A Beautiful Mess (12 page)

“Here’s Runner,” Bethany said as Olivia entered the playroom, nearly tripping over a squeaky football. The man turned around, causing Olivia to stop dead in her tracks, a look of surprise across her face. Her stomach fluttered as she took in his beautiful body yet again. She didn’t think she would ever tire of looking at him, even with his clothes on.

“Libby, this is Mr. Alexander Burnham. He’s looking to adopt our Runner here.” Olivia just stared at Alexander, unable to form any coherent thoughts. She snapped out of her daze when Runner darted for Alexander, pulling her with him.

“I see that you two will get along famously!” Bethany exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Well, I’ll leave you to do the paperwork with our Olivia here,” she said, walking out of the room.

When she heard the click of the door, Olivia turned to Alexander. “What are you doing?”

“I’m adopting Runner. I’ve been wanting to get a dog for a while and there’s something about Runner that I love.” He bent down to give Runner a quick scratch on the head. Olivia unclipped Runner’s leash and he immediately rolled over, giving both of them an open invitation to rub his belly.

“Silly hound,” Olivia said, stroking Runner. Alexander bent down to rub the dog, meeting Olivia’s eyes. There was that spark again. Olivia didn’t know what to make of it. He wasn’t even touching her, but just being in the same room as him gave her an overwhelming feeling of contentment.
 

“Well, normally I like to make sure you’d be a good match before approving an adoption,” Olivia said, remembering she had a job to do. “But I think we’re all set here. And plus, I know where you work so I know where to find and hurt you if you ever mistreat Runner here.” She looked up, smirking.

“Good point.” Alexander grabbed a tennis ball and threw it across the room. Runner immediately ran to catch the ball, bringing it back to Alexander but refusing to drop it on the ground.

“Oh. Runner doesn’t understand fetch with just one ball. You’ll need more than one if you expect that hound to drop the one in his mouth,” Olivia explained.

Alexander smiled. “I think that can be arranged.”

After they were finished with the paperwork, Olivia walked Alexander and Runner outside. “Now,” she said, turning to face Alexander. “Runner needs lots of exercise so take him on your runs with you. He loves the dog park and…”

“I know, Olivia. He’ll be fine,” he said, brushing an errant curl behind her ear. “I’m going to take great care of our boy here.” He winked.

I can’t believe he referred to Runner as our boy!
Olivia thought. Those two words were full of so much hope.

“And you have an open invitation to come and visit him anytime you want.”

“Good. I’m going to hold you to that,” she said, bending down and giving Runner one last kiss good-bye.

“You better,” he replied before walking down the street, leaving her standing outside the front door of the animal shelter.

“I’m falling in serious like with that man,” Olivia said to herself.

L
ATER
that evening, Olivia returned to her house. After her hectic weekend, she wanted to unwind and have some much needed time to herself. As she prepared her dinner of tofu stir-fry, she kept glancing at the flowers Alexander sent her over the weekend. Feeling bold, she picked up her cell phone and sent him a text.

Olivia:
How’s Runner?

Across town, Alexander was speaking with his sister, Carol, on the phone in his home office about Simon’s arraignment.

“I don’t know, Alex. There’s something about this guy that seems off. I don’t want you to read too much into what I’m saying. It’s not her. She’s gone.”

“I know that, sis, but I’ve been spending time with her this weekend and there are just so many coincidences.” His voice dropped as he stared at the dark walls in his office. “Too many, really.”

“I understand that. The name. The age. Her background. Losing her parents. I understand everything you’ve told me. So tell me this. Why would Dad say she died at the hospital? And why would he change her name?”

Alexander knew all too well why his father would do such a thing. He was unaware of it at the time, as he had just turned nine, but now it made sense. In fact, he had helped people fake their own deaths too many times to count in order to protect them for their safety. And he also knew that if it was true and her identity was ever uncovered, he could lose her again. He vowed to make sure that did not happen.

