Hot Commodity (11 page)

Realizing this was the last time she’d see him, she lifted her face. Maybe it was the physical intimacies they’d shared, but suddenly she felt a connection to him. She didn’t want to leave. She was going to miss him. Last night had been nice.

He’d been the best time she’d ever had.

She didn’t want his abhorrence. She wanted to somehow fix the rift. When they called her flight, she bit her lip. Now or never.

"I’m sorry," she said quietly and a little desperately. "It was a stupid thoughtless thing to say." He refused to meet her gaze, and Olivia swallowed her disappointment. "I didn’t mean it. I just...I—"

"I’ll have my lawyer send you the papers through the mail," he said, then turned and stalked off only to pause a few feet later and pivot back. "You’re positive you’ll be okay? If you’re that scared of her, I can—"

"I’ll be fine," Olivia said, her eyes opening wide at his way-too-kind offer. She waited until he nodded and turned away again before she blinked back the tears.

As she watched him walk out of her life, her shoulders slumped. He might’ve been the one man she’d wanted to avoid, but he’d given her something no one else ever had: a night full of hope.

~ * ~

Pasadena, California

Nauseated, Olivia stepped from the back seat of her mother’s town car and shivered as a chill of dread raced up her spine. She murmured a thank you to the butler who held open the door for her and then paused to stare up at the house.

The adobe-styled mansion with its clay-shingled roof was the only home she’d ever known. She’d grown up here. So why did it feel more like she was returning to a prison she’d tried to escape? Why didn’t she look forward to going inside her own home?

Because Vivian was in there.

Honestly, though, Olivia didn’t know where else to go. She had no close friends that would take her in. There wasn’t any family left that would claim either Vivian or her daughter and, well, that was about it.

The closest people to Olivia were her maid and hair stylist, and she couldn’t pull either Rosa or Grace Ellen into her problems. Her mother could destroy them both with a single phone call, getting one deported and the other arrested for writing worthless checks.

No, she couldn’t depend on anyone else. This was her life, the life she’d chosen for herself, and she needed to deal with it. Straightening her shoulders with a courage she didn’t feel, she started forward.

Her d’Orsay heels clicked on the cobblestone path, reminding her of one of those horror movies where the lone sound of high heels on concrete echoed through an empty parking garage just before the killer pounced. The perfect drum roll for her own impending doom.

The door opened before she reached it. She stumbled a step. Rosa peered out at her, eyes wide.

"Miss Donovan," she said, though her voice cracked with trepidation, "Mr. and Mrs. Roark are waiting to speak with you in the breakfast room."

Olivia’s face drained of color. The breakfast room. Of course, Vivian would summon her to the room where her father had died. Vivian was a pro at psychological warfare.

"Thank you, Rosa," she murmured and started her way toward her destiny.

Still wearing Cameron’s extra-large shirt, her fingers balled around the excess cloth covering her cold, clammy hands, taking comfort in the small protective warmth it provided. Her 'husband' probably wouldn’t be pleased about providing any kind of support for her, but she appreciated the soft cotton of his shirt anyway.

Vivian sat at the head of the table, reading a
Wall Street Journal
. A full meal was spread out on the ecru tablecloth. Nolan sat at her left elbow, the slight tremor in his liver-spotted hands showing his age as he split open a roll and buttered it.

Only breakfast was eaten in the breakfast room. Down the hall, a large grandfather clock chimed letting her know it was noon, way past time for a morning meal.

She bit back a shudder, knowing the only reason Vivian would eat lunch in here was to torture her. The wave of déjà vu that struck almost brought her to her knees. Her mother had planned it well, set up everything the same way it had been that morning. She wanted Olivia to remember. And remember she did. Vividly.

Olivia’s heels announced her arrival. Vivian lowered her paper and glanced at Olivia as if surprised.

"Darling," she called almost pleasantly, ushering Olivia further into the room. "Join us for lunch."

 
Olivia swallowed, hesitated, then moved forward. Easing into the chair at Vivian’s right, the same place she’d been sitting when her father had killed himself, she folded her hands in her lap and eyed the food, hoping she didn’t vomit.

"Eat," Vivian said with a congenial smile.

"The chicken is divine," Nolan added.

Olivia pressed a hand to her quaking stomach. "I’m not hungry."

"EAT," Vivian roared.

Olivia jumped at the unexpected bellow. Fumbling as she picked up her knife and fork, she cut into the breaded chicken on her plate, dicing it into tiny bite-sized pieces. Her mother glared, but she studiously ignored the woman, concentrating on slicing each portion precisely.

"Whose shirt is that?"

Olivia sank back and clutched the fabric to her chest as if she thought her mother might rip the cloth off her.

Vivian glowered. "Olivia, I asked you a question."

A remaining spark of her rebellion must’ve been lingering inside her from the night before, smoldering like a glowing ember ready to be blown on and ignited, because she lifted her chin and said, "Why, Mother, don’t you know? It belongs to Cameron Banks."

