Thief

She swears at me and smacks my chest. I hold her against me so she can get the full effect of what I’m about to say.

“Do you feel that?” I say into her ear. She glares up at me. “That’s what you’ve done to every man in this room.”

It’s fairly dark, but I can see the effect my words have on her. She doesn’t like to be the subject of sexual fantasy — little prude. I glance over at Cammie who mouths, Get her out of here.

I nod and push her in front of me. She’s had too much to drink already or she’d be fighting me. The bar is packed, and it’s hard to move us both through the throng of bodies. I press her back against my front and wrap my arms around her. We walk that way until we reach the doors. My lips are pressed together as a result of having one of her best assets bumping repeatedly against me. When we reach the fresh air, she’s quiet as I take her hand.

“Where’s your car?”

“At the office. Cammie drove me.”

I swear. Her office is a good eight blocks away from where we are.

I tug her along the sidewalk, her heels making clipping noises as she tries to keep up.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re walking to your car.”

“No!” She yanks her hand away. “I’m not spending an hour with you.”

I stride toward her, grab her face in my fingers, and kiss her roughly on the lips. I don’t let go of her face. “Yes, you f**king are. I’m not letting you go back in there to get molested.”

Her nostrils flare as she glowers at me.

“What?” I say. “What snarky little comment are you going to make? Keep your mouth shut, and let’s go.”

We walk two blocks before she starts complaining about her shoes. I yank her into an upscale corner store and snatch a pair of rubber flip-flops from a hook hanging next to the ice cream cooler. Tossing them onto the counter, I reach for the nearest bottle of liquor — which happens to be tequila — and hand that to the cashier who is openly eyeing Olivia.

I hand him my card and watch him, watch Olivia. He hands the card back and thanks me without ever moving his eyes from her body.

God, I’m going to f**king kill someone tonight.

Once outside, I bend down in front of her and unstrap her shoes. She steadies herself on my back as I gently pull them off and slide on the flip-flops.

When I stand up she’s so much shorter than me, I grin.

She holds out her hand for the tequila bottle. I give it to her. She twists off the cap and lifts the bottle to her mouth, all without taking her eyes from mine. She takes a sip, licks her lips, and hands the bottle back. I take a longer sip, and then we start our long walk.

Sometimes I fall back a little so she’s walking in front of me.

“Have I ever told you, that you have the single greatest ass I’ve ever seen?”

She ignores me.

“Of course, I’ve only seen it once…”

She stops, snatches the bottle from me and takes an especially long drink.

“Can you just not flirt with me for five seconds?”

“Fine, let’s talk about you and Noah.”

She groans.

“You were supposed to be working things out … or thinking … or-”

“I am!”

I scratch my head and look at her out of the corner of my eye.

“Where is he?”

She sniffs. “We had a fight.”

“About?”

We cross the street and head west.

“You.”

My skin tingles. I don’t know whether to feel guilty, curious or happy that I’m important enough to cause discord.

“You told him that you saw me?”

She nods.

“I can’t imagine he liked that.”

“He knows everything about us. I never tried to hide things from him. I thought you and I were over, and I wanted to be honest with him.”

I grab her hand and pull her to a stop. “Olivia, he knew how you felt about me, and he still married you.”

I can’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. What man would sign up for that? I rub my hand along the back of my sweat-soaked neck.

“Don’t take that self-righteous tone with me when you did the same thing.”

“That was different. I stayed with Leah because she was pregnant. I thought it was the right thing.”

Olivia’s mouth pops open. “Leah was…” She shakes her head. “It’s none of my business. And you’re right — it was different. Noah is a wonderful person, unlike that black-hearted bitch you married.”

We’re nearing her office building. She fumbles in her purse until she finds her keys. Instead of going to her car, she opens the door to Spinner & Kaspen and punches the code into the alarm system.

“We were on a cruise when he asked me to marry him. We were taking a walk on the deck, and he just turned to me and said, ‘If you weren’t in my life anymore, I’d be devastated. I want you to marry me.’”

I search her eyes trying to figure out why she’s telling me this.

“He said he knew what I felt for you was real, but he was willing to love me through it.”

I swallow. Damn. He’s a better man than me.

“I forgot you for a year. Noah was good at making me forget.”

I interrupt her because I don’t want to hear this. “Olivia-”

“Shut up.” The door swings shut behind us and we’re standing in the dark waiting room. All I can see are the outlines of her face. “I am in love with him, Caleb. I am.”

I grind my teeth together.

“But when I won the case, and I went into panic mode, it wasn’t him I wanted to talk to.” She sounds almost ashamed to say it. I remember how she showed up at my condo. “I just wanted you … and when Dobson escaped from the institution — I wanted you. When I had a miscarriage…” She places a hand over her mouth and sobs into it.

“Duchess…”

“Shut up and let me finish.” She uses her fingertips to wipe underneath her eyes. “When I had a miscarriage, I wanted your arms around me,” she says again. “Caleb, it hurts him. I don’t know whether to scream I told you so at him, or to drown myself in the ocean for bringing destruction into everything I do.”

She turns and stalks to her office. I follow her blindly. She flings the door open and flicks on the desk lamp instead of the halogen bulbs that hang from the ceiling. Walking over to her filing cabinet, she opens it and pulls out a stack of papers. She hands them to me.