His Dangerous Love On Ice (Olivia and Zane) novel Chapter 104

104 /180

Olive’s POV

The Italian restaurant was exactly the kind of place I needed, dim lighting, soft music, the smell of garlic and wine filling the air.

Paloma was already there when I arrived, sitting at a corner table looking effortlessly elegant in a cream dress.

“Olive!” she said, standing to hug me. “You made it! I was worried you’d cancel.”

“Almost did,” I admitted, sitting down across from her. “It’s been a hell of a week.”

“I can imagine,” Paloma said, her grey eyes sympathetic. “Saw the game earlier. That was intense.”

“Yeah,” I said, not wanting to talk about it.

“Your boyfriend played amazingly,” she continued. “That last go? Incredible. You must be so proud.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said automatically.

Paloma raised an eyebrow. “Really? Because the way he talks about you on those calls, the way you light up when his name comes up… seems like more than nothing.”

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“Isn’t it always?” Paloma said with a knowing smile. “Men make everything complicated. Especially the dangerous ones.”

The waiter appeared with menus and wine, saving me from having to respond.

We ordered-pasta for me, risotto for her-and settled into comfortable conversation about work, about the city, about everything except the one topic I knew was lurking beneath the surface.

“So,” Paloma said after we’d finished our first glass of wine, “do you want to talk about what’s really bothering you? Or should we keep pretending everything’s fine?”

I laughed despite myself. “That obvious?”

“You’ve checked your phone six times in the past twenty minutes Paloma observed. “And you keep looking at the door like you’re expecting someone to walk in.”

“Sorry,” I said, putting my phone face down on the table. “I’m not very good company tonight.”

“Don’t apologize,” Paloma said warmly. “We all have those days. Those weeks. Those entire months where everything feels like it’s falling apart and we’re just trying to hold it together.”

Something about the way she said it, like she really understood, made me want to open up.

“Zane and I had a fight,” I admitted. “A bad one. About his past, about secrets he’s been keeping, about decisions he made without asking me.”

“Ah, Paloma said knowingly. “The classic powerful-man-thinks he-knows-best situation.”

“Exactly,” I said, relieved that she got it. “He sabotaged my ex-boyfriend’s career without telling me and told me he was lying about it this time. He acts like he’s protecting me but really he’s just being controlling. And the worst part is, I don’t know if I’m mad because he did it or because he didn’t ask me first.”

“You’re mad because he took away your choice,” Paloma said. “He made a decision that affects your life and didn’t give you a say. That’s not protection. That’s control disguised as care”

“Thank you!” I said, maybe too loudly. “That’s exactly what I told him! But he doesn’t see it that way. He just sees someone who hurt me and thinks that justifies anything he does in response.”

Paloma took a sip of her wine, considering.

“Can I ask you something?” she said. “And don’t take this the wrong way. But… do you actually know who Zane Mercer really is? Like, beyond the hockey star, beyond the billionaire, beyond the charming guy who buys you expensive gifts?”

I opened my mouth to say yes, then stopped.

Did I?

“I know he’s complicated,” I said finally. “I know he’s got darkness in his past. Trauma. Things he doesn’t talk about.”

“But you don’t know what those things are,” Paloma said gently. You don’t know what he’s capable of. What he’s done. What he might do.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” I said defensively.

“Physically? Probably not,” Paloma agreed. “But emotionally? Olive, men like that… they don’t know how to love without consuming. They don’t know how to care without controlling. And eventually, you end up losing yourself trying to be what they need.”

“It sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” I observed.

Something dark flashed across Paloma’s face, there and gone so fast I almost missed it.

“I am,” she said quietly. “I have once had a very chaotic past. Crazy, enough to make me loose my mind, my sanity and render me useless. But I survived.”