Page 18 of Between Desire and Denial
Three weeksof not contacting Olive hadn’t exactly been a slice of heaven. If I was being honest, three weeks of her avoiding me had been absolute hell.
I was supposed to be a workaholic, but instead of focusing on my investments, I was wondering about what she was so damn busy with that she never contacted me once.
She appeared around Kee when she was needed, which was most of the time, but suddenly I felt out of place. She was hanging out with my best friend, we’d always gotten on just fine, but now I wondered who she was talking to, what she was thinking, what her plans were after getting Kee’s marriage out to the press.
When I walked into Kee’s record label office, I found them all looking perfectly content. Platinum records hung on the walls and my brother sat with his laptop, making calls. Olive’s curls bounced about as she buzzed around fluffing Kee’s dark hair while discussing wedding pictures.
No one even looked up at me when I appeared in the doorway. My gaze, though, tracked Olive’s whereabouts like a damn obsessed puppy. She wore one of those big sweatersagain with holes in her leggings as she pointed to a photo and mumbled that it could work for the magazine. Olive had become a jack-of-all-trades where Kee was concerned, working as her PA and helping with PR, but Kee had shifted her focus out of the spotlight when she’d married my brother. Instead of continuing to be a pop star, Kee was running the record label my brother had bought for her.
She’d already informed us she wasn’t going to release another album for a year or two. Normally, my focus would have been the business, but instead, I found myself asking about her team and wondering about Olive.
After she’d avoided me so diligently, now I had a reason to approach her. Quite frankly, this was me focusing on business.
I watched them fuss over a picture before Olive pushed at the pink flower in her own hair and stood up to stretch. She froze when she saw me but then turned to Kee. “You’re not doing any appearances for the next month. So, I’m guessing you’ll have some time off?”
It wasn’t just a month that Kee wouldn’t be doing appearances, but she nodded softly, not willing to tell Olive that her position as an employee wasn’t needed.
“Means you’re free for a whole month, I guess.” I walked into the office and blurted it out, looking to finally get a rise out of her. I wanted her to acknowledge me, pay attention to me, stop ignoring me. Her honey-colored gaze cut across the room to scowl at me but she didn’t say anything at first.
So, I goaded her more and brought up our night from three weeks ago. Her eyes widened and she got up fast, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go.”
She hustled me out of the office and down the hall to another empty room before she slammed the door and glared at me like she could appear mean even though I was a whole head taller than her. “What the heck was that?”
“You’re avoiding me. So, figured I’d incentivize you to stop by offering to talk about the night we had three weeks ago.”
“In front of Kee?” She threw up her hands. “We agreed to not talk about that night.”
“I’ll definitely keep that agreement if you can help me out with something. I have a favor I need to ask of you,” I told her, not at all intimidated by her anger. Instead, I found myself eyeing her up, wondering if her cheeks would redden further, if her breath would catch as I pushed her more.
She crossed her arms, and her curves drew my attention too. I knew exactly how well they fit in my hands, and I tried my best not to rearrange my damn trousers while she glowered at me. “You’re threatening to tell Kee about our night for a favor? Not really a favor, Dimitri. More like blackmail.”
“It was a way to get you to stop avoiding me. It worked, didn’t it?”
“I’m not avoiding you,” she said, but her gaze skittered around the room.
“You’ve been avoiding me for the better part of a month, haven’t talked to me since Kee’s wedding night unless she’s in the room.”
“Did I ever talk to you before when she wasn’t in the room?” She had me there, and because of that, the silence stretched between us. “We’re not reallythatgood of friends, Dimitri. Let’s not pretend like we are.” She sighed. “I’m trying to deal with my own stuff, get my ducks in a row for the university hearing, preparing to restart a whole year of master’s program work. So, I’d rather not—”
“I thought you said that was all under control.”
“Yeah, well, I was lying.” She winced.
“But a year? You were almost done with your thesis,” I said, confused.
She wiggled the glasses she had on and looked away. “Yeah, and Rufford reassigned me.”
That motherfucker really had some balls if he’d done that. “What happened with your email?”
“The university buried it. They asked if I wanted to come in to discuss the allegations because the email screenshots looked cropped and Photoshopped. He’s claiming I forged all of it because he didn’t think I was fit to continue the thesis. I’m over it. I’m just going to restart.”
“So, you’re letting him get away with it?”
“No. I’m not letting him do anything. Don’t say that. I hate when people say I’mlettinga situation happen.” She stomped her foot, and I saw the fire back in her eyes that I’d seen a month ago when she sent that email. “I’m picking my battles. I’m mad as hell about this, but I want to graduate, not get thrown out of the master’s program. I already have no plans for…” She threw up her hands. “Anything honestly. And so I’m just stressed.” She rubbed at her temples and took a deep breath before she continued. “I also don’t want to sit through a meeting while he degrades me and the relationship we had.”
“The relationship you had?” I frowned at her feelings. Why would she try to hold that in a high regard still? “He groomed you, took advantage of you, and manipulated you. He screwed you over, Olive.”
She propped her hands on her hips as she stood taller to scold me. “We still had some good times, Dimitri. I cared about him,” she said quietly.
