A Hint of Scandal (9 page)

Leaning his head against the chair, he closed his eyes. She greedily drank the sight of him without the piercing gaze assessing her. “The limo is at your disposal. Do what you want.”

“I don’t want...” He was right. He was going to be a permanent fixture in Kim’s life which meant she had to learn to tolerate his presence without going all hormonal and moony over him. Or at least learn to act normal despite feeling hormonal and moony.

“Were you serious about us spending the day together?”

He shrugged in that I-don’t-give-a-damn kind of way.

“You
really
are good for my ego.”

“At least I’m not recoiling at the idea as you seem to be.” He opened his eyes and leveled a curious look at her. “Would it help if I said I was
mildly
looking forward to it?”

“Okay, I can live with
mildly,
” she said, tongue-in-cheek. “But you have to give up the control-meter for once.”

“The
what?
”

He looked so uncharacteristically slow that she laughed. “I’ll decide what we’re going to do and you have to go along.”

“And what’s that?”

“Oh, come on, Alexander. This is going to be fun.” She clutched his hand and tugged him up, knowing exactly what he needed. She
was
getting better at breathing through the thump-thump of her heart as his large brown hand enclosed hers. “You know, doing something spontaneous and crazy, something you can’t control to the last minute,
fun.
”

* * *

Alexander had never felt such unrelenting curiosity before as the limo took off through the streets of Paris and entered the A1. All through the drive, Olivia refused to reveal anything, literally bouncing in the seat.

He felt like a kid who had been granted a special treat, at least that’s how he imagined he would have felt if he had been a carefree kid. When he moved to lower the tinted windows to get a clue as to their destination, she batted his hand away. “Don’t make me blindfold you.”

He listened with increasing amusement as she chatted on about the time she had spent in Paris before, about the changes in the city, the number of times she had gotten into trouble and not once did the shadow of her disastrous affair mar her lit-up gaze. He had no idea what had changed but he was extremely glad for it.

Grinning from ear to ear, he leaned back into the seat, his curiosity spiking exponentially with each passing minute. He already knew they weren’t going anywhere formal. With her hair tied up in a high ponytail, dressed in denim shorts and a Hard Rock Café tee, Olivia looked unbelievably cute, not that he could tell her that. And she had made sure he had dressed down, too, in shorts and a polo T-shirt.

Today, more than any other day, since they had arrived, they looked exactly what they were pretending to be. A couple honeymooning in Paris with no pressures from the outside world, drastically different from what he would have been doing if Kim were here. Even the reminder of what Kim had done didn’t dilute his excitement.

The limo came to a smooth stop. “You ready?”

He nodded, the eagerness with which he was looking forward to it quite novel in its intensity.

They stepped out of the limo, and a drone of excitement reached his ears. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his shorts, and looked around, a strange little pang clenching and unclenching his gut.

Happy voices and smiling faces washed over him, the buzzing din of it rippling along his skin in an unfamiliar way. Unfamiliar but not grating. He didn’t know what he had expected. But it hadn’t been this.

They were at an amusement park. It was a perfect summer day, and the park was filled with kids and adults making the best out of it.

His first instinct was to turn around and walk away.

He stood unmoving as Olivia waved away the chauffeur and sauntered toward the ticket booths. Almost as if she knew to let the place and the noise around them seep into him for a few minutes. His gaze followed her hungrily as if she was his lifeline. The only time he had been at a park, of any kind, had been on his seventh birthday when he had spent the few hours watching his parents fighting like alley cats and paparazzi parked outside the gates.

The slight dimming of Olivia’s smile as she reached him with tickets in hand knocked the memory on its head. If nothing else, he would stay to not spoil the day for her.

Her gaze lingered on him as she waved the tickets. “What? Don’t tell me your time is too precious for a roller coaster.”

He fisted his hands in his pockets, striving to keep his tone normal despite the strange heaviness in his throat. “I’ve never been on one.”

