His Dangerous Love On Ice (Olivia and Zane) novel Chapter 62

Olive’s POV

I couldn’t breathe.

The hallway was spinning, walls closing in, and my heels were too high, dress too tight, everything was wrong.

Behind me I could still hear them even from this distance, Their voices.

Their phone shutters clicking. The video probably still playing on loop while everyone watched, judged, recorded, never once thinking to pull it down.

Proof. They all thought they had proof.

“Olive!” Hunter’s voice boomed down the hallway. “Olive, stop!”

But I couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I’d collapse. If I collapsed, they’d find me. Photograph me. Turn me into a meme, a cautionary tale, another girl who thought she could play in their world and got destroyed for it.

I hit the stairwell door so hard it slammed against the wall.

Down. Just go down.

One floor. Two. My ankle rolled in these stupid heels but I caught myself on the railing, kept going.

Three floors. Four.

My phone was buzzing nonstop in my clutch. Probably Mom. Probably Brenda. Probably everyone who’d already seen it, already believed it, and already decided I was exactly what that video said I was.

Because right now, it was probably trending.

A user. A gold digger. A liar.I reached the ground floor and burst through the exit into the night air

The sharp cold hit my skin but I didn’t cared at this point

I just needed to get away. Needed to find my car, get home, lock the door, and figure out how to prove that wasn’t me, that someone had framed me, that-

“Olive, Jesus Christ, wait!”

Hunter caught up to me in the parking lot, breathing hard. He grabbed my arm and I spun around, yanking free.

“Don’t touch me!”

“I’m trying to help-”

“By asking if it was real?” My voice cracked. “You actually thought that was me?”

“I-” He looked miserable. Guilty. Confused. “It looked like you. The hair, the body-okay, God, Olive-”

“But it wasn’t my face!” I was crying now, fully crying, mascara probably running, everything falling apart. “If you actually looked, if anyone actually looked instead of just assuming-”

“I know.” His voice was quiet. “I know it wasn’t you. But Olive, that video

-whoever made it knew what they were doing. It’s going to be everywhere by tomorrow. Every news site, every gossip blog-”

“I know!” I screamed it. Didn’t care who heard. “I know, Hunter! I know my life is over!

He stepped closer, hands up like I was something fragile that might shatter. “It’s not over. We’ll figure this out. We’ll prove it’s fake-”

“How?” I laughed and it sounded unhinged. “How do we prove it?Nobody’s going to believe me. They all saw what they wanted to see:

The poor girl who landed the rich hockey player and turned out to be exactly what everyone expected.”

1 wiped my face with the back of my hand, smearing makeup everywhere.

“Grayson’s going to lose the partnership,” I said, the realization hitting me like a punch. “The stock’s going to crash again. Everything | did-everything Zane did-it’s all gone because someone made a fake video and everyone believed it.”

“Olive-”

“And Zane.” My voice broke completely. “Did you see his face? He didn’t even—he just stood there like-”

i couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say that he’d looked at me like I was nothing.

Like maybe he’d expected this all along.

Like maybe he’d never trusted me in the first place.

“I need to go.” I started walking toward where | thought I’d parked, but the lot was huge and dark and I couldn’t remember, couldn’t think-

“Let me drive you,” Hunter said. “You can’t drive like this-”

“I’m fine=”

“You’re not fine! You’re shaking and crying and-”

Headlights.

Bright, sudden, cutting through the darkness.

A car pulled up beside us. Sleek. Black. Expensive.

I knew that car. Or at least, I knew cars like that. The kind that cost more than most people made in a year.The driver’s side door opened and a man stepped out.

Older than me by far, enough to be my father. Maybe early fifties. But he was hot.

Hot in that dangerous way that made your brain scream warning even as your body paid attention. Tattoos covered his arms, disappearing under a black tank top that showed off a chest built like he spent his life fi;ghting or fucking or both.

There was something familiar about him. Something I couldn’t pinpoint but felt in my gut.

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