Alexander’s arresting face filled the screen. Her stomach clenched painfully.
He was standing in the huge lobby of King Towers surrounded by a crowd, whom Carlos and his men were unsuccessfully trying to control. Flashbulbs illuminated the angles of his face, microphones were thrust closer, a babble of hungry excitement as the reporters fought to get closer to him.
And he hated it. His expression was blank, his posture ramrod straight. But she could see the tight line of his shoulders, the granite-hard jaw, the way his gaze focused on something faraway. He despised standing there in front of them, yet he was, why?
She shivered and took a deep breath, to clear the roaring in her ears so she could hear his actual words.
He spoke in a hoarse voice, explaining in detail to a rapt audience that his relationship with Kim had long been over, and that Olivia was innocent of everything, that her contract with one of his companies had been won through her sheer talent and hard work. A sob built in her chest as he continued that he was the guilty party, he was the one who had pursued her.
If you believe nothing else, believe that Olivia has done no wrong, toward her sister or anyone else. She’s the one who’s been wronged.
Olivia switched the TV off and buried her face in the bed, her throat a raw mass of aching pain. She should feel vindicated, whether the vultures believed it or not, Alexander had cleared her name. And she knew how much it must have cost him to do it.
Yet all she felt was a hollowness that felt as if it would never go away. Even during the worst moments that day, she hadn’t felt this loneliness, this huge weight in her gut. In fact, in a perverse way, they had distracted her from this, from looking at her shattered heart.
She wiped her face and took a sip of water from her bottle when her nape prickled.
She turned, ready to tell Kim to leave her alone.
Alexander stood leaning against the door, his gaze hungrily eating her up. His jaw unshaven, he looked tired, the jutting cheekbones even more angular. Yet his presence filled the room, wound itself around her, making it harder to draw breath. The bottle cap slipped from her hand and she looked down for it, tears pooling in her eyes.
She blinked a few times and then jerked up into a sitting position. “How did you get here?”
Still leaning against the door, he pointed up. “Carlos choppered me to the penthouse terrace.”
“Because of the press?”
He shrugged. “Wasn’t sure if Kim would let me into the building.”
Olivia nodded. As much as she had tried, Kim wouldn’t stop blaming herself.
She breathed in quick, shallow bursts, the question she wanted to ask most burning her insides. But she couldn’t.
Alexander pushed himself from the door, every muscle in him bunched tight. Aching to touch her, he moved his arm to push the hair off her forehead but she drew back. He fisted his hand, her retreat slashing through him.
He picked up her phone from the bedside table and checked it. She hadn’t turned it off which meant she knew that he’d been calling her non-stop. His mind jumped far ahead coming to conclusions, none that he wanted to know. “You didn’t answer my calls.”
She averted her gaze from him, and the uncharacteristic silence pierced through him. She wore a pink sleeveless T-shirt that hugged her breasts, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. He swallowed at the sight of her nipples against the soft cotton. Matching pink panties peeked out before she pulled the duvet up to her neck, pink flushing her cheeks.
“I didn’t want to talk to you.” Anger bunched her brows together. “I still don’t.”
He nodded, incapable of forming a response.
“I...saw what you did. I know how much you must have hated it. So I...appreciate it,” she said formally.
He kept his hands at his sides. “What did Jeremiah say to you, Liv?”
Her gaze flashed to him, a depth of sadness in it that twisted his gut. She shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. “He—” her gaze brimmed with tears and Alexander felt as though a knife had been plunged into him “—called me a slut who would betray her own sister, without listening to a word I said.” A tear rolled down her cheek and he couldn’t take it anymore. He edged closer to her, sat on the bed and pulled her shaking shoulders to him. “But I stood up to him. I know now that the fault doesn’t lie with me, I do, but I didn’t think it would hurt so much, either. I’m nothing but a fool.”
If he had felt pain before, it was nothing compared to what coursed through him now. Everything inside him wanted to cocoon her, tell her that she should have nothing to do with her father again. In fact, he would make sure she never saw him. He opened his mouth to tell her the same and the words stuck in his throat.