Chapter 31

Chapter Rating: PG

OK! Listen! I understand. I get it, I do. You are pretty fucking tired of seeing the freakin PG up there. Well me too dammit! I want these girls getting all naked and sweaty juuust as badly as you do. And if you think I have enjoyed teasing you by keeping the smexy times at bay..well.. you wouldn't be completely wrong . But seriously, you have been very patient and I appreciate it.

I have made this chapter a bit shorter because the next one is going to be hella long... and hawt... and detailed...mmmm

"In my honest opinion, they really shouldn't have tried to save their hotel by cutting cost such as by decreasing the amount of jelly in these pastries..."

Olivia sat at a table in the hotel's restaurant with her elbows resting where her breakfast plate had once been. She had shoved her plate aside to be able to place her cheek heavily into her palm as she stirred her coffee – and stirred, and stirred, stopping occasionally to watch a group of bubbles as they danced around each other in circles. She began stirring the liquid faster, hoping she could cause the bubbles to get sucked into the dark vortex.

She had previously managed, though with herculean strength, to keep up with Andrew as he constructed a labyrinth of uninspiring topics of conversation which Olivia couldn't quite seem to make her way out of, though she desperately tried. Successfully interjecting responses such as 'Yes, I agree" and "You know how it is", the fact that her thoughts couldn't have been farther away from their table remained concealed.

Eating had been a forced ordeal, stabbing at her Eggs-Benedict until it was officially considered a homicide. But she ate. No appetite, and the food was flavourless. She'd been doing well, but even now as she tried her damnedest to give a rat's ass about the amount of strawberry filling in Andrew's danish, she could no longer help but delve even deeper into her own tormented psyche.

She felt as though she had lost though the presentation, by the reports received from her colleagues upon her return to the boardroom, sans the nemesis, had gone according to plan. At the end of the meeting, Olivia had been given promising signs from Antonio himself that perhaps a deal could very well be reached even sooner than she had hoped. All she could do was wait. She hadn't expected Natalia to share in her ideas in their entirety, but she was completely caught off-guard when the younger woman had made the situation out to be all about the two of them.

Troubles with her hotel? No problem! She was on it. Personnel problems between her staff members? Taken care of before the day's end. There was nothing she couldn't handle.

Going toe-to-toe with the most savage of corporations in the past had not quite prepared her for going-head-to-head with Natalia Rivera. And although she knew that Natalia herself was, by all previously witnessed accounts, a train wreck waiting to happen, Olivia was helpless to stop the ride, even though she was certain she was going to end up getting derailed.

"Olivia."

I wonder if this is what it's like to be an addict.

"Olivvvviiiaaaaa..."

The hotelier snapped to attention to see Andrew examining her with a look of concern. "Yes... What?"

"Wow. How did the mission go and when did you land?" Andrew winked.

"I'm sorry, I am just a little..." Olivia put down her spoon and rubbed her forehead.

"Yyyeahh. You didn't get much sleep did you?"

"An hour, here and there."

"The project is going along beautifully," Andrew said, as he reached over to grab a piece of toast from Olivia's discarded plate. "Why are you so stressed?"

Olivia eyed him for a moment before deciding whether or not to disclose her current predicament.

"Have you ever met a woman who was just so extraordinarily petulant that you could actually dream about grinding her down to a pulp?"

Andrew lifted his eyes to her and smirked with his head tilted slightly to the side, "Yes, actually," he winked. "Come to think of it, I have."

Olivia threw her napkin at him, and chuckled. "Well, I am sorry for being such an asshole."

"Apology accepted. Now let me guess... Ms. Rivera?"

"Mmhhmm?"

"Don't worry about her. She's not making any covert decisions this time. In fact, shouldn't she be more worried about you? If this deal goes through, wouldn't you technically be, well, above her? You'd have more power in the company than her?"

Olivia leaned back in her chair and gazed blankly at the man across from her.

Andrew made a large square in the air with his index finger and pretended to hand it to her, "Big picture, Liv. There you go." He went back to eating her leftovers.

Olivia contemplated what he had just said. The corners of her mouth involuntarily drew upwards.