Just then, a text from Olivia came through over his cell phone. A smile crept across his face when he saw it, eager to get off the phone with his sister so he could respond.

“Alex, are you listening to what I’m saying?” Carol brought him back from his thoughts about the beautiful woman that had been occupying his mind lately.

“Sorry Carol, what was that?”

“All I’m saying is that something’s not right about this Simon guy. His financials came back and he has no money. Nothing. He qualified for a Public Defender for crying out loud. But he’s got an attorney. An expensive one at that, too. And someone posted his bail, which was set at a quarter of a million dollars. I’m going to do some more snooping around, get in touch with the bail officer, and see who posted it. It’s just unusual is all.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Alexander was worried. What if Simon came back after Olivia? He was surprised to realize he had such strong feelings for her, even though he had only met her a few days ago. It was such a foreign idea to him. He never wanted to protect someone as fiercely as he wanted to protect her.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t have any criminal record. None at all. He has a clean work history, strong family ties in the area. No one had anything but exemplary things to say about him. So why did he attack the girl? And what did he mean about the job he had to do?”

“It is a bit worrisome,” Alexander admitted as he sat at his desk looking over the family photos adorning the walls, wondering if the little girl smiling next to him in most of them was the girl he met just a few days ago.

“Well, just keep an eye on her, Alex. That’s all you can do. I called her office earlier, but she wasn’t in. I’ll alert her when I speak with her about what she should do.”

“Thanks, sis. I must go. Love you.” Alexander hung up his office phone and turned to his cell, eager to reply to the beautiful Olivia.

As Olivia finished preparing her dinner, she heard her phone beep. Her heart immediately swelled when she saw the picture Alexander had sent of Runner. He looked so happy, curled up in a ball on a little doggie bed, surrounded by all his new toys.
 

She texted him back.

Olivia:
He looks so happy.

Alexander:
He is. But he misses you… So do I.

Olivia giggled at Alexander’s response.

Olivia:
I miss you, too. And Runner. Give him a big hug and kiss from me.

Alexander:
I will. Do you have a big hug and kiss for me? ;-)

Alexander Burnham just used the winky sign!
Olivia exclaimed in her head. She grinned from ear to ear, unable to hide her enthusiasm for her growing attraction to that man. She looked down at her cell, eager to continue flirting via text, and typed out a quick response.

Olivia:
Maybe. You’ll find out tomorrow.

Alexander:
I’ll wait with bated breath. Have a wonderful evening, Miss Adler.

Olivia:
You as well, Mr. Burnham.

Alexander enjoyed their text flirting, so he sent one last text before heading to the gym for his evening workout.

Alexander:
I’ll see you in my dreams.

Alexander left his penthouse, wondering if Olivia could even know how true that line actually was. If Olivia really was the girl from Alexander’s past, he
had
been seeing her in his dreams.

He returned from the gym late that evening and spent several hours in his very own music room. Olivia would drool over his set up, he thought to himself. He made a mental note to invite her over in the near future, grinning at the thought of Olivia giving him his very own private performance. He stepped over to his Steinway baby grand and checked the tuning on one of his guitars. After tweaking the strings a bit, he sat down to play Damien Rice’s
The Blower’s Daughter
.

He played through the song, relishing the last verse, thinking of Olivia because he couldn’t get her out of his mind. And he wasn’t sure he wanted her out of his mind either.