She widened her eyes and fluttered her lashes innocently, or as close to innocence as the minx could manage. “Oh, really? Then you’re in for a treat.”

He rolled his eyes and smiled, letting her tuck her arm through his. “I’m glad you’ve given up on being an actress. Because, frankly, you suck at it.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” She nudged him forward and they fell into a comfortable stride. “And before you get ideas, the only reason we’re here is because after almost a week of pretending to be supersmart
and
in love with you—I’m not sure which was harder by the way—I need to unwind.”

He looked sideways at her. Her skin glowed in the sun, her eyes twinkled. “Why am I even remotely surprised that an adrenaline-pumping roller coaster is what would loosen you up?”

Her teeth dug into her lip, and she stepped to the side, giving him a once-over. His pulse pounded. “Actually, what would loosen me up is a good, hard bout of...”

He wrapped his hand around her wrist and tugged her closer, the mere scent of her skin incredibly arousing. “You think this is funny?”

“No, but what else do you expect me to do? It is either laugh at the whole thing or...” Her brown eyes darkened. “Well, you know what I mean.”

She moved in front of him, her back to the crowd behind her. “All this deprivation and control, it might be good for the soul, but it does nothing for the body.”

* * *

Within an hour, during which they stood in line for, of course, the scariest ride in the whole park, Alexander realized how wrong he was in thinking that Olivia would be in her element on the roller coaster.

Even as excitement rose in his gut as they settled into the car and it gathered momentum across the track, inching upward toward the high point where the track started looping in, he felt Olivia tremble next to him.

She was wedged tight against him as the car careened to one side, and even with everything else around them, his skin thrummed at her nearness.

He opened his mouth and breathed through the rising hum around them, his heart pounding in his chest. He felt the grin spread across his mouth, feeling a liberation he had never felt before.

He laughed, the sound barreling out of him, as they entered a downward loop, the wind blowing in his hair, adrenaline pummeling through him. And this time, he could see their reflection in the water below as the track threw them facedown.

Olivia’s white-knuckled grip tightened on his hand, while her other hand tightened around his arm. He turned to tease her about squeezing too close to him, but the words froze on his lips.

Her skin bereft of color, her features frozen in stark terror, Olivia screamed at the top of her lungs as their car veered into another loop, throwing them upside down from a height from which people on the ground looked like colorful dots.

She screamed, the sound edged with terror.

As the third loop approached, she was shaking uncontrollably next to him, her hands clammy. His threw his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her closer to him, the strange sensation in his gut standing out even amid the thrill thrumming through his veins.

* * *

By the time they had reached the penthouse, Alexander didn’t have words to describe the day. Even in thought. The quiet joy of the evening was, quite literally, something he had never experienced before.

Olivia had been right. It was the most fun he had had in...
forever.
And it wasn’t just the insane roller coasters, either. It was her company, her pleasure in the smallest things that had done it. They had gone on three rides, gotten their picture taken in a booth and he had even won her a stuffed toy.

He couldn’t remember a time, even when he’d been a kid, when he hadn’t been mired by a sense of responsibility and until this moment, he hadn’t realized how much of that he had carried into his adult life.

He had made millions through sheer hard work, had taken responsibility for his sister when he’d turned twenty and he had never learned to laugh, to live for the moment, to lose himself in the sheer pleasure of everyday things. He hadn’t even known what he’d needed or what he’d been missing. But one thing he hadn’t missed was the fear that Olivia had felt throughout each ride.

Her long legs folded under her, she leaned back into the couch and blew out a tired breath. He swallowed and pulled his gaze from her graceful neck. Her brown eyes twinkled as they met his. “So what’s the verdict?”

“You want your pound of flesh, Shylock?”

“Yes.”

“It was more fun than I’ve had in a while.”

Her eyes bright, she smiled. She didn’t need to give a hoot whether he had or not. But she did. And the warmth in her smile stole through him.

“Even better, we didn’t argue,” she said, her gaze slipping to his mouth for the fraction of a second.