More power than Natalia... she smiled more sinisterly now. Well, if that's not the most beautiful sentence I have ever heard in my life. The mere thought was sending chills of excitement throughout her entire body.

Olivia hadn't thought about it that way. The majority of the control would be in her and Antonio's hands. Feeling miraculously better about her life, she began to realize that Natalia must surely have been aware of this fact also. She would know that she would lose her authoritative voice to Olivia. For the younger hotelier, Olivia had essentially 'stolen her hotel.'

Olivia needed to see Natalia while they were still both equals; while she had no control over anything to do with the defensive brunette. She needed to tell Natalia what her intentions were for her hotel, and what they had not been.

She quickly rose from the table.

"Tell the team to meet in the conference room they've provided us at 12:30 p.m." She gave him a pat on the shoulder and moved through the restaurant and towards the elevators. She was going to set the record straight, whether Natalia wanted to hear it or not.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Sheila rummaged around in her desk drawer, back turned to the door, carefully maneuvering the phone in between her shoulder and her left ear as she pulled out a handful of paperclips. As she turned slowly back around, she was immediately startled by Olivia. The blond had crouched down in front of Sheila's desk, forearms flat on it's surface, her chin resting on her forearms.

"Goooood Morning, Sheila," she sang with an extra amount of forced mirth.

"Good Morning, Mssss Spencer," the secretary drawled with noticeable disdain.

Olivia turned her head to look at Natalia's office door. "Where is she?"

"She's not in there."

The crouching woman kept her head still but shifted her eyes back to the dutiful employee. She narrowed her eyelids and peered at Sheila through long black lashes. At that moment a deliveryman came up beside Olivia and plopped a package on the desk by her right elbow.

"I need a signature for this," he commanded hoarsely.

Sheila's eyes moved from the box, to Olivia, and back to the box. She decided to make her move and reached for the package.

"Ahem!" Olivia coughed loudly. Sheila froze and the deliveryman looked down at her strangely. "Do you mind!"

"I'm only here for a signature."

"Really?" Olivia started from her prone position. "When you can get down on your knees, you may get Sheila's undivided attention. Till then, back up and wait your turn! " She shooed him away with a wave of her hand. The confused man quickly became a disgruntled one though he stepped back, folded his arms.

Olivia turned her focus back towards the clearly unimpressed receptionist.

"I told you. She is not in there." Sheila answered again slowly, trying to keep her tone even, as she had a feeling that Olivia would by no doubt do anything and everything out of the norm in order to get what she wanted.

"And that, my dear, is a wonderfully useless piece of information, thank you," Olivia said with saccharine sweetness. "But you see, I didn't ask you where Natalia is not. I believe my question was 'Where IS she?'"

"I don't keep her on a leash."

"It's worth considering."

"You may book an appointment."

"I may do what now?"

*sigh

"Are we really going to do this again, Sheila?"

"Or... you may wait in the sitting area like anyone else." The poor employee pointed to a set of chairs near the corner of the room.

"I am not anyone else. Let me into her office, and I will wait for her there."

"I cannot do that."

"You could if you got out of your chair and used the magical powers of your clearance key."

"Cannot. Do. That."

Olivia quickly rose and flung herself flat out on the desk to Sheila's left, causing the secretary to lurch back in her seat.

"What are you −"

Olivia stretched diagonally to reach the phone and when she had lifted the receiver she pressed '0' for the front desk. While practically laying there, she waited for the voice on the other end.

"Yes. This is Ms. Rivera's office calling. Hi. We seem to be having a problem with one of the air vents in Ms. Rivera's office. It's making a horribly loud noise." She started banging her shoe against the side of the desk. "Very distracting. Could you please send someone up from maintenance and have them bring a key as well? Thank you so much."

She hung up the phone and pushed herself off the desk. Straightening her jacket, she shot a cheshire grin over to the befuddled woman who was still sitting there motionless.

"This isn't on me," Sheila shook her head and raised her hands in front of her chest.

"I'm just going to go wait in the sitting area. If that's okay with you, of course. " Olivia loved the look she received for her sarcastically polite tone. She made a sweeping gesture to the uniformed courier still waiting in line.

"She's all yours."