Chapter 51

Olivia had always considered herself an expert at seeing the error of her ways through the scrutiny of her 20/20 hindsight. It didn’t take more than a few seconds to be able to detect the possibility of a misinterpretation of intent within the current situation. She took a brief moment to scan the area, taking note of the dimly-lit room, and the cozy little loveseat on which she sat next to the emotionally unbalanced object of her deep-seated desire. Splash a little wine over the picture and you've got a perfect way to evenly dispense the blame if one of us loses control. Olivia glanced at their wine glasses that were both half empty for the second time.


If one of us loses control? The older woman almost rolled her eyes at her own irresponsibility. More like when.

In that despairingly accurate hindsight, Olivia knew she should be asking herself whether or not the set-up was a bit more than subliminally planned. She knew how fragile the other woman was at that point – that Natalia was rapidly unraveling and desperately wanted to find some way to put herself back together, if only for little while. And the more she thought about it the more she hated herself, but she was acutely aware that if she made the slightest advance on the brunette to her right, it would be immediately reciprocated... gladly.

I’ve got all night, Olivia repeated Natalia’s own words in her head.  All night.  Oh god, what I could do to this woman… All.  Damned.  Night!

Her pulse began to race as she did her best not to let her inner thoughts become portrayed in her expression. Years of nervousness in the boardroom had given rise to the ability to fake stoicism, a skill she needed to rely upon heavily in that moment. She inhaled slowly to calm herself and resolved to stay in control.

“Okay, you caught me,” she said, flashing a smile borne of forced confidence.  “The truth is that the story of Olivia Spencer is so utterly boring, it would put you to sleep in less than five minutes.”

Natalia chortled in response. “Somehow I doubt that.” She finished her wine, and after setting the empty glass on the table, she raised her arms and stretched her muscles, giving a short, contented sigh when she finished.  She settled sideways and even further down into the cushions, resting her head on the back pillow of the couch. “Come on, Spencer.” She playfully nudged the other woman’s thigh with her foot. “My life is in shambles. Humour a poor gal, would ya?”

Olivia shook her head and gave her a sideways glare complete with a knowing smile before she finished her own glass and set it to join its counterpart on the table. “Don’t think for one second that I don’t know what you’re up to, Ms. Rivera.” She sat back and once again turned to face the younger woman.

“What I’m up to? Natalia saw the confident nod. “Okay, enlighten me.”

“You think that you can waltz right in here, get me slightly inebriated and then dig for info on me while my defenses are down.” Olivia kept a straight face even while Natalia rolled her eyes and smiled. “Trying to find a weakness in the competition, no?”

Natalia narrowed her eyes briefly in contemplation. “That would’ve been a cunning plan, had I thought of it,” she responded. “Unfortunately, I didn’t. I think you’re forgetting that you are the one supplying us with the wine.”

Olivia looked away with a slightly embarrassed grin. “Well, I just thought it would help…” Don’t say it! “…loosen us up a bit.”

Natalia raised an eyebrow.

“To help us unwind… mellow out…” Too late, genius.

The brunette flashed a knowing smile. “You’re blushing.”

“Wine makes me blush.”

“Uh huh.” It was Natalia’s turn to wear the confidant grin. “I believe the last time I saw you blush was when you were fogging up my office window.”

“Ooookay! “ The sudden spike in her body temperature began to warm more than just her cheeks, and Olivia didn’t trust herself enough to look at the other woman.  She didn’t need to. The palpable presence of passion within the statement told her everything she needed to know. Natalia was flirting. Wonderful, her subconscious droned.

“You could shut me up by giving me what I want.”

Olivia stared blankly at the brunette.

“I meant by dishing me the dirty little secrets about the great Ms. Spencer,” Natalia grinned, evilly.

The blonde let out a long sigh. “Fine, whatever. Anything to shut you up!” She gave Natalia a sideways glare and smirked. “What do you want to know about me?”

“Your weaknesses, of course. However will I conquer my arch nemesis if I don’t know where best to strike?”

“Ah, yes. Well...” Olivia tilted her chin slightly in an air of supremacy. “You’re out of luck, I’m afraid. Olivia Spencer hasn’t any weaknesses.”

“Oh whatever!” Natalia dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand. “All this talk of getting to know one another… honestly!”

Olivia saw the corner of Natalia lips turn up slightly.

“Fine,” continued the younger woman. “You leave me no choice but to chip away at your confident exterior until I find a vulnerability that I can exploit.”

“Good luck, Rivera.”

The two women exchanged sideways smiles and the room got quiet for several moments. Neither of them were having deep, meaningful inner thoughts – proof that the wine was doing its job. However, the more time that passed, the more worried Natalia became that thoughts of her recent loss and current outrage would slowly take over once again. She wanted to escape them for just a little while longer, and so it was her that broke the silence.

“Let’s do something different,” she said pensively and shifted slightly, partly to face Olivia more squarely but also to wake her body out of the complacent lull of the wine.

“Practically every single thing about each and every one of our interactions has been different.” Olivia joked. “Except that time you drove us in your car. That was just terrifying.” She shuddered.

