Whispered Secrets by Elizabeth Lennox
Chapter 3
“When are you going to forgive me, Oliver?”
Oliver sighed and fought the urge to roll his eyes. It had been two days since he’d seen or spoken to Maggie, so this interruption by his former lover only made his temper simmer even hotter.
Still, Desiree was good at her job, even if he didn’t want to continue an affair. In retrospect, he hadn’t wanted the affair to begin with. Desiree had sort of…well, he wasn’t sure how the relationship had started. Giving Desiree Milken any sort of encouragement was tantamount to flaming her own bizarre belief that their relationship was just on pause.
“Do you have the latest progress reports for me?” he asked, not bothering to look up from the contract he was reviewing.
She sighed dramatically and came around to his side of the desk, leaning gracefully back in a pose that Oliver knew showed off her figure to the best advantage.
“Oliver, how many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”
He shook his head and scribbled notes in the margins of the document. “You’ve apologized several times already. I’ve accepted your apology. Now, it’s time to move on.”
She huffed a bit and he knew the sound was his cue to look up at her. Instead, he kept his attention on the document and wondered how long until she would take the hint and get out.
“Oliver, seriously! This has gone on long enough! I’ve apologized. You say that you’ve accepted my apology. So let’s just…get back to where we were before!”
Irritated, Oliver tossed the contract down onto his desk, trying to hide his disgust. “Desiree, you were having sex with my landscaping guy,” he replied, not even angry about it anymore. And suddenly, he realized that he’d never really been angry about her infidelity. In fact, he’d almost anticipated it. Bed hopping was pretty much an accepted practice in their world. He didn’t like it and, until this past weekend, he hadn’t realized that he’d almost expected it of his future wife.
“It was just the one time!” she asserted, even though he suspected that was a lie. He wasn’t sure how long the affair had been going on, but it had been more than just the one time.
“In my bed,” he continued, barely glancing at her.
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, you weren’t using it,” she came right back.
Oliver’s only reply was a sarcastic lifting of his dark eyebrow.
Desiree huffed again, pushing away from the desk and stomped dramatically around the office. Again, he knew that her movements were perfectly choreographed to best show off her figure. Oliver agreed, her figure was truly extraordinary. Desiree spent hours in the gym honing her body. She also spent a great deal of money at the spa getting her nails manicured and pedicured, facials and massages. He knew because, up until several weeks ago, he’d paid for all of it.
After he’d found her in his bed with another man, he’d cut up the credit cards he’d given her, taken back the engagement ring, and ordered her out of his house. Oliver gave the woman credit, she knew how to play this so it sounded like he was the unreasonable one. But he wasn’t buying it.
She’d even left a bunch of stuff around his house. Small things, but items he knew that she’d want back, giving her the opportunity to enter his house and continue pleading her case. But Oliver had lived with the woman. He recognized her games and had circumvented her return by going through every room and gathering up those small items, then had his assistant mail them back. He hadn’t even brought them here to the office to return to her. That would have required that he enter her office and, just having her work here was annoying enough.
Granted, she was extremely good at her job. As a publicist and marketing expert, Desiree knew how to make the most out of any phrase or picture. So as long as she did her job, he would respect her in the office. Outside of the office though, he didn’t want to have anything to do with her.
“Oliver, seriously, you can’t be that upset about this. It isn’t as if we were having sex all that often anyway.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So, you took it upon yourself to find an additional lover?” he offered. “Is that really where you’re going with this?”
She stopped and frowned at him. “Well, it wasn’t like that. I mean, it’s not as if I went out and looked for someone to have sex with since you were too busy to come home.”
He leaned back in his chair, eyeing her curiously. “How did we even get to that point?”
She blinked and stopped her fidgeting for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“How did it come to pass that you moved in and we were engaged?”
Desiree laughed, her mahogany hair sparkling in the sunshine streaming into his office. She truly was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. Fortunately, he wasn’t even slightly attracted to her. Not anymore. Had he ever been?
“You asked me out. I agreed,” she explained with a wave of her hand and her eyes lifted to look off to the right slightly, as if the memory was a dreamy one. “The rest is history.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “If my memory is correct, you asked me out.”
Desiree moved over to his bookcase and picked up a heavy object that his decorator had set in that spot. “Details.”
He waited, needing to hear the rest of this. But when she simply hefted the object in her hands, maybe considering throwing it at his head, Oliver realized that Desiree wasn’t going to continue. She had a specific version of their history in her mind, real or not, and she wasn’t deviating from that script.
“Another point, I don’t remember proposing.”
She laughed and swung her long hair over her shoulder as she turned to face him again. “Oh, we’d agreed to get married. You bought me a ring and everything.”
His lips twisted slightly. “That’s not how I remember it. Seems to me, we were walking along the river one evening, passed by a jewelry store, and you dragged me inside. You pointed to a ring, said ‘why not?’ and suddenly, we were engaged. So, it seems as if you proposed to me and…” he thought back, “I’m not sure I actually agreed.”
She chuckled. “You had to be led along the correct path,” she agreed easily. “Which is why I’m not giving up on us, Oliver. We’re good together.”
