“I have never in my life felt so betrayed.”
I feel like the biggest asshole in the world. Fuck. This wasn’t how I wanted to start the New Year, as a bad friend.
“I made him promise to keep my secret,” Olivia’s voice cuts in.
Axel glares at her as hurt flashes across his whiskey-colored eyes. “Don’t you have some fiancé to go and keep happy?” he snaps at her.
I’ve never seen Axel talk like that to a woman before, he is always a gentleman. Olivia looks as devastated as he does. Shit. I’ve really messed things up by pushing these two together. I thought it would be some sexy fun, but it seems real feelings are involved. I must fix this.
“I’m so sorry, Axel. I never meant to hurt you, that’s why I gave you a fake number so nothing could happen,” Olivia says softly.
But nothing she says seems to be able to calm Axel down. “Ah, so it’s my fault. My fault that I got sucked into your ... what did your fiancé call it? Oh, that’s right, your magic pussy.”
SLAP.
Olivia slaps him. Holy shit!
“Fuck you,” Axel screams at her once the shock has worn off.
I get between the two of them. “Hey. Calm the fuck down. She had her reasons to keep that from you.” Axel has never been this upset before about anything.
“Oh, she had her reasons,” he repeats, the disdain dripping off his words as he looks ready to fight me.
“Fuck you, Ax. You’re being a dick,” I say, pushing him as a warning that he is letting his anger take over and cloud him. I get it. She hurt you. We all did, but you don’t get to talk to her like that. Axel pushes me back, and I stumble a couple of steps. What the hell? Then I get in his face and push him again, just because I fly the rainbow flag doesn’t mean I can’t kick your musical ass.But Axel is blinded by rage, and things go south quickly, and we end up in a scuffle. I can hear Olivia screaming for the two of us to break it up, but we ignore her as we continue to scuffle until the silly woman gets between us, and Axel elbows her in the nose, making her scream. This stops us instantly, and we turn and see the blood gushing from her face.
Shit.
“Fuck, Liv, are you okay?”
She looks a little disoriented as she shakes her head. “Um … yeah, I’ll be okay.” She grabs a tissue from her bra and pushes it against her nose to stop the flow.
I twirl around and get up into Axel’s face. How could he do this to her? “Don’t you ever fucking touch her again, you hear me?”
Axel looks as white as a ghost as he glances between me and Olivia. “It was a fucking accident, D.” Then he turns to where Olivia is standing, blotting her nose. “I’m sorry, Liv …” he starts to apologize, and I think he’s got a handle on himself, but the idiot can’t control his stupid mouth, “… but you shouldn’t put yourself into the middle of a scuffle.” He steps toward her.
Olivia looks at him in surprise as fresh tears fall down her cheeks. The audacity of this man to blame her for his elbow.
“Get the fuck away from us,” I yell.
Axel genuinely seems surprised by my aggression. He takes one long look at Olivia, flips me off, and storms away.
“Let’s get you inside.” I turn and wrap my arms around her shoulders, as she shivers in the snowy weather. Olivia doesn’t say a word, just burrows herself into my side as I walk her inside. I take her up to my room where no one can see her, and help clean her up, we are both silent for a long time. Thankfully, she had a tampon in her purse and was able to shove that up there, while I helped fix up her makeup, so it didn’t look like she’s having a shit New Year’s.
“He hates me,” she says quietly.
“It’s not hate, it’s hurt,” I reassure her.
“I should have told him about my engagement when we first met.”
“You’re not to blame, none of us told him, either.” I feel sick about it. I thought it would be harmless fun, how wrong was I?
Olivia shakes her head. “I tried to stay away from him, D, I tried …” she confesses, hiccupping, “… he’s very persuasive.”
This has me smiling. “Girl, who could say no to Axel Taylor?” A small smile falls across her lips. “Seems like something has developed between the two of you since arriving.”
“My mind blanked when I saw him arrive. I forgot he was Christian’s twin. I thought he was going to stay a nice memory in Monaco.”
“Axel has never been bothered over women before. The man is a rock star, he has women falling at his feet. He never chases. He never dates. He is all about having fun and freedom until you.”