Natalia rolled her eyes and refused to let herself be distracted from her original thought. “Let’s interview you,” she said.

“Interview me?” Olivia watched the brunette nod.

“You came back here with the hope of merging our hotels together, yes?”

Olivia furrowed her brow as if in deep reflection. “I have but a vague recollection of it,” she jested.

“Well? You must have been prepared to sell yourself to my father.” As soon as she said it, she saw Olivia’s eyebrow rise and quickly embellished her statement. “Your personality, smart-ass. The reason why he should chose you as a business partner.”

Olivia shook her head adamantly. “No, actually. I was fully prepared to beg and plead for that deal.”

Natalia made a low growl deep in her throat that indicated that she was fed up with trying. “Never mind. Obviously there isn’t anything interesting about you. Don’t know why I would bother anyways… not like you’ll be here much longer.”

Olivia could sense that there was more than just playful frustration in Natalia’s words. Her last sentence seemed like less of a statement and more of a question; as if Natalia was looking for an answer she didn’t want to hear to a question she didn’t want to ask. Olivia didn’t know what to say in response? Natalia had been the one to ask her to leave the hotel, the state – her life, in fact. Sure, she’d gotten Natalia to admit that she should stick around, but that was assumedly on the basis that she would assist her in her latest quandary. Olivia couldn’t help but speculate that if she hadn’t been needed, she would most likely not be sitting there. By then she should have watched all the chances, the missed opportunities, and the thoughts of what might have been diminish alongside the landscape underneath her rising plane. Everything within and about California should have been getting further and further away until it vanished completely from the horizon, and then shortly thereafter – hopefully – her mind.

So what was she expected to say now? How much longer was she going to ‘be here’? Did Natalia want her to contradict that statement? Was there an offer in there somewhere? She looked directly at the younger woman who was deliberately looking everywhere but back at her. She could tell that Natalia was watching her though, from the corner of her eye Natalia was watching, perhaps waiting for the response that refused to form inside of Olivia’s brain.

The brunette sighed a long, unintentionally loud sigh and closed her eyes. She had gotten tired of waiting, and Olivia had given up trying to think of the appropriate reply. Natalia’s body stiffened in preparation to move from the couch.

“I should go,” she said slowly in the most impassive tone she could muster, desperate not to reveal anything more of her emotions than she feared she already had. She was aware that she’d probably become the most confusing woman on the planet to the poor blonde sitting beside her. It wasn’t fair to push and pull. That had never been her style. She honestly never expected herself to be one to behave that way.

She began to move forward in hopes to gain some distance for the sake of her clouded mind, but she felt a slender leg stretch over her lap and press her down once again. She paused with her hands still keeping some of her weight off the couch and looked quickly over at the blonde with a flash of confusion and inquisition. Instead of a verbal response she watched as Olivia simply shook her head slowly from side to side twice, indicating that she wasn’t going to be allowed to run away. As she stared into determined, emerald eyes, she acquiesced and gradually eased the weight off of her hands and sank back onto the couch.

It wasn’t until she’d watched all of Natalia’s muscles relax once more into the cushions of the sofa did she take her leg away from the brunette’s lap and return it to be tucked slightly underneath her own. Then with a deep breath, and without delay, she spoke.

“I was an Ugly Duckling.”

Natalia’s brows furrowed in her instant confusion. “What?”

“I had braces, acne and zero allies in my corner,” she continued without breaking eye-contact. “When my mother was alive, she kept telling me that it wasn’t what was on the outside that mattered, but what was on the inside. Of course being routinely overlooked by every single male in all of my classes, and laughed at by all the popular girls, I tended to believe that my mother – God rest her soul – was full of shit.” She watched Natalia’s eyes soften slightly and forced herself to continue. “And then I woke up one day and had breasts. I learned fairly quickly that having them also meant having power. Every ounce of my newfound self-confidence came from the looks that the boys were now giving me. I did everything I could to maintain the attention.” Olivia paused and her eyes left Natalia’s and ventured towards the cushion in between them. “Everything.” Her voice was low and tinted with shame. “I became the woman that any man would walk through fire for, and for me it was all about what I could take from them. I failed to realize just how much of myself I was giving away in return.” She returned a sad gaze at Natalia. “Until I’d given up the last piece of my soul, that is.”

Natalia lowered her gaze to the same cushion, not sure what to say.

“I’ve been married four times. And was nearly married a fifth time… twice. The last fiancé being Andrew… ‘Uncle Andy’,” she made air-quotes with the name.

“Four marriages,” Natalia said in deep contemplation. She was a bit shocked and yet didn’t want to sound judgmental.

“The fifth fiancé lost his position at his father’s company – a company that I was hoping to gain a stronghold in after the marriage was finalized – and so I crashed his bachelor party and dumped him. He was no longer of use to me. I ended up seducing his father instead.” Olivia gave up the information without any emotion in her voice. “And I was about to marry Andrew because I thought he was most likely Emma’s biological father. In fact, I told him he was because he was the best choice. He was good with Emma and kind to me. Before the wedding I had an extremely rare and vastly uncharacteristic need to be honest, and I told him I wasn’t 100% certain that he was Emma’s father.  He asked for a DNA test. He failed the test. His heart was crushed in the worst possible way.”

