His Dangerous Love On Ice (Olivia and Zane) novel Chapter 196

Olive’s POV

I had been avoiding Brenda’s calls for the past week now, letting each one ring through to voicemail, watching her name flash across my screen over and over until the buzzing finally stopped.

And for the first time ever, I was glad no matter how disturbing that sounded that I wasn’t working physically in the Hopkins company building where Brenda and I had desks on the same floor, where running into her in the hallway or the break room would have been inevitable.

Working from home had never felt more like a blessing and a curse simultaneously.

It was crazy, fucking annoying to imagine that my own best friend had slept with Grayson and was now pregnant with his baby.

I grimaced at the thought as I furiously typed on my keyboard like I had a personal vendetta against each individual key, my fingers slamming down harder than

necessary.

She slept with Grayson.

The thought hit me again like a physical blow, making my hands smash against the keyboard hard enough that several random letters appeared on my screen.

I backspaced aggressively, deleting the gibberish.

How many things could go wrong in my life at once?

Klaus being gay-a secret kept from me for thirteen years.

Judy being murdered.

Threatening messages about my brother’s death.

And now this my best friend pregnant with my stepfather’s baby, destroying not just her own relationship but my mother’s marriage in the process.

For once. I wanted it to be over.

I wanted all of this chaos, all of these revelations, all of these betrayals to just stop piling up on top of each other until I couldn’t breathe under the weight of them.

And my mother.

God, my mother.

My chest constricted just thinking about her because she hadn’t picked up my calls since that night at the restaurant-well, she’d picked up once, just long enough to blame me for not telling her, for hiding the truth as if I’d somehow known that my best friend was fucking her husband behind everyone’s backs.

As if I’d been complicit in the deception instead of just as blindsided as everyone else.

I felt horrible about it, actually physically sick with guilt even though logically I knew this wasn’t my fault.

Because I’d always wanted my mother to have a happy marriage after everything with Walter fell apart, had watched her grow into this woman who didn’t easily break down, who’d rebuilt herself piece by piece into someone strong and independent.

And now I could feel her withdrawing back into that shell, could sense her returning to that broken version of herself she’d worked so hard to escape.

All while she had a baby on the way my future sibling growing inside her while her marriage crumbled around her.

I grabbed my phone again, hoping maybe this time she’d pick up, and dialed Diane’s number with shaking fingers.

It rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then clicked over to voicemail, her calm, professional voice telling me to leave a message.

“Do I need to be blamed for everything?” I whispered to the empty room, setting the phone face-down on my desk.

Just then, there was a knock on my door-well, on my apartment door, which I could see through the transparent glass panel.

I looked up to find Jessica standing there, her face concerned, and I waved her in.

She stepped inside cautiously, like she was approaching a wild animal that might bolt.

“Are you fine, Olive?” Jessica asked gently, crossing her arms. “You’ve been feeling off for days now. At first I thought maybe it was the weather or you were coming down with something, but it seems like something is actually wrong.”

I stopped typing mid-word and looked up at her, really looked at her, and wanted to lie.

Wanted to throw out some easy excuse about being sick or stressed about work or maybe just needing a mental health day.

But I was so tired of lying, so exhausted from keeping secrets and pretending everything was fine when my entire life was falling apart.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify