Return to You (5 page)

"That man is unbelievable. Aren't you glad
you listened to me and hooked up with him?" She got up and wobbled
on her platform shoes.

"Hey, you okay there?" Eve reached out to
steady her.

"My feet are killing me." She bent over and
slipped one shoe off before toeing the other one off as well. Not
bothering to pick them up, she went into the living room and
dropped onto one corner of the couch.

Eve followed a moment later, carrying two
clean, empty wine glasses and a box of saltines. "You don't mind if
I join you, do you? Or would you rather have the entire bottle to
yourself?"

"You're such a wench," Olivia said
good-naturedly. "Here I am, in my time of need, and all you can do
is harangue me. If I wanted harassment, I would've stayed at
Gran's."

"Gran wouldn't let you drink out your
sorrows."

"I've got no sorrows. Just two
back-stabbing, evil bastards who won't leave me alone." She glanced
at Treat, who came opening a bottle with another tucked under his
arm. "You wouldn't happen to know any hitmen with reasonable rates,
would you?" she asked him as he filled their glasses.

"I'll have to check my Rolodex." He leaned
over and gave Eve a long and lingering kiss. "I'll be in my office,
baby."

Eve smiled at him, her eyes dreamy and warm.
"Okay."

He tucked her hair behind her ear and, with
a wink to Olivia, left them to talk.

Olivia took a sip. Sexy,
rich,
and
he picked
excellent wine. "I'm jealous."

"Of?"

"You." At Eve's startled look, Olivia rolled
her eyes. "You can't seriously be surprised."

"Of course I am."

"Aside from the fact that you have a
terrific man, you have a classic style I could never pull off, your
hair is always sheveled, and you have perfect breasts."

"Sheveled?"

"The opposite of disheveled, like my
untamable fro." She shook her head exaggeratedly to prove her
point. A lock flew into her mouth. She had to blow several times to
get it out.

"You have beautiful hair, and I'd kill to
have your body—"

"Big boobs are overrated," Olivia
injected.

"—And you could have any man you wanted.
I've seen men drop to their knees and beg for you."

Olivia shrugged as she drank a little,
relaxing into the nice, numbing buzz. "Also overrated."

"Are you going to tell me what all this is
about or do I have to flog it out of you?"

"You get kinky after a couple glasses of
wine."

"Thanks to you I've barely had an ounce. My
glass was full when you stole it."

Olivia tried to remember but there was only
gray fuzz, kind of like a TV that wasn't getting reception. "Nope,
can't recall."

"Tell me about this business with your one
true love and your father before I strangle you."

Olivia sighed. "I haven't talked about this
for eleven years. It's not easy suddenly opening up."

"Then it'll be good to get it out of your
system." Eve topped off both their glasses and settled back,
wiggling to get comfortable. "Okay, I'm ready. No—wait." She handed
Olivia a couple crackers. "Nibble on these as you talk."

Olivia wrinkled her nose at the saltines,
set them down, and drank more wine instead. "Michael was my best
friend from the time we were six, the first day of first grade. We
hung out all the time. I guess it was natural that we'd fall in
love."

"When did you know?"

"Freshmen year in high school. We went to
the Scandia course to race cars." She smiled nostalgically, caught
up in the memory. "Michael was too impatient to play miniature
golf. After some video games we went for pizza before going to a
movie."

She leaned back and closed her eyes, still
able to feel the zap when their fingers touched in the box of
popcorn. She'd looked up at Michael. In the dark, his eyes had been
luminous. He'd leaned over and kissed her. It'd been soft, a salty
fluttering against her lips, and it'd stirred her heart. She'd
pulled him close and kissed him harder.

Her fingers reached for the locket Michael
gave her on her sixteenth birthday, the first time they'd made
love. She used to grip it in her palm and think about their future
and how happy they'd be.

But she didn't have it anymore. She threw it
back at him that night he'd broken up with her.

