by Jill Shalvis
she could feel reverberate through her.
Ducking her head low, she nodded and surreptitiously wiped her cheeks, not wanting to share how much he’d moved her. Cuddling into him, she took what she desperately needed—just one more minute in his arms.
“Hey,” he said softly, bending his head, speaking low in her ear, his voice tender. “Hey, look at me. You okay?”
She slowly raised her head and met his gaze. He cupped her face and kissed her. Warm. Slow. Sweet.
“Yes,” she said. “Very okay.” At least in the moment. Later she would go back to how absolutely wrong this was, how she shouldn’t have gone there without being up front with him. But for now, right now, she wanted this moment with him.
He held her gaze for a long beat, as if making sure he believed her. Then, not five minutes later, she watched him dress, his body language relaxed. Confident.
Not second-guessing anything.
She wished for half of his self-assuredness. Hell, she’d have settled for a quarter.
He moved to the door and looked back, smiling when he found her staring at him. “I’m going to pull my truck around back,” he said. “You’ll hear me going in and out.”
“For what?”
“I got some plywood. I’m going to make you that hanging dress display in the other room.”
Tell him, she ordered herself. It’s time. It’s past time. You’ve got to tell him that you’re not the real deal. After all, he was honest with you, so be brave and return the favor.
But he was gone, and she…she was a chickenshit.
Over the next half hour, she heard him go in and out numerous times—he was out now. About ten minutes ago he’d said he was running to the hardware store. She was just lighting a few candles and getting herself organized to open when someone knocked on the front door.
She glanced at the clock. Only nine thirty, still a half hour before official opening time. She turned to the door expecting Cole.
Not Cole.
She opened up to Jolyn. Her sister walked into the store and turned in a slow circle. “Wow, look at you, store proprietor. Long way from Hollywood, huh, Sharlyn? You enjoying slumming out here in the sticks?”
Olivia hadn’t forgotten how to act, and she spoke smoothly in spite of the fact that her stomach had hit her toes. “You know I go by Olivia here. And there’s nothing wrong with working for a living. You should try it sometime.”
Jolyn snorted. “What did you think I did as your servant for all those years when you were the princess of Nickelodeon?”
“You were my personal assistant,” Olivia corrected. “And highly paid.”
Another snort. “I was your bitch and we both knew it.” She picked up an antique frame, turned it over in her hand, rolled her eyes at the price, and set it back down. “And for the record? I do work. I work my ass off. I take care of Mom. And speaking of which, I could really use some help in that area, dear sister mine.”
“I think I’ve helped plenty.”
“Is that what you tell people here in Lucky Harbor? Jesus, have you looked around? It’s like a damn postcard. What does everyone think about the fact that they’re housing the original Miley Cyrus in their midst?”
“No one knows.”
Jolyn turned back to her in surprise. It had always been beyond her why Olivia wouldn’t want the world to know who she was. “Don’t tell me you’re still going with the bullshit bio—that you grew up on a Kentucky horse farm.” She took in Olivia’s expression and laughed again. “Unbelievable. You’re standing right in the middle of a windfall, and you haven’t even tried to capitalize on it.” She gestured to the things in the store around her. “Do you have any idea how much more you’d sell if you told people that you starred in the most popular kids’ show to ever hit the air?”
“I’m not telling anyone that, and neither are you.”
Jolyn shook her head. “You’re crazy, you know that, right? But whatever. Just come back to Hollywood with me. It’s where you belong. The best years of our lives were spent there, even with the ups and downs.”
Olivia nearly laughed at just how wrong every word in that sentence was. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Why?”
“I like my life here.”
“You don’t have a life here, Sharlyn, you have lies here.”
“I’m not leaving.” She was surprised at how easy it was to say. “I’ve met someone.”
“Uh-huh. And does this guy know you’re just playing your latest role?” Jolyn asked. Her gaze suddenly shifted to something behind Olivia, her face brightening as she straightened. “Well, hello,” she purred.
Olivia went stock-still and then whipped around. Oh, God. Cole.