Natalia drank in all the information that Olivia was supplying. She hadn’t expected, nor did she now think she wanted, the other woman to be so candid.   Olivia was essentially stripping in front of her. Removing a layer that encased a fragile core the younger woman knew damned well no one was allowed to see. They were both wounded women living in strong shells of armour and Natalia wasn’t sure what to do with Olivia’s lowered shield.

“I sure hope you weren’t planning on selling that character profile in order to get the merger!” she joked to try and lighten the mood, but the look in Olivia’s eyes never varied in intensity.

“I’m not selling. I’m telling,” Olivia said evenly. “And there are so many more stories I could tell you about myself that are much worse.” Olivia’s eyes darkened with quick flashes of pain and shame. “So now that I’ve enlightened you on a small portion of what a truly despicable person I really am, I must remind you… you asked for it.”

Natalia narrowed her eyelids as she processed everything for a few seconds more. “I did, didn’t I? “

Olivia looked back down at the cushion in between them and then at her watch. “It’s getting late.” She stretched her folded legs out and lowered them to the floor, scooting to the edge of the couch to reach for the empty wine glasses. “We should probably try and rest up if we are going to storm a government building tomorrow.” 

She needed there to be space between her and the women staring confusedly at her. She felt exposed. She stood up, glasses clinking together in her one hand, and walked around the couch and over to the kitchen area behind it.

Natalia sat pensive in the darkened living-room, staring at the cushion on the sofa where the other woman had been. She wasn’t in the mood to try and rest but she knew that she was being asked to leave in the nicest way possible. How things had gotten personal so quickly was beyond her, though she knew she shouldn’t be surprised. Since when had being within two feet from the beautiful blonde not resulted in some kind of angst-filled tension? She wasn’t sure if Olivia was upset now, and as she rose from the couch, she decided not to ask for the sake of clarity.   She would simply go tend to her own wounds. Alone.

She made her way towards the kitchen but stopped quite a few feet from the older women who had her back to her.

“Do you still want to do this with me?” Natalia’s voice was even and strong, revealing nothing of her strong desire to hear Olivia say ‘yes’, nor of her tentative fear that she wouldn’t.

Olivia turned smoothly and moved to the island countertop in between them, leaning her hands on the marbled edge. Natalia had carefully constructed a sentence that could have been open to several interpretations if she’d really felt like being over-analytical. Instead she opted for lobbing the ball back into the younger woman’s court. “Do you think you can handle it?”

The corner of Natalia’s mouth lifted slightly. “An obnoxious cop, a clueless medical examiner and an entire bureaucratic protocol?” She made a dismissive gesture with her right hand. “Piece of cake.”

She witnessed Olivia’s Mona Lisa-like smile and her slight nod and took the chance to flash a sad smile before turning to leave. “I’ll see myself out.”

Olivia closed her eyes as Natalia walked away. Let her see herself out. Stay where you are! Her subconscious commanded, but all too quickly she was muttering “dammit” under her breath as she strode swiftly to catch up to the other woman. “Natalia, wait,” she called out before Natalia could reach the door. She hadn’t a clue which one of them was upset now, nor why. She planted herself firmly between the shorter woman and the door. “I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable… I really didn’t mean—“

“Why did you decide to tell me all of that?”

“Of what? The tiny tale of my terrible self?”

“Mhm.”

“I don’t know. I guess I figured that after all, you’re right?”

“About what?”

“That I’m not going to be here much longer. At this point, what do I possibly have to lose?”

Natalia closed her eyes for a moment and bowed her head slightly. It was obvious that Olivia was doing her best to hide the bitterness in her voice, but the words still stung nonetheless. She looked up at the taller woman and sighed. “I should just apologize now,”  she said.

“For what?”

“For breaking my promise.”

“What prom–”

Before Olivia could get the word out there was a soft pair of lips pressed gently against her own. In the few seconds in which she should have been considering pushing Natalia away, Olivia was instead contemplating giving up her attempt to keep her emotions in check. If she simply allowed Natalia to take the lead, if she just decided to follow, would she not be blameless? Good idea or not, she had survived hundreds of ‘bad’ ideas in the past. What was one more?

She stood motionless, breathlessly waiting for Natalia to deepen the kiss, to give her an undeniable sign that could later be used to prove that it had all been inevitable. She waited for the permission to act recklessly.

But it never came. Instead of creating a spark that would have ignited their combustible passion, Natalia slowly withdrew, keeping herself within inches of the immobile blonde. “A despicable person would have lied,” she said and in a near whisper, pausing to maintain a moment of meaningful eye-contact and then turning to move into the hallway. “Call me in the morning when you’re ready to go?” she asked over her shoulder.

Olivia was caught between wanting to pull Natalia back into her suite and being thankful that the brunette was about to disappear into her own. She could only nod slowly without saying a word. Moving forward into the hall and trapping Natalia between herself and the wall seemed like a very bad idea.

But, again, she had survived hundreds of bad ideas in the past…


What was one more?