He bolted from the couch and dropped his glass on the coffee table. The drink sloshed over it and onto the thick cream carpet. Hope fluttered through him. If she’d gone to see Isabella... “Where is she? What did you say to her?”
“Carlos—” she flicked her head toward him “—brought her to me.”
“What is she talking about? You said you never found Olivia.”
Carlos didn’t even flicker an eyelid. “I lied to you, for the first time in my life.”
The censure in his friend’s words burned through his gut. “Damn it, Carlos. This is not the time to—”
His mother’s voice broke through him. “Alexander—”
“If you said anything to hurt her—”
“I’m not the one who broke the poor girl’s heart.”
“You don’t get to advise me. You had a chance to be my mother, and you threw it away.”
“I did,” she said, nodding, even her acceptance of her failure regal, as if she was a queen surveying her mess. “I ruined your childhood, there’s no excuse for that. But you’re the one messing up your life now, all on your own. Without any help from me or Nick. You’re walking away from the one good thing in your life.”
He kept his mouth shut, refusing to admit that she was, for once in his life, right. He pulled his jacket on and turned toward Carlos. He pushed Please through gritted teeth.
Carlos looked over him, his expression blank. “After I took her to see Isabella, she went to her sister’s. And when she got there, Jeremiah Stanton was waiting.”
Alexander’s heart jumped into his throat, cutting off his air. “What did he say?”
His jaw clenched, Carlos shook his head. “I can’t repeat what he said to her, Alex. I had to use every bit of my expertise to stop the damn press van trailing behind us from hearing his terrible words to her.”
Alexander slid back against the wall, helplessness and fury pummeling through him. He would have given anything to be told that Jeremiah Stanton had given Liv the support, the love she deserved.
He sank into the couch, his head in his hands. He had done this to her. And even if he begged her forgiveness and by some miracle, she did forgive him, she would still never be able to leave this behind. Her career, her life, they would always be tainted. He had to make it right.
He shuddered at the thought of what he needed to do. He had spent over half his life keeping them out of his life. But, for Olivia, he had to face them, he had to give her back what he had taken from her. He clicked his cell phone and called Kim. Within minutes, he had instructions for Carlos.
He was about to walk out the door when his mother’s voice washed over him.
“May I see Emily, Alexander?”
Automatic refusal rose to his lips, but he stopped it. Isabella’s gaze was filled with hope, and fear. She hadn’t engaged him in battle because Olivia had convinced her otherwise. If he said no, all that Olivia had done would be for nothing. He had to take a chance on Isabella, for Emily’s sake. “Yes, you may, only in my presence.” A smile curved Isabella’s mouth, warmth shone in her eyes, transforming her face to breathtaking. It touched a part of him he wasn’t ready to embrace, might never be ready to embrace.
“Don’t screw it up,” he warned her.
It was a warning that echoed in his own mind. Uncertainty pricked him. He had taken a chance on Isabella. Would Olivia give him one? She had to forgive him, she had to let him make it up to her. If she didn’t, he had only a lifetime of pain and utter misery to look forward to.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OLIVIA SCRUNCHED HER eyes shut as the bedroom was flooded with light. Staying with Kim meant she had to put up with her twin checking in on her every fifteen minutes. She pulled the duvet over her head, her head throbbing like a giant ball of pain. “Kim, leave me alone.”
Kim tugged the Egyptian cotton duvet. “Liv, Alex said this is important.”
Her heart thumped painfully. Stupid heart never learned. She breathed deep, sucking air into her parched throat, tears seeping into her eyes again. She had cried so much over the past three days she should be dehydrated to even make tears. “I don’t care.”
For a minute, she thought Kim had left. Only the television blared into life, the high volume drowning out her whimpers. “What the—”
She snuck her face out, ready to scream murder. Goose bumps rolled along her skin as a familiar name reached her ears. She straightened and faced the TV, her breath hitching in her throat.