Page 103 of Ice Cold Hearts
“I do have more to say, but I was waiting for someone to scream at me,” I admit.
“The three of us gave you our word that we wouldn’t say anything until you finished. We’re going to honor that promise,” Alexei says with a firm look at Oliver.
“Around the time I was starting to show, I’d finally gotten over the shock of it all myself and decided it was time to tell you and give you the opportunity to be involved if you wanted to be. The problem was that all I knew was your name and that you had played hockey for your college team. I hadn’t yet made the connection that the Oliver McKenna who had joined the Cold Hearts was the Oliver McKenna I’d met at the lake house party. So I searched for you online and found you and your agent. I figured the easiest way to get to you would be through her.” I shrug. “So I showed up at Liza’s office on my next day off and tried to get in contact with you.”
My eyes start watering at just the thought of what happened that day. “Shit. I wasn’t supposed to do this. I’m sorry. I’ll try to stay coherent because I don’t think I can stop these.” I swipe in vain at the tears on my cheeks, “She said so many horrible things to me, implying that I slept around and couldn’t know who… who, you know… and accused me of being a gold digger. And I tried, I promise I—thank you,” I say, taking the tissue Ian offers and blowing my nose. “I promise I still tried to get ahold of you. I insisted and threatened to tell the press that she was keeping you from talking to me, and then she, she…” I blow my nose again. “Liza told me she was going to destroy me in the press and make sure I could never get a job if I even tried to make her look bad, and I… I was twenty-two and pregnant for the first time, and I was so scared. I was worried that whatever stress would come from trying to deal with her could hurt my baby, so I gave up. I’m so, so sorry. I should have fought harder or tracked you down some other way, but I was so scared. I’m so sorry I didn’t try harder.”
I hug my knees to my chest and sob until no more sound comes out of my body. When I get control of myself again, I notice that someone moved the box of tissues and a blanket next to me. I wipe my face and blow my nose one more time before wrapping the blanket around me for comfort. I’d much rather be hugged or be held by one of my men, but I know I don’t deserve it so I just tuck the blanket tighter.
My voice is hoarse when I start speaking again. “When we met again, I was so scared you were coming to take her away, and I panicked. Then we all hit it off during your treatment session,” I say, nodding at Alexei. “And you asked me out, and I really never thought it was going to last for more than a night. I figured I’d meet you, get to network with other athletes, and maybe become a known name and get some clients for my future practice someday. But then we went out, and even though Liza poured wine all over me when I refused to give her any personal details about how I knew you and what my business was with you…” I steal a glance at Oliver. “She calls you Ollie behind your back to girls she sees as a threat, by the way. So keep that in mind for your next girlfriend. So even though I got covered in wine and she claimed the two of you were going to get together officially when it benefitted your career, I still ended up having a wonderful night with all three of you.”
I take another breath and pull the blanket even tighter around me. I can’t take any more of the shocked looks on their faces, so I address the floor instead.
“Then things got complicated. I knew I needed to tell you, all of you, but especially you, Oliver, and then things started moving so fast, and every time I tried, I just panicked or something else came up, or you’d tell me not now and that it would keep until later. And then I fell in love with you, and that complicated everything. Then the day we picked you up after the first article came out about me, Liza remembered where she knew me from and put two and two together about Audrey and all but threatened to out me to the media in front of her receptionist, and I just was so scared that you wouldn’t believe anything I said if she told you first because you always make excuses for her whenever she’s mean to me or tries to keep me from you or keep you from us. So, what chance did I have?” I throw up my hands defeatedly. “I started trying harder to tell you, and then this whole thing with the press just blew up, and everything feels unsteady right now, and I know it’s no excuse and I know I’m a horrible, unforgivable person, but I’m in so far over my head right now and I just didn’t know how badly I was handling things until I talked with my mom, and I had a much better way I was going to tell you today, but then this whole thing happened.”
It takes me a moment to catch my breath when I finish, and the sound of my own raspy breaths are deafening in the silence of the room. My eyes are glued to the floor, but I can feel their stares stabbing through my blanket cocoon. Even when my breaths are even and slow, the room stays quiet.
After what feels like an eternity, I manage to drag my eyes up to meet theirs. All three of them are just staring at me with an identical mix of shock and horror on their faces. For a moment, I wonder if this is how Medusa felt when she was alive because it certainly seems like I’ve managed to turn these men into stone.
“I don’t have anything else to say for my part of the story. I know I was rambling and jumbled, but I did manage to get it all out. Please, one of you, say something. Even if it’s just to call me every terrible name you can think of and tell me to never come back. I wouldn’t deserve anything less. Please, just say something. I can’t take this anymore.”
35
OLIVER
Igenuinely don’t know what I’m more horrified by—the fact that I have a daughter and Emily hid it from me or the fact that the agent I trusted with my career treated her so horribly that she felt her only choice was to hide it from me.
She should have told you.
She tried, but you blew her off, didn’t you?
I’m trying to be angry at Emily, but after seeing her fall to pieces on the couch and how small and pathetic she looks wrapped up in the blanket, my fury at her dissipates as fast as it forms. It hurts that she kept this from me, and I know that wound isn’t going to heal anytime soon. Still, I can’t bring myself to hate her. She was young and scared, and she did it to protect her baby.
My baby.
Hadn’t I wished for a daughter just like Audrey one day? Life clearly has a wicked sense of humor.
I had missed so much of her life already—first words, first steps, first smile. The guilt is a force of its own as it tears through my body. It’s enough to bring me to my knees.
“That night in the shower, you were trying to tell me then, weren’t you?” I ask.
“Yes,” Emily says earnestly.
“And I just brushed you off. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn't want to listen to you.” A horrible thought occurs to me. “Just like I didn’t want to listen to you about Liza.”
Liza is a pain to deal with, but I just thought it was because she’s passionate about her job and overdoes it sometimes.
Is that really what you think, or did you just make yourself believe it to keep the peace?
That woman is clingy, overly demanding, and constantly trying to wedge her way into places in my life she doesn’t belong in. How many of the women I dated were actually scared off by Liza instead of actually losing interest in me? How many phone calls to her office for me did she just ‘forget’ to send through? What else could she have been hiding from me?
I think of all the times she had “accidentally” spilled food or drinks on nearly every woman I found attractive, all the times she just happened to be at the same club, or all the times she coincidentally ran into me at the grocery store. I’d seen Liza lie through her teeth to brands that wanted to sign me for endorsements. Had I really been naive enough to think she wasn’t doing the same things to me?
Every one of our encounters is now bathed in this harsh new light. The day I brought Emily lunch at the hospital comes to mind. Had they really gotten there early or was she just trying to see where I was and who I was with that day? I think of the way she obsessively confirmed where I was over the phone. Had she been the one to tip off the press that I was there?
She was asking you a lot of questions about where Audrey went to school last week. How much of that was actually for her cousin’s daughter? Did her cousin even really have a daughter? Could she have been the one who leaked that to the press?
Just the idea of it makes me feel nauseated. At the time, I hadn’t thought much of it, but now, it seems like too big of a coincidence. Liza was the only one besides Hank who knew where Audrey went to school, and Hank is too well trained and too well paid to leak information. Although how would she know where Emily lived? Maybe it wasn’t Liza, after all. Maybe I’m just making a mountain out of a molehill.