He had a hammer in one hand, a two-by-four in the other. He’d shoved up the sleeves of his shirt and was covered in sawdust, and still he looked like the best thing that had ever happened to her.
Had he meant what he’d said? That people got mad, and then they got over it? Hope slammed her heart into her ribs painfully. Maybe her happy marker didn’t have to come up.
But then he met her gaze, and the hope died so fast her chest felt like it had caved in on itself.
With one last long look at her, he turned and walked out.
Chapter 28
Cole couldn’t remember walking out of Unique Boutique, but when he blinked, he was standing outside in a very light mist. He actually had to look down at himself and make sure he was still upright, he’d gone that numb.
Reeling, he shook his head. She wasn’t Olivia Bentley. That was just someone she’d made up. Her entire life was a lie. No, scratch that. She hadn’t told him enough about herself to equal an entire life. Just bits and pieces.
But those bits and pieces had all been lies.
His brain was stuck on that. He’d opened himself up and revealed himself to her. And she’d lied about…everything.
“Cole.”
As if from a distance, he saw himself shoving his hand into his pocket for his keys and heading for his truck. He was on autopilot, which worked for him. Numb.
“Cole, please stop.”
He didn’t until he was at his truck and she put a hand on his arm.
“How much did you hear?” Olivia asked.
He stared at her. “Seriously? Is that the concern here?”
“I can explain,” she said.
Yeah, he’d heard that one before. From Susan’s lips on the day of Gil’s funeral. And hell if he was going to be made a fool of for a second time in a row.
Too late, asshole.
Shrugging her off, he hauled open the door of his truck and slid behind the wheel.
Olivia stepped into the space between the cab of the truck and the door so that he couldn’t close it.
“We need to talk,” she said.
He let out a harsh laugh and tilted his head back to stare up at the roof of the truck. “Now she wants to talk.”
“Please,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes and his heart to the pain in her voice. “It’s too late for that.”
“No,” she said. “When I walked out last night, you said it was okay, that I was just mad. That’s what this is, right? It’s your turn to walk out mad, and later it will be okay. Right?”
“Wrong.” So very wrong. “Olivia, you let me think you didn’t have any family. You stood in my mother’s house, moved by my relationship with my family, and let me console you because you were alone. I wanted to make things better for you.”
She was pale and wide-eyed. “It’s…hard to explain.”
“No,” he said. “It’s one word. Lies.” He turned the key. His truck engine roared to life, which was a relief. Something was working.
She reached for him but he caught her hand in his, and put his other hand to her stomach to hold her back.
But touching her was a mistake, a big one. His brain hadn’t yet gotten the message that he’d been screwed over yet again. And plus she was shaking.
/> Apparently he could feel something after all.
“You don’t understand,” Olivia said softly, hoping to reach him. Desperate to reach him. “All my life, it’s been me playing someone else, so that I didn’t even know who I really was. I stopped being honest with people a long time ago.”
“That was your choice,” he said.
“Yeah, a hard-learned choice. The last person I told the truth to was my college boyfriend. He had a film fest and charged admission to the party without warning me. I showed up and it was…” She shook her head. “Humiliating, to say the least.”
“Jesus.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “That was a real asshole move, but I’d never have done that to you, and you damn well knew it.”
“I just wanted to start over,” she said. “So I came here and erased my past.”
“You can’t erase your past,” he said. “It’s a part of you. You have to accept it before you can move on.”
She met his gaze. “Is that what you did after Gil and Susan? You accepted it and moved on?”
He stared back for a long beat. “I actually thought I was doing just that. And I thought I was doing it with you.”
She searched desperately for some softening in him and saw nothing but cool, calm resolve. He’d made up his mind about her. She hadn’t met his expectations, and it was over. Done. The thought made her shiver.
“Go inside,” he said, sounding as weary as she’d ever heard him. “It’s too cold and wet out here.”
“No. I—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Sharlyn.”
“Olivia,” she whispered. “I’m Olivia now.”
He just looked at her like she was a stranger.
