Page 16 of Between Desire and Denial

“Pretty sure her and Rufford had a spat. She’s probably nursing her wounds.”

I heard Kee sigh. “Right. I saw that coming from the way he was so distant with her. I should swing by her hotel room and—”

“Enjoy your first morning of marriage, Kee. Olive’s just fine. I’ll check on her.” I winced immediately and then pinched the bridge of my nose. In the past, it would have been so easy to handle a small problem like this for Kee, but now I’d slept with her friend. “I’ll call you later.”

I hung up and punched Olive’s number. It rang once, then twice, then went directly to voicemail.

She was ignoring me? I hated that she thought she could and that it was the best option she landed on. So, I did what I shouldn’t have. I pulled up the hotel registry and figured out her room number. These were the benefits of being part owner.

I called her room’s phone from mine. That way, she wouldn’t know who was calling.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded laced with sleep and confusion. I glanced at the time. It was a bit early after what we’d been doing all night, but I didn’t care.

“You’re ignoring me when I gave you orgasm after orgasm last night?”

“Dimitri?” she murmured, like she couldn’t believe it.

“Who else would it be, Olive? You have some other guy last night too?”

“Oh, shut up,” she grumbled as I heard rustling. “Why are you calling me?”

“Why weren’t you in my damn bed?” I said back even though I wasn’t supposed to be calling about that.

I was met with silence, a long tense silence I didn’t at all feel comfortable with. Normally, there was no vulnerability when I was with a woman, no questions about how she felt, no worries that I might be bothering her. With Olive, I thought of all those things at once.

“I needed to sleep. So, I came back to my room.”

“You couldn’t sleep next to me?” I sounded like a butthurt reject.

“I don’t really sleep well next to other people,” she confessed. “Anyway, it’s not you, it’s—”

“Are you feeding me a line right now?”

“Well, you sound like you kind of might need a line,” she said quietly before I heard a giggle.

“Are you laughing at me?” Why was I completely offended?

“Dimitri, I think my intentions last night were clear.”

“Crystal. I know what we did was just a hookup,” I corrected her pointedly, my voice almost a growl.

“Oh, okay.” She cleared her throat. “Good. Then, if there’s nothing else—”

“Kee wants to know if you’re all right. I told her about Rufford and—”

“You did not tell her that we slept together, right?” She cut me off with a screechy voice. Then I heard more rustling. “I’m up. Do you want to talk about this? We should definitely talk about this. She cannot know. I can come back to your suite if you want to discuss how to handle it and—"

“You want to see me now all of a sudden?” I grumbled.

“I don’t give a crap about seeing you, Dimitri. I just need you to promise you will not tell her anything.”

“Why?” I didn’t want to tell her either but, damn, she was adamant.

“Why?” she repeated and her voice got higher. “Why? Because she’s employed me for the better part of my adulthood when I needed her, and I cannot have her thinking I’m sleeping around with her best friend.”

“Is that all I am? Your friend’s best friend?”

“Yep,” she said loudly, like it was obvious. “You’re her very rich, very annoying, very entitled, does-whatever-he-wants-and-shows-up-whenever-he-feels-like-it best friend. We barely even talk because you’re working in the corner all the time. Barely friends, Dimitri. Barely. And if she thinks I just had a total lapse in judgment because of a breakup, which I did, I will look completely vulnerable and she’ll worry. I’m her assistant. I’m supposed to worry abouther.”