Too tired to fight his own impulses, he watched her hungrily as she walked to the refrigerator and pulled out an ice cube.

Being attracted to her when he’d considered her a selfish, scandalous epitome of everything he despised had been easy. But she was slowly turning every arrogant assumption of his into dust.

Every nerve in him tightened painfully as she ran the ice cube over her cheeks and neck, wetting her t-shirt in the process. “Thanks for today. It was a lot of fun except when you refused to share your cotton candy with me.”

He laughed out loud. “Well, you were already hyper and every time we were on one of the rides, you looked decidedly green. Now I know you’re not as fearless as you behave. Did you go on those rides just so that you could cozy up to me?”

She threw the ice cube at him. “You really think you’re irresistible, don’t you?”

He fisted his hand over the ice cube, the idea of a cold shower sounding better and better. “Not so funny now, is it?”

“Good night, Alexander.”

Shooting up from the couch, he tugged her arm. “You were terrified for every single second of those three rides. I kept waiting for you to throw up, or to say enough.”

She shrugged. “I know. Every time I go on one of them, I tell myself this is the time I won’t be scared. But it never works that way.”

“So you’ve done this before?”

“Yep.”

“And yet you still go, knowing that you’re going to be terrified?”

“I will never know the thrill unless I do, will I? And it’s a roller coaster. It’s not like it might kill me.”

“That’s how you do everything in life, don’t you?” His question was loaded with accusation that instantly killed the curve of her mouth. But he couldn’t stop himself. “You jump on it for the thrill and to hell with the price you might have to pay.”

“You make me sound like an adrenaline junkie.”

“More like emotion junkie.”

“Well, of course, I jinxed it, didn’t I? Truce over.” She folded her hands, gearing up for a fight. “Stop messing around and just tell me what’s bugging you.”

He felt a familiar sensation pummel through his blood, something that had once almost destroyed him. He didn’t want to feel the concern tightening his chest, especially for someone like Olivia.

Because Olivia didn’t need anyone. That was her appeal, her wild defiance of every convention, her absolute acceptance of herself. Yet his analytical mind couldn’t stop seeing the pattern of why or how she did things.

Until now he had attributed it all to recklessness, to sheer lack of concern for everything in life but her selfish pursuits, yet he couldn’t hold on to that belief now.

He caught her elbow and turned her toward him. The same pervasive thrill ran through him at her nearness.

God, he’d never been so tempted to kiss someone like he wanted to kiss her, never wanted to defy his own set of rules, everything he had built his life around. Until he met Olivia, his control, his will, had never really been tested.

“Not every thrill in life needs to be chased, not every emotion needs to be explored until it consumes you. And not everything you chase is as harmless as the roller coaster, is it?”

She tugged her hand away from him, her posture stiffening. “I don’t know what—”

“Your affair, your careers, your choices in—”

She paled, her gaze stricken. “You think I had an affair with Jacques for the thrill of it?”

“No, I’m saying you’ve gotten into the habit of chasing the wrong things just so that you could find some validation, to find some.... It’s okay to say enough, to cut your losses, and even better to take control and walk away.”

“I know failure, Alexander. It’s been my longest friend.”

He shook his head. “Walking away from something that’s not good for you doesn’t equate failure. It takes just as much courage as to succeed. Believe me, I’ve been there.”

Olivia stared at him. Just hearing the same words
failure
and
Alexander
in the same sentence was enough to silence her.

Tilting her chin up, he pressed a kiss on her cheek. “Good night, Olivia.”

Olivia slid against the leather, her arms and legs boneless as he walked away from her.

She ran a hand over her cheek where he had kissed her, tried to breathe past the fluttering in her stomach. She had always attributed her failures—in anything she had done, to herself, to her own faults and weaknesses.

Alexander’s words turned the assumption on its head. There had been no contempt in his words, no derision. They had rung with belief, even concern, as though it had mattered to him that she see things his way.

In that moment, she wanted to believe him.