Yeah, she was cold. Cold to the bone, and it had nothing to do with the mist. Staring into his closed-off face, she slowly shook her head. “I knew it’d come to this. I’ve been counting down.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we had a shelf life, and we’re expired. It was only a matter of time, and I knew it going in.”
His jaw tightened. “Fuck that, Olivia. You can’t hold me accountable for the way this has gone down.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “You kept secrets. You can’t build a relationship on secrets.”
“I didn’t keep anything from you that mattered to the here and now.”
“Are you kidding?” he asked incredulously. “You kept everything from me, including the fact that you do have family, and your real name. Jesus.”
“It wasn’t like that—”
“What was real?” he asked. “Any of it?”
Her throat got so tight that she couldn’t talk, which was just as well, really. Because the one thing that had been unequivocally true had been her feelings for him.
Which she wasn’t about to admit now.
And besides, maybe after acting and faking emotions all her life, she couldn’t trust those feelings anyway. “You’re not listening,” she said.
He shook his head slowly. “Actually, I’m listening to every word, especially the ones you’re not saying.”
When she didn’t respond, didn’t know how to respond, Cole nudged her back, shut the driver’s door, and hit the gas.
She was still standing on the sidewalk trying to figure out how her life had just imploded when she heard someone come up behind her.
“Do I even want to know?” Jolyn asked.
Olivia drew in a deep breath, doing her best not to completely lose it.
“Let me guess,” her sister said, propping an elbow on Olivia’s shoulder as she gazed down the street after Cole. “You messed something up.”
“I messed everything up.”
“It’s a Peterson trait,” Jolyn said. “How did you land him anyway? ’Cause nothing personal, but that guy? Out of your league.”
Wasn’t that the bleak truth.
And worse, she realized she had an audience of more than just her sister. Lucille was standing under the bakery’s awning kitty-corner from her shop, eating some sort of pastry out of a white bag.
“Hi honey,” she called out, waving. “You want me to post to Twitter, ask him to come back?”
Olivia blinked and tried to change gears, but couldn’t.
I’m listening to every word, especially the ones you’re not saying…
“Because I can do that,” Lucille said. “People love it when I tweet.”
A few more elderly ladies came out of the bakery, each with her own small white bag.
“Honey, are you listening to me?” Lucille asked.
This wasn’t happening. This really wasn’t—
“What’s doing?” one of the bluehairs asked.
“She chased off Cole Donovan,” Lucille told her. “Right before my very eyes.”
“That charter captain hottie?” another one of them asked, and then tsked, like maybe Olivia wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. “How did she do that?”
“I’m not sure, I turned my hearing aid all the way up and still missed some of it. Something about her not being Olivia but Sharlyn,” Lucille said. “But I don’t know what that means.”
“It means she’s Sharlyn Peterson, that little girl TV star who put the crazy in crazy. Went off the deep end about a decade ago and vanished.”
“Get out,” Lucille said. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called out to Olivia again. “Honey, is that true?”
“Well, of course it’s true,” the other bluehair said. “I watch episodes of Not Again, Hailey! when my Xanax wears off. It reruns at two in the morning on Nick at Night. Cheaper than watching the shopping network. I had to cut up my credit cards after I realized I’d ordered twelve sets of paring knives. And I don’t even like to cook.”
Next to Olivia, Jolyn snorted. “This place isn’t so bad after all,” she murmured.
“So is that it?” Lucille asked. “You lied to us? Because if that’s what happened, well then shame on you, honey. Unless you had a really good reason. Did you? Why don’t you run it by us, and we’ll vote on it.”
Olivia turned on her heel and walked back into her shop.
Of course, Jolyn followed.
“I should’ve locked the door,” Olivia muttered.
Jolyn was grinning. “Shame on you,” she said, imitating Lucille’s ancient, smoked-three-packs-a-day voice.
Olivia ground her back teeth. “You enjoying the show?”
“Oh, yeah. This is better than anything you ever acted on.”
Olivia wanted to scream, she wanted to throw something. She wanted…
To figure out how to go back in time and strangle Jolyn before she’d come to Lucky Harbor.
God, she was tired. Tired of pretending to have it all together. Tired of the fiction. She just wanted to be herself.