Page 53 of Living Hell

I turned away and started the truck. I hated that she believed the lie of our engagement. Olivia was a good person, and it made me sick to fool her like that.

It had been a week since Iona and I had our sexy nurse fight. It wasn’t really a fight, more like a I-really-don’t-want-to-be-with-a woman-who-was-only-using-me tiff. The four-letter word set it off.

Love.

It was a risk saying it to her, but that’s how I felt. Now that I knew the truth and she had tried to reach out to me back when we were teenagers, all the resentment I had for her melted. Something bloomed in its place—a feeling that laid dormant for a decade.

I wanted to pick up where we left off and she wanted a fuck-buddy.

“Got big plans with your lady this weekend?” Olivia could finally talk without wheezing with nausea.

“Maybe a quiet weekend. How about you?”

I pulled down the dirt path until I hit pavement. I made a mental note to contact the sheriff about my missing furniture. Austen suggested I file a report about it being stolen.

As much I cared for Iona, I wanted to talk to the sheriff about Babette also owning the house. There had to be some law that was broken with that. And since I’d heard nothing about it from Iona’s agent, it was time I took action.

Olivia shifted in her seat and I worried she might throw up again. But she wasn’t leaning toward the window, she was turning toward me. Glaring as if I was an asshole for leaving the farm.

“Are you serious? Quiet weekend?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

I was driving so I couldn’t turn to face her, but I felt her stare as if it was burning a hole in my cheek.

“You do realize your soon-to-be wife’s birthday is tomorrow.”

I forgot. It’s September. I remembered her birthday always fell two weeks after school started. She thought it was some punishment life doled out at her from birth.

“Oh, yeah, her birthday. Well, I think she wants to keep it low-key.”

I had no idea because I completely forgot about it. And it’s not like she brought it up since we weren’t speaking to each other.

“Carter’s taking me out to dinner tonight to celebrate my first two weeks of classes. Why don’t you take her to dinner at least? I’m sure if I made a call to my sister, she’d get you into any place with a waiting list.”

Olivia came from a wealthy family in Washington, DC. I couldn’t figure out why she wanted to stay in a small cabin with Carter rather than the posh life she had back in the city. Perhaps he put something in that potato hash he always whipped up that made her believe farming sheep was better than living in a mansion.

We pulled into the alley behind the office where I had a parking spot and got out of the truck.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Right now, I just want to go sit at my desk and finish updating client files.”

“The luxury of typing on a keyboard instead of having your hand up a cow’s ass,” Olivia said with a sigh as I held the back door open for her.

I chuckled because she was right. As much as I loved animals and helping care for them, some of the things I had to do weren’t pleasant. If I had known when I was younger that I’d be analyzing animal feces and shoving my hand up their rectums, I might have just stayed a waiter at Fire and Ice like Debbie wanted me to.

I opened the door to my office and stopped in my tracks. Someone was sitting in my chair. She was short, had red hair pulled back into a ponytail, and wore a navy suit.

“Babette. The office is closed. How did you get in here?”

“That’s not important. What is of urgency is this engagement of yours. What do you think you are doing?”

Closing the door, I moved to the edge of my desk. “I’m doing as you requested. Iona and I live together. She’s even wearing my grandmother’s ring. I haven’t told a soul this thing between us is fake.”

The woman stood and even in heels she only came to my mid-chest. Despite her lack of height, I stood a little straighter, intimidated by her presence. There was an air of confidence about her. We may not have gotten along over the past several weeks, but I respected her. I didn’t know why I respected her, but her steely gray eyes made it clear that nothing but admiration would be tolerated.

She walked up to me and pointed at my face. “That is what I am here for. Your multi-colored dream coat of a face.”

I touched my cheek. It was no longer puffy, but the bruising was taking its sweet time to disappear. The dark purple and blue had faded to a sickly green.

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