He played and sang for several hours that evening, wondering if he and Olivia were inspired to play music by the same person. He hoped they weren’t and that all the similarities were just coincidences. But those coincidences had become too overwhelming for Alexander to ignore anymore. Still, he continued to ignore that envelope containing the letter.

~~~~~~~~~~

Olivia woke with a jerk after having fallen asleep on the couch. She had that dream again. She saw the boy with those green eyes. Why was she seeing those eyes after years and years of having that dream? Why was it suddenly different now?

She sat up on her couch and Nepenthe stretched, giving her a look like he was ready to murder Olivia for disturbing his precious sleep. She shut off all the lights and climbed up the stairs to her bedroom. Sleep found her again quickly.

The sun woke her the following morning as it filtered through the bedroom windows. She began to stir and Nepenthe started to swat her face, his majesty’s indication that he needed more food. Olivia checked the time and saw that it was a little after seven. Rubbing her eyes, she descended the steps to feed her needy cat.

Throughout her day, she kept thinking about Alexander and their date that evening. The day dragged mercilessly for Olivia, who found herself extremely nervous. Five minutes felt like an eternity. She had nothing on her schedule, but she tried to keep herself occupied. She caught up on her e-mails, spoke to her financial advisor, and called her shrink to schedule an appointment for later in the week.

Finally, she decided it was useless to sit at home all day waiting for the clock to strike seven. Olivia grabbed her bag and headed to the wellness center to get in a workout and review some paperwork.

“Libby! How was your weekend?” Jerry exclaimed when he saw Olivia enter the building.

“Great, thanks. Relatively uneventful, but that’s how I like my weekends,” Olivia lied as she pushed the call button for the elevator.

“Olivia, this is Richard. He’s training to be the new night security guard. And I’ve got a few more guys I’m training later this week who will be taking the weekend shifts. We’ll now have security here twenty-four seven. Apparently there was an incident over the weekend and the big boss man figured full-time security would be better.” Jerry sat at his security desk surrounded by closed-circuit TVs, apparently going over an employee manual with Richard.

“Hi, Richard. Nice to meet you.” Olivia shook the new night security guard’s hand, smiling to herself, knowing she was the reason for the added security.

“I saw you on TV Sunday,” Jerry said, making small talk. “I was watching the Sox game. You had great seats.” Olivia blushed. Did everyone see her on TV? She needed to rethink ever going to another game with Alexander if she was going to be seen across the nation. “It’s nice to see Mr. Burnham out with someone as sweet as you.”

Olivia was shocked. She didn’t know how to reply to that. Alexander was obviously Jerry’s boss. He owned the building, after all. Thankfully the elevator car arrived and she was spared having to talk to Jerry about her non-relationship with one Mr. Alexander Burnham. Or about his sexy bedroom voice telling her how he wanted her mouth all over his body. Or about the way he constantly caught her checking out his body, making her entire being alive with electricity.

The feelings she was beginning to have for Alexander scared her. She still hadn’t quite worked out a few of her issues with her shrink. Granted, Olivia wasn’t the most devoted patient. She had been in some form of therapy as long as she could remember. When she was younger, she thought it was normal to go talk to someone every week about her parents and how they were taken from her. Therapy never really worked, though. She never coped with her parents’ deaths.

When she moved to Boston, her Uncle Charles insisted that she see his therapist, Dr. Greenstein. She helped her uncle cope with Olivia’s parents’ deaths, apparently. While in college, Olivia made some headway, finally being able to form bonds with certain people in her life without the fear of them being taken away. Music became a healthy coping mechanism for her. Music was always her coping mechanism.

When Olivia’s uncle was killed, she panicked. The only family she had left was taken from her again, or so she thought. Instead of dealing with the pain of losing anyone else she was close to, Olivia fled Boston. She moved from city to city for the next several years, not staying in one place for more than a month at a time.

During that time, she no longer played music. Sex and alcohol became her coping mechanisms. And to some extent, they still were.

When Olivia returned to Boston, she had no intention of staying. One night when Olivia was out at a random bar looking for someone to hook up with, she ran into Kiera. When she saw the hurt look on her face, Olivia finally realized how selfish she had been, pushing people away for fear of losing them.

After reconnecting with Kiera, Olivia decided it was time to lay down roots somewhere and Boston was the only place she had anything close to family. Within a month of returning to Boston, she bought a house. Kiera had a friend of a friend who was looking for investors for a startup and, after running it by her financial advisor, Olivia became a partner in the wellness center. It had only been open for six months but was already quite successful and popular in Boston.