“In what way?” he asked, truly mystified.
She pulled back. “What do you mean? In every way?”
He disagreed. “Desiree, are you honestly attracted to me?”
“Of course!” she scoffed. “Like I said, we make sense. Our families have been friends forever. We know the same people. We have the same goals.” She sighed and braced her hands wide against his desk, leaning forward to give him a clear view of her breasts encased in a silver bra. “We want the same things.”
Oliver looked at the view, but it left him cold. Incredible, since the thought of getting up early enough to go watch Maggie run tomorrow morning so that he could see her in another one of those tight, body hugging running outfits made his mind blank for a long moment.
Unfortunately, Desiree thought that his pause meant she’d won.
“We really don’t,” he told her flatly, being callous, unsure how else to get through to her that their relationship was over.
Her glossy lips curled into a triumphant smile. “Oh, I think we do, Oliver.”
He sighed, irritated now. “Get out of my office. And don’t ever come in here without an appointment again.” With that dismissal, he stood up and walked out to his next meeting. But he paused at the door to speak with his assistant, Jamie. “Make sure that Desiree has an appointment with me the next time she wants to see me. But check with me before scheduling anything since the issues she usually discusses with me should most likely go through the marketing director.”
“Of course, Oliver,” Jamie replied. He saw the malicious gleam in Jamie’s eyes as he walked away and wondered if Desiree had been more of a problem than he realized. Had she become a nuisance to the rest of the staff?
He’d have to keep an eye on her. Maybe have a conversation with her about treating the staff more politely. But right now, he didn’t have proof that she was a nuisance. And right now, he had a meeting about tearing down a neighborhood that he was no longer convinced should be torn down.
Desiree watched the man she…well, he was hot, she acknowledged. But he was a man. Boring, pointless, and irritating. She’d hated how she’d had to trick Oliver into asking her out for dinner that first night. And yeah, he was right, the ass hadn’t even bothered to propose. She’d dragged him into the jewelry shop after only a month of dating. He had just gone along with the engagement! How insulting was that?! He hadn’t cared about a marriage to her and, she adjusted her breasts for better viewing, no one insulted her like that! No one!
Adding insult to injury, she wanted his credit card back! She needed his money! She hated living with her father, who had cut her off and, hence the engagement to Oliver, as well as moving into his gorgeous penthouse. Seriously, the man was disgustingly wealthy. Too bad he didn’t know how to spend all of those delicious billions!
Desiree was very good at spending money. She’d learned at her mother’s knee and was an expert at wheedling money out of men. If she’d just kept out of Oliver’s bed with the gardener or landscaper or…whoever…they would be married right now.
Accepting that she’d made a serious error there, she considered her options. She wanted Oliver back. Correction, she wanted his money back. And she wanted access to his bedroom back! The man’s house was gorgeous and…okay, so when he actually took the time to have sex with her, Oliver was truly exceptional. Most of the men she’d gone out with over the years would simply stick their thing in and grunt until they were finished, then grin at her as if they’d just gifted her with something beautiful.
Phhpt! Men! They had no idea how much women seriously hated sex!
At least with Oliver, she hadn’t had to pull out one of her favorite toys afterwards and find that elusive release. He’d known the value of all of her various parts.
Still, it was his money she was after. The sex was fine, but she could really take it or leave it. Money though…! And the power! Good grief, being on Oliver’s arm at the various events around town was even better than sex! Power was the real gem here. Power and prestige. Walking into any event with Oliver was a bit like being a rock star. Everyone wanted a minute of his time. Everyone wanted to be him or be her because she was with him. The envy from the other women was almost palpable!
Yeah, she knew all that crap about being one’s own powerhouse. Blah blah blah. Whatever! Let the feminists find their power on their own. She didn’t mind being the arm candy of a powerful man! In fact, she loved it! She’d planned on quitting her irritating job right after she got a wedding ring on her finger!
As she stepped back into her office and settled into the chair, she sneered at the e-mails waiting for her response. She hated working! Seriously, why did anyone prefer working to staying at home, sleeping in until it was time for a spa appointment?
Which brought her back to her original issue. How was she to get Oliver back? He didn’t seem angry. He hadn’t even been all that pissed when he’d found her having sex with what’s his name! Which was pretty damn insulting! He’d just ordered her to leave. Then the bastard had fouled up her plans to talk some reason into him when he’d gathered up all of her stuff and sent it back to her. She’d been pretty proud of that idea, until that ridiculous box had arrived. Most of the stuff wasn’t even hers! She’d just bought it and dispersed the stuff around his house, in anticipation of needing an opportunity at some point. Desiree knew that she wasn’t the easiest person to keep around and had figured out little traps to keep a man humble and at her beck and call.
Unfortunately, Oliver hadn’t fallen under her spell, the bastard.
So, what was going on? He’d been distracted over the past few days. Did he have a new lover?
No. Desiree knew Oliver well enough now to know he was a picky bastard. He didn’t play the bed-hopping game that had gotten her this far.
So, what was she going to do? Perhaps it was time to do a bit of investigative work, she thought with relish as she tapped her pencil against her desk. Yes, it was time to find out what Oliver was up to.
