No. She took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to do this to herself anymore.
The wall of hurt she had nursed since childhood splintered, the wall she had cowered behind, a fierce rush of anger breaking through. “The truth? The truth is that you’re a bully, and nothing more.” She breathed hard, feeling as though her lungs would collapse, as though the pain tightening her stomach would never ease. “You drove Mom away with your constant degrading, you made me think so little of myself and Kim, God, you made her believe she was worth nothing if she didn’t excel at everything. You’re a vile man who draws satisfaction from belittling everyone around you. And I hope I never see you again.”
Her shoulders stiff, her head held high, she walked into the elevator and hit the up arrow. Every muscle in her body trembled, every nerve stretched so tight that she felt as if she would break if she even took a breath. Tears streamed down her face. She slid to a heap on the floor as the elevator moved up. But she didn’t care.
She hadn’t cowered in front of her father.
She hoped she never saw him again in this lifetime. Like walking away from Alexander, she didn’t have it in her to do it twice.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ALEXANDER SWITCHED ON the flat-screen monitor in his office, and halted. Olivia’s smiling face filled the forty-two inch monitor. His heart jumped into his throat. It was a shot from when she had starred in the reality dating show, which hadn’t ended well for her.
Her head thrown back, she was laughing at something her date said. Her eyes shone with brilliance, the wide curve of her mouth sent his heart pulsing. The screen flicked back to the anchor and he muted it, his stomach churning viciously. He’d heard the sensational story for three days and had no wish to hear it again.
But Olivia was a survivor. Any other woman would have long ago given up, her life a combination of impulses, bad luck and all the wrong people. But she hadn’t. Every time something had brought her down, she had dusted herself off and fought back. And she had finally found success in advertising. Except he had ruined it all. Now, even the contract she had won was tainted, reduced into something cheap and tawdry because of him.
It had been three of the worst days of his life. Everything he had known, everything he had built, had unraveled around him as the scandal hit the media Friday afternoon. By that time, he had taken all the measures he could, made sure Emily was in sight. Except the one thing he should have done.
By the time he’d recovered from the shock of what he’d brought on himself, hours had passed. He’d dispatched Carlos to pick up Olivia, to take her to a safe place, but he’d been too late.
Olivia, being Olivia, had stepped out into the horde of overzealous reporters lined up along her street. The shot zeroed in on her face as she ventured past the microphones and cameras. The invasive questions, the allegations of their affair, they had pecked at her like a pack of hungry vultures.
Why? Why hadn’t she just stayed at her apartment? He knew how much she feared them. And yet she had walked into the throng.
A hand fisted his heart, making it hard to breathe as pictures of him and Olivia filled the screen. They looked lost in each other, his hands on her waist, their bodies glued to each other.
Nausea rose inside him and he turned it off, unable to stand it any longer. It wasn’t enough that Alexander himself was castigated, his background, the story of his parents, everything brought into the foreground to illuminate the scandal, to portray that he was finally, a man who made mistakes like everyone else.
No, Olivia was paying the highest price of them all.
If he was attacked, it was nothing compared to what the media called her—the woman who’d been having an affair with her twin’s husband. As if he had no part in the whole thing, as if it was all her fault. They’d shredded her to pieces and the unfairness of it burned a path of fury through him.
While in reality, she wasn’t at fault at all. She had never lied to him, never shied away from what she was, what she felt. And everything she’d given him had been reduced to a tawdry affair because of him. He had become one of the numerous people who had hurt her.
Emotions roiled through him like lava, anger at himself, frustration and the worst of all, guilt. It clawed up his insides. He had not only brought the worst to her, but he had left her alone to deal with it. He had been so intent on running from what she made him feel, he had become a man with no honor, a man who would leave the woman who had done nothing but stand by him, to the wolves.