Page 32 of Between Desire and Denial

He smiled big. “I do have a daughter, Olive Bee.” He looked down at the girl with his same jet-black hair and said, “This here is Olive, Franny. We call her Olive Bee sometimes because her middle name is Bee after bumblebees.”

“She’s no bee, Daddy.” She glanced at me. “I’m Franny. I’m four.”

“That’s very nice.” I nodded, wanting to back away. I wasn’t good with children, wasn’t even good with my younger brother.

“Olive Bee, you okay?”

“I’m…” The question brought tears to my eyes, but I couldn’t fall apart on the street. “I’m fine. Just catching up with everything that’s been happening here.”

“A lot has changed.” He said it with a heaviness as he stared over at my family’s house.

“Yeah. None of it feels right.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Just watch where you’re digging. You know how Paradise Grove is.” He said it lightly, but there was a hint of truth in his tone that I caught.

My gut feeling of something being wrong grew, but I held the idea close to my chest. “A lot has changed. Too much.” I sighed. “But I’m back. So, maybe we’ll see how I end up fitting in here now, huh?”

“You won’t fit in with that Hardy here with you. He’s got no idea what it takes to build up a community like ours.” He chuckled. “How did you get tangled up with him?”

“Same circles, I guess.” I shrugged. We’d have to get our story straight if I was staying.

“No one likes that condo building, the idea of that office structure, or the strip mall he’s trying to get passed.”

I smiled softly, trying to appear positive, like a nice girlfriend would. “It’ll all work out. I wouldn’t let him put anything here that would be bad for us.”

“Why not?” He smirked at me. “We used to hate this place.”

“Yeah, well, we’re both back, right?”

“I never really left,” he admitted and looked at his daughter like he was contemplating if this was the right place to raise her. “You got any plans to leave that Hardy in the dust so I can really stall his building plans?”

I sighed and shrugged. “You all love to give a newcomer a hard time.”

“Truthfully, I’m going to give anyone who’s dating you a hard time. I thought you’d come back for me one day.”

I hummed. “Maybe you’ll give him a chance for me then?”

“We’ll see.” He winked, and I waved at him as I walked toward what I’d decided was going to be my new home for the summer.

I contemplated my stepmother’s words as I made my way up our driveway, and when I swung open the door, Dimitri was sitting in the living room, working like he wasn’t at all concerned that I’d left for an hour. “Getting your luggage packed now?”

“I’m staying,” I announced to him. “All summer. What do you need me to do?”

Chapter Twelve

DIMITRI

Olive Monroe stoodthere in her gray sweater with a new look in her eyes, determined and full of fire. And tears. It was the second time I’d seen her vulnerable and broken. And the urge to help her pick up the pieces and comfort her was there again.

That was an obvious issue. I wanted to fix all her problems when we weren’t even dating. Instead, I’d bribed her into coming here and had goaded her into faking a relationship with me all summer just so I could be around her to see all her emotions unfold.

“What just happened?” I slowly closed the laptop I was working on and set it aside.

She combed her hands through her curls, and when they flew over the little Hawaiian flower she always wore, she threw it off and let it land on the ground. “I can still stay, right?”

I’d really believed that people who wore their hearts on their sleeves never appealed to me. I prided myself on avoiding them actually. I thought it was best to spend less time on relationships and more time on business. Yet, with Olive, I studied every emotion on her face. They were like fireflies that I wanted to lock in a mason jar and watch light up the night.

She was open with me about her family in that car and suddenly, I knew I was considering doing everything I could to be a part of her life that made good memories with her.