She opened her eyes. She hadn't thought of the
locket in ages.

"Well?" Eve prompted.

She looked up to find Eve waiting
expectantly. She shrugged. "We kissed for the first time that
night. No, that's not true. It was the second time. The first time
we kissed was on the playground in first grade." His eyes had been
the same blue of the sky as he gazed at her and touched his lips to
hers.

Damn it. Why did she have to have such a
good memory?

She drank some more, wondering how much wine
she'd have to consume before she couldn't remember.

"Eat this." Eve passed her another
saltine.

Sighing, Olivia dutifully nibbled on it and
continued. "Everything was great until my father came back."

"What did he do that made you so angry?
You've never said."

"My father, the movie bigwig, offered
Michael a job." She winced at the wine. Suddenly it tasted
bitter.

"And that was bad?"

"Yes. All Michael ever wanted was to direct
movies. It was his dream. Parker knew this and exploited it.
Michael couldn't resist the offer." She laughed mirthlessly. "He
wasn't meant to. So he left."

"I don't understand," Eve said. "Why didn't
you just go with him?"

"That's just it. I would've
gone if he made any kind of overture, but he didn't want me.
According to him, I would've gotten in the way. He needed to
focus
on his
career."

"The bastard," Eve said with feeling.

"I can't blame him for taking the job," she
grudgingly added. "All Michael ever wanted was to be a director,
and my father gave him the shot. But I do blame him for believing
I'd get in his way."

She only wanted him to love her enough to
make their relationship work regardless of where they ended up.

He hadn't.

She lost Michael, and then three weeks later
she lost him all over again.

Leaning forward, she
grabbed Eve's hand. "What I'm going to tell you can't
ever
leave this room. You
can't tell
anyone
—not even Treat. Swear to me on your unborn children's
heads."

"It must be pretty serious to invoke that
kind of oath."

"
Swear
."

"Okay. I won't tell anyone." Eve crossed her
heart with two fingers.

"I was pregnant when Michael left."

"
What
?" Eve half fell off the
couch.

"I miscarried." That was Michael's fault
too. She lifted her glass and blinked. "Someone drank all my
wine."

Eve automatically refilled it. "He left you
knowing you were pregnant?"

"I never told him."

"You had to tell him."

"I didn't want him to stick with me because
he had to. I wanted him to want me for myself. But he didn't, so I
thought I could raise the baby on my own. But she died. That's why
I went to Paris. I could feel myself sinking into a deep pit of
despair." She looked up at Eve, who had tears in her eyes. "That
wasn't me. I thought if I distanced myself I could figure out who I
was. For the longest time, Michael and I were one entity. I had to
learn to be my own person."

Eve wiped her eyes. "No wonder you hate your
father. It seems wrong of him to offer Michael that job knowing it
could break you up."

"Not if you know him. He probably did it on
purpose. He's a manipulative bastard."

"But why?"

"What difference does it make? Whatever the
reason is doesn't change the outcome." The room was starting to
spin. She laid her head back and tried to focus on the wine bottle
on the coffee table. "Did we drink that whole bottle already?"

"No,
you
drank the whole bottle. Have
another cracker. I'm surprised you're still upright considering you
haven't eaten all day."

"I have a strong constitution." She
hiccupped.

"I can see that." Eve took a small sip. "So
what's your plan?"

Olivia wrinkled her nose. "Plan?"

"You're the one who always wants a plan of
attack."

"Oh. Oh, right." She nodded, wincing at the
way the room jerked sickeningly. "A plan. My plan is to stay as far
away from both those cretins as I possibly can. The Bay Area is big
enough, right?"

"So that just leaves your home," Eve pointed
out.

Olivia growled.

Eve held up her hands. "Don't kill the
messenger. I was just making sure you realized that."

"I can ignore my father."

"And Michael?"

Olivia folded her arms tightly across her
body. "I'll avoid him too."

"Are you sure you want to?"