She only said the truth because she knew Vivian would never believe it. Which she didn’t. Lurching to her feet, Vivian stood so fast her chair overturned. Before Olivia could duck or brace herself, her mother’s arm swung around and her palm cracked against Olivia’s jaw. Long French-tipped nails sliced open her cheek, and Olivia wrenched backward, falling from her chair and onto the floor. She’d barely landed on all fours when her mother grabbed her by her hair and twisted, yanking her head up, forcing her to her feet. Olivia cried out; tears stinging her eyes.

"You’re lucky he wasn’t at the convention last night," Vivian hissed, puffing coffee-scented breath in her face. "If he
had
showed up, and you’d pulled this little stunt, I’d be very upset right now, Olivia."

Olivia whimpered.

"Where were you?"

When she didn’t answer, Vivian tightened her hold on Olivia’s hair briefly before shoving her back to the floor. Olivia began to scramble up until she noticed Nolan suddenly there, looming over her and staring with a cold, dead gaze as if he would push her right back down if she tried to stand.

She stayed down.

Vivian snorted. "God, you’re just like your father." She sneered. "All he ever thought about was what woman’s legs he could spread next."

Olivia didn’t move, but lay as still as death on the cold tile at her mother’s and stepfather’s feet with her arms curled protectively around her head.

"You owe me!" Vivian added, nudging her in the ribs with a sharp-toed shoe as if trying to get her attention. "Every day, you sit around my house and spend my money on your shopping sprees. Well, it’s time to pay up, little sister. You
will
meet Banks and you
will
work your damnedest to seduce him. Do I make myself clear?" When Olivia didn’t respond fast enough, Vivian stomped her foot, causing the floor to vibrate around her. "Do I?"

"Y-yes."

Her mother remained quiet a moment. Then she snorted. "God, you’re pathetic. I must be out of my mind to think you’ll ever attract a powerful man like Banks. Maybe you should just put yourself out of your misery like your worthless father did and give us all a little peace and quiet."

Olivia stayed curled in a ball on the floor as Vivian strode from the room half a second later, closely followed by Nolan, who looked like a horny buck chasing a doe in heat.

Cheek stinging as if it’d been carved open with a machete instead of a fingernail, Olivia let her shoulders slump in relief, glad Vivian was gone.

Her mother had only slapped her twice before. Once, when she’d been seventeen and attempted to run away with a boyfriend. They’d been caught five miles from home. Vivian slapped her as soon as she’d been ushered through the front door. Then she’d locked Olivia in her room for two weeks. Olivia had never seen Derrick again, though she heard he’d been forcibly recruited into the army.

The second slap came the day her father died.

Olivia rose unsteadily to her feet and stumbled to a chair where she sank down. She realized her fingers were trembling when she lifted them to her face. Suddenly, a vivid picture entered her head. Glancing around the room, she didn’t see it as it was now, but how it had been then.

Olivia didn’t mourn Roger Donovan, not as a normal daughter should. She’d never been close to him, and he’d never loved her. She distinctly remembered overhearing Roger one time say, "I had to get a vasectomy after Olivia was born because I couldn’t stomach the thought of giving Vivian another worthless brat."

Of course, a vasectomy also helped him run off and have as many affairs as he wished without the consequence of siring bastard children. Vivian didn’t seem to care about his indiscretion. She said it kept him away from her. So the two parents lived happily enough, ignoring each other and the single daughter they’d created together.

Her father killed himself on an April morning. At the time, Olivia was fifteen. It was one of those crisp spring days with lilies blooming in the yard and singing birds swarming home from their winter beak. Olivia was sitting at the breakfast table to the right side of her mother when her life changed forever.

After taking on one new mistress, Roger had actually become enamored. He even announced he was in love. Then the word divorce was mentioned, and Vivian finally grew fed up. Thinking her husband might cause a scandal, she made Roger’s lover disappear.

But Roger hadn’t taken it well.

Olivia could still remember what she’d been eating—toast with grape jelly, a glass of orange juice, and a plate full of strawberries covered in powered sugar—when Roger barreled down the stairs to confront his wife over the matter.

As usual, Vivian sat at the head of the table, reading the
Wall Street Journal
when he stalked in.

No one looked up.

But he stomped his foot, and Olivia finally lifted her face. When she saw the gun in his hand, she gasped, which finally gained Vivian’s attention as well.

At first, Olivia thought her own father would murder her and Vivian then and there. But that’s not what happened. Roger shook, his skin glazed with sweat, as he turned the gun to his own temple and stared at Vivian with glossy, vacant eyes.

Not once did he glance at Olivia, his one and only child. He merely glared at his wife with a bone-deep hatred and gritted his teeth.

Vivian laughed. "Go ahead." She waved an unconcerned hand for him to proceed. "With all the insurance I’ve got on you, your worthless ass is worth more to me dead than alive, anyway." Not that she’d collected a penny from his suicide, but that was the kind of thing she liked to say.

It was enough encouragement to make Roger pull the trigger.

Blood splattered on Olivia, on her toast, and even in her orange juice.

At first, the flash-bang of sound and spray of red rendered her motionless. Her ears rang from the explosion. She’d thought she’d gone deaf, but then she heard the thud as her father’s lifeless body hit the floor.

She looked down, and the screams that followed were ripped from her throat with a terror she’d never felt before or since.