was around that time Gabe declared he wouldn’t be joining
his father’s company and disappeared for a while. When he came back, he had a
passion for carpentry. Building The Hideout, the club the younger people
established, had done him a world of good.
Gabe never talked about Pax anymore. He’d had a couple of
subs over the years, always with a male switch. Those changed regularly, too.
While the relationships were physically intense, Olivia knew his heart was
never engaged.
Though his eyes often shifted to Gigi. Gigi, who had been
close to Pax, too. Gigi, who Gabe never asked to play but deeply vetted every
man she came in contact with.
Gabe, who kind of looked like he was going to murder the guy
Gigi was currently dancing with.
He was a dog with… She was going to say two bones, but she
wasn’t sure Gabe had a bone at all. He was obviously crazy about Gigi, but he
wouldn’t approach her for anything but friendship. Then he got all possessive.
The last thing she needed was another bar fight. She’d
gotten a bunch of texts from Lola’s friends calling her a whore and slut and
all the names women use when they want to tear each other down. She ignored
them all, but she didn’t want more drama. Not that type.
Now she could use a hot scene where her men were invading
her poor fishing village and she only had one thing to barter with for
protection. Her virginal body.
“You like them.” Miranda took a sip of her own drink. It
wasn’t a question.
Still, Olivia felt like she should answer. “I do, but this
is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I don’t want ties.”
“Yeah, you do,” Miranda countered. “You’re afraid of them
because the couple of times you’ve tried before it went wrong. But that’s kind
of the thing. You try until you get it right, and you can’t possibly know if
it’s right until you spend lots of time together. Livie, they’re wonderful.
Keane knows what he’s doing when it comes to running a ranch. You should think
about this. Josh wants to come and help with the business side. Your dad is
going to need a foreman.”
Like she hadn’t thought about that. With their dad thinking
of going to part time, Josh wanted to start taking over some of the duties of
running the cooperative. They talked about the fact that it would mean Olivia
could take her foot off the gas and have a little more of a life. But the
problem was the foreman job. While her papa was the foreman on record, Josh did
most of the work, and her fathers needed someone they could trust.
Keane was perfect. He’d already passed all the vetting. The
hands seemed to love him, and he had innovative ideas that worked.
Garrett could do his job anywhere. Most of the time when
they had important legal meetings they went into Dallas. He could be home
before they went to bed. Together.
But she had tried this before. “I thought Scott was
perfect.”
Miranda chuckled. “No, you didn’t. You have forgotten. You
questioned him all the time. You used to sit around making pros and cons
charts.”
She winced. She had done that. Pro – he knew the business
and seemed to get along with her family. Con – not a Dom and wouldn’t even try.
Pro – they could talk business for hours. Con – all they could really talk
about was business.
“Why did I stay so long?” It was the real question she
needed to ask. The truth of the matter was she’d known she didn’t love Scott.
She knew it would be a mistake to marry a man she didn’t love, but she stayed.
Miranda put a hand over hers. “Sweetie, you stayed because
you thought you would only love one man your entire life, and he couldn’t love
you the way you needed. You decided in the back of your mind if you couldn’t
have Bobby, it didn’t matter who you were with. In fact, it was better you were
with someone who was useful to you and your family. Someone you mostly liked.
Someone you couldn’t truly love because deep down you thought you would die
loving Bobby, but that’s not true.”
The words hit Olivia like a slap across the face. Not that
Miranda meant it that way, but when truth came around after so long it felt
almost violent.
She sat there for a moment. How had she not seen it? Miranda
was right. She had avoided anyone she might be able to love because it kind of
felt like cheating when she was younger, and somehow it went deep. Somehow that
belief—that she had met the one and the universe played a trick on her—had
settled into her soul, and she didn’t even think about it now.
It was why when she’d wanted to go wild, she’d looked at
those two men and told them she wanted their bodies and their dominance and
nothing of their deeper selves.
“Olivia, I know we like to read books about finding that one
person in the whole world who can complete us. It feels romantic, but the truth
of the matter is we’re complete as we are. We don’t need some other half. Love
doesn’t have to come like a flash fire when we’re eight.”
Put like that it sounded ridiculous, but it was what had
happened. What she believed for so long.
“You need to figure out what you want, Livie,” Miranda said,
leaning in so she didn’t have to talk louder. “I think if you really look at
it, those men check off a lot of what you need. If you’ll let them in.”
“I already have,” she replied. “I’m falling for them. I’m
fighting it. Not the sexy part. I’m obviously all in on that, but emotionally
I’m still putting up walls.”
“And they’re being patient.” She squeezed Olivia’s hand.
“You don’t have to decide today. Or tomorrow. You can try with them for the
next month, but it won’t be real until you tell your parents.”
A knot of dread sat in her gut. Yep. That was something else