He might have cared, but he’d never touched her all those years and it had been for a reason.
He’d felt deep affection for her but he’d never planned on having her in his life. He didn’t do romance. He didn’t do love in that sense.
It was one thing to feel protective toward her from a distance, to care for her well-being, her safety. But he’d never wanted a wife or children, and he’d never thought to drag a woman into his life in that way.
So he’d never touched her, because he’d known he would only hurt her.
And she hurt you instead.
No. He was not hurt.
He was furious.
“It was a lovely speech,” he said. “Are you finished?”
“I’m finished.”
“We will continue speaking about this when the doctor has had his say.”
She looked out the window. “Where are we?”
“The doctor.”
She gave him a narrow-eyed look.
It was a plush facility. Private, and they were ushered in immediately, where Olive’s vitals were taken, and her temperature checked, while she was cocooned in a blanket on a velvet couch.
“I don’t need a doctor,” she protested.
“You seem to be dehydrated,” the intake nurse said.
Gunnar lifted a shoulder. “What did I tell you?”
“And what is this? You just can’t send me to prison until you make sure I’m properly hydrated? That’s very strange.”
“I like my opponents to be healthy. For the same reason I don’t engage in corporate espionage, Olive. I like my playing fields even. All the better to prove that I am the best. I can see how you failed on that score.”
“If you proceed through the door,” the nurse said. “You will find a restroom. We’ll take a urine sample, and then we’ll work on getting you some liquid.”
“I don’t want to give a urine sample,” she said.
“Oh,” the woman said.
And Gunnar thought... Well, he thought that he had not imagined he would be sitting in this place, listening to Olive discuss what sorts of samples she was willing to give the doctor, but it was strange to him that she did not wish to give this one.
“We are very discreet,” the nurse said. “If narcotics are detected...”
“It’s not... I don’t do drugs,” Olive said. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just... Invasion of privacy. And I don’t want to do it. I have a phobia of lab cups. They scare me.”
“Why exactly?”
And he walked his mind backward. Through all of this. Through coming into her office and finding her eating saltines. To her passing out. To her combative behavior.
And now the fact that she did not wish to give this sample. And if it was not drugs, as she was quick to state—and he believed it, because for all that Olive was a competitive and strange creature, he could not see her taking a risk with her brain, and substances—well, he could think then of only one thing.
“Olive,” he said, his voice a growl. “Are you pregnant?”