Icover a yawn with my hand. My tenth in the last few minutes.
I’m burning the midnight oil and I know it, but what choice do I have? I’ve been working long hours getting all sides of Exclusively Yours ready for the Christmas and New Year season.
The boutiques are selling out of stock as quickly as I can stock them, and the dating agency is run off its feet with the flood of clients signing on at the last minute in the hope of finding a partner for all the parties held throughout the holiday season.
And then there are all my sleepless nights. I’ve been visiting Carter every night and the last thing we do is sleep.
Instead we spend hours having sex before I leave to return home. Like tonight. I walked in not five minutes ago from another night of bliss in his arms, except before I can go to bed, I need to get through this meal plan or there will be nothing for the girls to eat when they arrive tomorrow night for our monthly dinner.
For the first time in years, I am dreading the evening. The reason for my reluctance is a solid 6’3” of mouth-watering male perfection.
I told him earlier I won’t be coming to Boyd’s tomorrow and I’m not sure who pouted more—him or me. After I revealed my plans, Carter spent hours trying to convince me to cancel them.
I really want to beg off, and I would, except this month is my turn to host.
With a sigh, I turn the page and look at another possible recipe. Cooking is another part of my life I rarely share with others, and I’m good at it. Then again, I approach the kitchen arena like any other—with determination to succeed. There’s no room for failure in my life. No fuel for the tabloids to exploit.
The only blight on my seemingly perfect life is my marriage. Or lack of one.
But I blame Colin for that failure. I did everything I could to ensure a successful union, but unlike everything else in my life, my marriage held an unpredictable—uncontrollable—denominator.
Colin.
It’s hard to keep a marriage together when one of the spouses doesn’t want to be married. I admit I let him go without a fight, but having someone tell you they don’t love you—that youaren’tlovable—certainly punches the fight right out of you.
I spent my childhood living with people who didn’t love me, why would I do it again as an adult?
When Colin took a permanent job transfer in London and walked away from our marriage without a backward glance, I was relieved I wouldn’t have to continue living a lie.
Then I went and turned my entire life into one anyway.
Pushing that depressing thought away, I flick another page and find the perfect main course for tomorrow night’s get together.
I’m working from home tomorrow—I glance at the clock—today, so I can spend a lot of the day preparing for the girls to arrive at seven. My usual plan is to have the meal ready toserve before everyone arrives, that way I can socialize, except the thought of talking—pretending I haven’t met a man who truly rocks my world—makes me feel sick.
Or maybe it’s the rocked world making me nauseous.
It has been two weeks since the first night Carter took me against the wall in his office. Two weeks of hot, sweaty, multiple-strings-attached sex. I have never been scared of anything more than I am of my own emotions right now.
I liked Carter before we had sex. Now I’m afraid I’m a little bit in love with him.
Okay, a lot.
He’s wormed his way under my skin and into my mind—my heart—and I am petrified he’ll find out I’m not lovable.
That Olivia May Wexworth—the one I am every day—is shallow and snobby and stuck-up.
A complete fraud.
I project the perfect image to all around me. Advertise a successful dating agency that has failed its owner. And worse, I hide behind a wall of cool indifference that doesn’t allow anyone to see the real Olivia. The one Carter has poured drinks for, the one he’s watched pick up men to have sex with. The one he calls Livi—Princess.
My eyes sting and my nose tingles, a riot of emotions surging through me. Pushing back my chair, I stand. I don’t need to think this deeply about the sham my life is with a sleep-deprived brain and exhausted but sated body.
Walking out of the dining room, I switch the lights off and head for my bedroom, where I fall face first on the bed and do something I didn’t even do when my husband of eight months left me.
I let the tears fall.
12