"Of course I do. Why would I want that
faithless dog back?" In her mind, she saw his blue eyes aged with
wisdom, the broad expanse of his shoulders, and how good his butt
looked on his way out the door.

She downed her entire glass in one gulp and
held it out for a refill.

"So you don't still have feelings for him?"
Eve asked, handing her a cracker instead.

"Other than tense loathing? Not a thing."
She took a savage bite out of it.

"Isn't that telling?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you feel for David?"

"David?" She frowned. "David Mariner? What
does he have to do with anything?"

"Just answer the question. If you ran into
David on the street, how would you react?"

"I haven't thought of David in ages. He was
several dates ago." She pursed her lips. "I suppose if I ran into
him I'd make some small talk and then get back to whatever I was
doing."

"Exactly. So what does it tell you that
you're so worked up over seeing Michael again?"

"That I need more to drink." She reached for
the bottle and almost toppled off the couch. "Whoa."

"Here." Eve steadied her. "Sit back and I'll
do that."

"You're a pal." She muffled another hiccup
behind her hand and leaned back until she was reclining against the
armrest of the couch.

"I wonder if you'll feel that way in the
morning."

"Don't worry. I've never had a hangover,"
Olivia said proudly.

Chapter Six

Olivia heard the door open and click shut
but she couldn't lift her head to greet her customer, and getting
up from the stool was completely out of the question. It was all
she could do not to groan.

"I wondered what kind of condition you'd be
in," she heard Eve's voice say, followed by the sound of something
set in front of her.

She cracked her eyes open. This time she did
groan. In relief.

"Here. Let me." Eve opened the bottle of aspirin and
offered her three tablets. "You're going to have to stop holding
your head for a moment to get these down."

"My hands are keeping my brain from spilling
onto the counter."

"I thought you never got hung-over."

"You were right. There's a first time for
everything." She took the pills and sighed when she noticed the
steaming latte Eve held in her other hand. "Have I told you how
much I love you?"

"I figured you needed it. You didn't stop by
Grounds for Thought this morning."

"I woke up too late." Olivia took a sip of
her drink and waited. When her stomach didn't roil in protest, she
drank some more. "Thanks for letting me crash at your place."

Laughing, Eve said, "I didn't have much
choice. You kind of passed out on the couch."

Olivia frowned. "I did?"

"Yes."

"How did I get to the guest bedroom?"

"Treat carried you."

"And I wasn't lucid. I can't believe I
missed that."

"How are you really? Do you feel as green as
you look?"

"I feel chartreuse. Is that how I look?"

"Just about."

"Great." It probably didn't help that she
was in yesterday's clothes. Although, she took a shower at Eve's so
she didn't feel completely grungy.

Eve leaned on the counter and peered closely
at her. "So, other than the hangover, how are you?"

She decided to play dumb. "What do you
mean?"

"I mean about everything that happened
yesterday."

"I hadn't really thought about it." She'd
been too busy trying not to puke all over herself. Testing her
tension, she rotated her shoulders a few times. They felt
remarkably light. "Actually, I'm pretty good. Talking must've
helped."

"Good."

"I can ignore Parker."

"Right."

A deaf person would have heard the
skepticism in Eve's voice. "I can. Once they start filming, he'll
be too busy to plague me. Worse comes to worse, my room has a
lock."

Eve shook her head. "So you're going to let
him make you a prisoner in your own home?"

"You're right. I'll lock him in instead."
Olivia frowned. "I just wish I knew what he was after."

"Maybe he had a change of heart and wants to
show you he loves you."

The earnestness of Eve's eyes showed she
actually believed that. Of course, she didn't have as much
experience with Parker as Olivia had. "And the glass is half
full."

Eve grinned. "Is that your plan for Michael
too?"

"Michael's easier. He's not staying at
Gran's." She wrinkled her nose. "At least not that I know of.
There's no reason I have to run into him. Ever."

Eve just stared at her.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Why don't I believe that?"