Page 84 of The Bossy One

“I was going to tell you,” Olivia rushed to explain. She reached for my arm, but I yanked it out of her grasp and stepped back.

She swallowed and tried again. “I thought if you could see him as a person, instead of just an O’Rourke, then you wouldn’t react like this. You could see the good side.”

“Whatgoodside?” I demanded.

“Catie could get to know her father. And maybe you…” She bit her lip.

“What? Spit it out,” I demanded.

“You could participate fully in this town, in your community, without feeling like you have to block yourself off from everything in order to avoid the O’Rourkes all the time,” Olivia said. “I don’t want you to go back to being alone in this big, empty house when I leave.”

The reminder that she was leaving felt like whiskey poured on an open wound. It killed any last instinct I had toward tenderness.

“You’ll never understand me, Olivia. You’ll never understand what my family went through. And you’ll never understand I why I hatethem.” I shook my head. “And if you don’t get it, I can’t trust you.”

“I understand more than you think.”

“You didn’t even understand how to turn on the fuckingshoweruntil I told you.” I turned away from Olivia because I couldn’t stand to look at her right now and stared out the window to where Catie played peacefully in my garden. When I spoke again, my voice was deadly quiet. “How can you understand what it’s like to grow up mere kilometers from the man who slaughtered your father? With everyone around you bowing and scraping toward him, because even after hekills someone,they don’t dare stand up to him?”

At first Olivia didn’t say anything. Then she spoke, her voice was shaky. “You didn’t tell me how to work the shower. @DBCoder did.”

Her words sent a bucket of ice water down my back.

I turned to face her, not sure what I was going to say, if I could still explain it away.

But she saw the truth written all over my face. “You’re him. You’re @DBCoder.”

I couldn’t lie to her. Not like this.

“I am,” I said.

She backed up, getting as far away from me as she possibly could.

I took half a step toward her, my hand outstretched toward her. “Olivia, please, don’t be scared—”

“I’m not scared,” Olivia said. Her cheeks were flushed. “I’m fuckingfurious.”

I could feel the foundation of our relationship crumbling. But I didn’t know what to do to stop it. I didn’t know if Iwantedto stop it, after what she’d done to me.

“How long have you known?” Olivia demanded.

So I told her.

27

OLIVIA

Declan shoved an impatient hand through his hair. “I figured it out about a week ago, when you told me what your book with Molly was about. I realized it was the same as the one @1000words—you—were writing.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold my world together. “You mean right after we had sex for the first time.”

At least Declan had the grace not to defend himself.

But Ineededhim to defend himself. I needed a reason to keep believing in him—believing in us—because right now I was coming up short.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice came out jagged and sharp.

“I started to, but you kept saying that having someone you knew in real life find your blog would make you uncomfortable, and you got more and more upset the longer we talked.” He opened and closed his hand in a helpless, aborted gesture. “The last thing I wanted was to make you uncomfortable. You have to believe that,a ghrá.”

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