Natalia looked back at the couple standing near the end of the corridor. She couldn't make out what they were saying, and she tried to convince herself that she really didn't want to know anyhow. Just before she turned towards her door to unlock it, she noticed Olivia had placed her hand on Mateo's chest. A quick burst of anger started to rise within her but was immediately exchanged for a jolt of confusion as she noticed that the gesture didn't seem to appear to be one of affection. Olivia seemed to be trying to push her brother back. The older woman's other hand had reached back behind her as she tried to find the doorknob so she could close the door to her suite. Natalia saw that Mateo wasn't budging. Instead he raised his left hand up to the door frame beside Olivia and was leaning towards her. She saw Olivia's lips moving but couldn't hear what was being said. Mateo leaned in slightly more and Olivia backed away from him. Natalia didn't need to hear Olivia's words. Womanly intuition flooded her senses. She opened her door and stepped inside, throwing her purse to the ground.
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"I've come to cash in that raincheck for a continuation of our date last night," Mateo said in an eerily confident tone.
Olivia backed up slightly, not wanting to fully enter her suite but still unable to close the door either.
"I hadn't given you one, Mr. Rivera," her voice was calm but stern.
"Oh come now, Olivia," Mateo continued, moving forward once again. "I know how lonely it can get while 'on the road', so to speak," his voice was low and he stared at her lips. "Wouldn't you like a little company to help pass the time? I'm sure we can both come up with some wonderful ways in which that time can be passed." He raised his other hand to the other side of the door frame, boxing Olivia in.
"Mr. Rivera, I am trying to be polite here but I am slowly losing patience." Olivia gave him a glare to prove that she wasn't toying with him.
Mateo gave a half laugh. "You're a feisty one, huh?" His smile turned into a leer. "I like 'feisty'... I like it a lot." His left hand came away from the doorframe, and he proceeded to place it around Olivia wrist, squeezing it tightly as he tried to pull her to him.
This is my own fault. Olivia felt an ingrained panic set in as his other muscled arm reached for her waist.
"Are you ready to go, Ms. Spencer?"
The question startled Olivia. It also stopped Mateo's movements and he spun around to see his sister walking quickly towards them. When she stopped beside Mateo, Olivia's eyes met hers. A knowing look shifted between them before Olivia saw Natalia smile nonchalantly.
"I've confirmed our reservation so whenever you are ready," she turned to her brother and gave him an innocent smile. "Sorry to cut your conversation short, but I really would rather not be late."
Olivia was still unable to say anything. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but Natalia sensed that the other woman would end up stuttering so she continued talking.
"Come," she said, reaching for Olivia. Mateo dropped Olivia's wrist and she took the hand offered to her. Natalia pulled her gently through the doorway as Mateo shifted to the side, still confused as he watched his sister reach for Olivia's door to close it. "I've left my purse in my suite so we will just have to run in and get it, and then, we can be on our way." Natalia placed a hand at the small of Olivia's back and slightly nudged her, signaling her to start heading down the corridor. Olivia complied and moved with Natalia towards her room.
As they walked Natalia lagged back a step and turned around to face her brother who was still standing there watching the two women as they walked away. She flashed a beaming smile and discreetly made the same obscene gesture that he had made the night previous when leaving the restaurant with Olivia. Her smile was then immediately replaced with look of absolute disgust and she raised her middle finger at him. 'FUCK YOU', she mouthed, her eyes burning with contempt. She turned back to continue walking with Olivia. They reached her door and she opened it, ushered Olivia inside, closed the door, and locked it.
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"I am certain that I don't know what you are talking about. What announcement?" Jacques rummaged around in his desk drawer trying to find a pad of paper while maneuvering the phone to his ear. When he had found a notepad, he brought it out and plopped in on his desk.
"Monsieur, you will have to repeat that for me, I believe my ears have deceived me," he said confusedly. He sat down at his desk and stared blankly at the wall in front of him as he listened to the voice in the receiver. His eyes closed slowly as he processed what he was being told.
"Yes, but I assure you have no idea why she would say that... I'm going to have to call you back... Who else knows about this?" There was a pause and he spoke again. "No! No, I will tell him myself, thank you." He pushed the button on the phone, lowered it and stared at it briefly before placing it gently on the desk. He lowered his elbows onto the edge of the desk and placed his head in his hands.
"Natalia," Jacques whispered the name into the quiet office.
"What have you done?"
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Olivia had leaned against a wall to the right of the doorway. She still displayed a look of stunned confusion as she watched Natalia pick up her purse from off the floor and toss it on a side table. The younger woman glanced at the blank expression on Olivia's face and walked towards her, searching her eyes a moment before she spoke.
"Are you alright?" Natalia asked, her brows furrowed in a look of genuine concern.
Olivia blinked and nodded, looking down at her purse that she was holding tightly in both hands down in front of her legs. "You didn't have to..." her voice stopped working before she finished the end of her sentence, and she looked up at Natalia. She tried to convey gratitude through her eyes, but Natalia could also sense a mixture of shame and embarrassment. She gently took the purse from Olivia's clenched fingers, and grabbing one of her hands, she led Olivia to a long couch in the middle of the living room.
