CHAPTER FOUR
GUNNARHADNEVERtaken Olive for being weak. She had always seemed strong and plucky and well able to dish out and take the same.
But here she was, collapsed into his arms, fainted dead away, and he knew that it wasn’t a ruse. Because there was no way that she could contrive to have her lips turn that worryingly bluish tint.
And there was no question that he must take action.
Gunnar lifted her up, carrying her out of the front of the office.
And everybody outside looked up at him as if he had murdered her.
“She fainted,” he said, growled. “Does anyone have water?”
“I...” The woman behind the counter looked nervous.
And no one was jumping to attention. No one was making movements—frantic or otherwise—to see to the health of their clearly unwell boss.
A drinking problem, Jason had said, but this was not alcohol.
She was ill.
“Ridiculous,” he said, striding down the hall, holding Olive to his chest. He was furious with her. For not being what he’d believed her to be.
That realization caught hard in his chest.
He had been on the verge of strangling her, and then, he had found her crouched in a corner eating crackers.
Something wasn’t right about this, and he knew that.
But then, something wasn’t right about any of this. It was that damned woman. The way that she had gotten him to let his guard down. He had to wonder if she had been running a long con all this time. Had gotten him to see her as someone formidable, but ultimately fluffy. Someone he wanted to protect as much as he wanted to spar with her.
He had brought her cupcakes, and it had started as a joke, and then he had been amused by the fact that she expected them.
But he wondered if somewhere in there, he had allowed her to get between a crack in the wall.
He had begun to feel for her. Deeply.
And now...
She had betrayed him. And it burned.
He had set about to live a life that needed no one. That was not dependent on others to be good or true or right, because he knew he could not trust them to be.
But somewhere along the way he’d grown complacent about her, and too confident in his own ability to discern who was right and good.
He had let her get beneath his defenses.
Never again.
Even now, while he felt obligated to see to her health, he hardened himself against her. Against those feelings.
An interesting question to ask himself as he carried her limp form through the lobby of her high-rise office building, and out the revolving doors. His driver pulled up to the curb. “Take me to the nearest private doctor. I will pay whatever expense, but I don’t know what is the matter with her.”
“Did you poison her?” the driver asked.
Everyone knew about his rivalry with Olive. It was legendary. A thing written about in the press. Their competition for contracts was a highly sought out show.
And sometimes he thought that people reviewed both of their work simply to see them in action.