"Sit," she ordered, setting the woman's purse on of the other chairs. Olivia complied. Natalia walked over to the bar and began mixing them both a drink. The two glanced at each other a few times but neither said a word. As Natalia grabbed the drinks and headed for the couch, Olivia shifted her position slightly toward the brunette and accepted the drink from her. Natalia sank into a spot on the couch within a foot from Olivia. She drew her arm up over the low backrest and rested her head on her hands, folding both legs up unto the space between them. She sipped her drink and simply waited for Olivia to speak first.
"It was my own fault." She said aloud what she had been thinking as she saw the aggressive intent in Mateo's eyes just minutes before.
"Don't you dare say that. Don't you dare make excuses for that swine," Natalia said sternly.
Olivia turned fully toward Natalia.
"I'm sorry that I made you believe that he and I..." Olivia couldn't finish the sentence as her stomach turned at the thought.
"Why did you?" Natalia asked calmly. "Make me think that, I mean."
"You know why."
Natalia held the woman's eyes but said nothing, so Olivia continued.
"The game that you and I have been playing since we pulled up to this hotel three days ago."
Natalia looked away and ran her finger over the rim over her glass. "Has it really only been three days?" She asked lightheartedly. "Seems like you've been tormenting me for an entire lifetime," she smiled.
Olivia smiled also but kept her gaze away form the younger woman's. She took a quick glance around the enormous penthouse suite for the first time.
"Holy shit!" She exclaimed comically. "I've totally been jipped!"
Natalia chuckled. "Actually, if my father hadn't placed you in this corridor, I would have had you staying in the trenches with the commoners," she jeered.
"No doubt." Olivia took a sip of her drink. Natalia's smiled faded as she watched Olivia dart her tongue out slightly to lick a drop of fluid from her bottom lip, pulling the lip into her mouth, and grazing it with straight, white teeth.
"I'll be calling security tomorrow and having Mateo's passkey privileges to this floor restricted. You and I are the only people staying in this wing, so he has no other excuse to be up here."
"Thank you," Olivia said quietly as she stared into her drink.
"It's just a phone call, nothing to it."
"No..." Olivia looked up again to Natalia and held her gaze before she spoke again. "Thank you."
Natalia then instinctively knew what Olivia was thanking her for. She nodded quickly and looked at her own drink. She herself had been overwhelmed by the surge of protectiveness she had felt for the woman sitting next to her. She had wanted to tear her brother apart for causing that look of fear in her eyes.
"How does the saying go... 'Us girls gotta stick together'?"
Olivia snorted. "Other girls and I never seem to be able to play nicely long enough to stick to anything except the backstabbing."
Natalia sighed in agreement. "I hear ya... stupid bitches!" She smiled into her glass and took another drink.
Olivia laughed once again. She reached her arm back over the couch as well and her fingers began plucking at the top seam as she contemplated her next words. "So, I guess that this..." she gestured from Natalia to herself and back again, "... ruins the whole 'I'm gonna leave you alone' thing."
"For now, yes."
Olivia eyed Natalia and hesitated a moment. "Do you want me to leave?" She lowered her gaze. She didn't want to go and she wasn't willing to risk the younger woman seeing it in her eyes.
"California? Yes," came the reply. "My suite right now? No. Finish your drink first and then I shall throw you back to the wolves."
When Olivia looked up she was met by kinder, gentler, chocolate-colored eyes and a gaze more calm and open then she was used to seeing from the other woman. Her heart suddenly thudded in her chest, causing her breath to catch. She quickly coughed to make it unnoticeable.
Suddenly Natalia was rising. "I'm going to go get changed. I hate wearing skirts if I don't absolutely have to."
Olivia watched the brunette head to her bedroom door.
"Be right back."
Inside her bedroom Natalia quickly undressed and grabbed a pair of jeans from her closet and slipped into them. She threw a burgundy cotton chiffon blouse over her head. As she was pulling it down, she heard a pinging sound coming from her laptop on the bed, alerting her to mail. She froze. Her eyes darted to her closed door, and she stared at it as though she could see right through it to the woman on the other side. She hesitated a moment but decided she needed to open up her inbox. She went over to the bed and sat in front of her computer. She took a deep breath as she lifted the screen and clicked on the notification box in the corner. An email popped up, and as she began to read, the air that she had been holding in her chest started to seep out slowly. Her eyes began to tear and she closed her laptop screen. This was the moment that was going to change everything. It was going to test her relationship with her family. It was going to put her in the line of fire. She rose from the bed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
It is going to remove you as a threat entirely, Ms. Spencer.
She braced herself against the tide of different emotions that were now trying to flow to the surface. She didn't want to feel any of them. She wanted to go back to the anxious waiting. Her brain was loud; her heart was racing. She didn't want to feel the weight of her world crashing down around her.
She moved quickly to the door and threw it open, startling Olivia. She headed towards the older woman and grabbed Olivia's purse from off the chair. She reached down, and after taking the drink from her and setting it on the table, she took Olivia's hand, pulled her off the couch, and led her to the door.
"Natalia?" Olivia asked, not knowing what she could have possibly done to be getting suddenly tossed out like this.
Natalia grabbed her own purse as well from the side table.
"Come on," she said emotionlessly. "We're going out."
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