Chapter 19

“My bro, the up and coming Hollywood starlet,” Cole drawled as I picked up the phone. I was walking down the sidewalk towards the restaurant where my PI had told me Jolette and Marco were currently dining.

A man on a mission so to speak.

“Starlet?” I muttered, pulling my phone away from my ear to see where the hell I was going.

“Didn’t know you had such a pretty face for the camera, Walkie Poo.”

“I’m literally on TV every time I play,” I reminded him, trying to relax my shoulders and walk through all the reasons I couldn’t just shoot both of them when I got to the restaurant.

Prison time.

Lack of conjugal visits with Olivia.

That last one being the important one.

“You have that ugly mask hiding your face though. No one knew the legend that was hiding underneath. You’re like the girl in the movies where the guy takes her glasses off and suddenly she’s the hottest girl in school.”

“Why exactly do you keep comparing me to girls?” I complained, glancing down at my GPS again.

“What can I say, I’ve got women on the brain.”

“Is that different than usual?” I asked, going ahead and putting him on speakerphone because now I needed to check the camera feed I’d had installed in Olivia’s apartment. I’d submitted a complaint about a gas leak for her floor and then had my guy show up pretending to be the contractor hired to check it out. When he’d “inspected” Olivia’s apartment, he’d installed the little cameras that Lincoln and Ari had told me about.

I didn’t know what it said that my two best friends also had cameras in their places so they could see their girls whenever they weren’t there…but I figured it was a circle of trust thing. Like the dick decorations.

A circle of trust thing that we would never tell another living soul.

She was sitting on her couch, playing with her guitar, and I traced the screen like a fucking lunatic, wishing I was there listening to her right now.

Baby steps though. This “meeting” was necessary for Olivia and I to move to the next level.

Sacrifices must be made.

“I’m on a pussy break,” Cole announced, reminding me he was still on the phone. “Walker?” he pressed when I didn’t respond for a second.

“Sorry, I just about dropped dead with shock. I needed a second to process what you just said.”

He huffed like he was mortally offended.

“I accidentally bedded a stage five clinger last night, Walk. She tried to rip a hole in the condom…while it was on my dick…so I could get her pregnant. She pulled up wedding dresses on her phone while I was still inside her.” He sounded completely terrified just telling me about it.

It did sound…kind of terrifying. If the girl wasn’t Olivia. I’d gladly look at dresses with her while she was on my dick. I’d gladly do anything she wanted in that position.

“Sounds like you weren’t doing a very good job if she was bored enough to start surfing the web, Cole. Maybe that legendary Davis stamina skipped you.”

“Har, Har. That was not the case,” he snapped. “It’s because I was so good that she was doing that. She was trying to trap me!”

“Keep telling yourself that, brother,” I teased. “She wasn’t properly dickmatized is the only thing I’m hearing right now.”

“I hate you,” he muttered as I finally got to the restaurant.

“Love you too, Coco Bean,” I told him, smiling as he snorted at my use of his childhood nickname. “I gotta go though.”

“Fiiine,” he complained, “go get your picture taken again. Try the left side this time though, because the right side was a little lacking.” I was chuckling as we said our goodbyes and hung up.

The smile on my face faded right off when I remembered what I was about to do.

It hadn’t been my favorite thing to tip off the photographers about where Olivia was going to be coming out, but I needed to be seen with her…and I needed it to be everywhere.

It had worked out exactly as I wanted it to. The gossip headlines had been full of us.

“Has Love Tamed Music’s Wild Child?”

“Rebel with a new cause?: Olivia Darling and NHL’s Prince Charming Dating?”

“Prince Charming and the Frog Princess?”

The headlines infuriated me, but they served my purpose. Me dating Olivia was good for her reputation.

And I knew of two people who were desperate for that.

Even though they had been the ones to ruin and trash Olivia’s reputation in the first place.

Fuckwads.

I put on my Lincoln Daniels face as I walked into the restaurant. The one that said I was the king of badassery, a prince among men. And all these fuckers were just lucky to breathe the same air as me.

Wasn’t sure I quite had it down, but I’d been practicing in the mirror and I believed it was an achievable goal.

And as we all knew…achievable goals were important.

I didn’t need to ask the hostess where they were sitting. As usual for two people who craved the spotlight but didn’t have an ounce of talent between them, they were seated at the most visible table at the restaurant.

Not my favorite thing since I did need this part of the plan to be incognito, but at least this place wasn’t a paparazzi hotspot. And everyone around didn’t seem to give a damn who was sitting around them, they were just here for the food.

I only got a little satisfaction from their shocked expressions as I slid into the empty chair at their table.

Jolette gaped at me for a second before remembering she was a frigid ice bitch and was supposed to play it cool. Marco recovered quicker, probably seeing dollar signs since I knew from doing research on him he’d recently picked up some gullible athletes to add to his clientele.

He was probably frothing at the mouth having me here.

I took a second to examine them.

I couldn’t see any of Jolette in Olivia, but maybe the bitch had gotten so much plastic surgery you couldn’t tell what she really looked like anymore. Her ice blonde hair was perfectly coiffed, her skin stretched tight over her bones, giving her the appearance of a porcelain doll with a cruel smile. Her eyes, cold and calculating, swept over me, and I held in my shiver because she honestly looked like she wanted to eat me alive.

“What can we do for you, Walker Davis?” she purred, and the sound of her voice was like a knife in the ear.

My dick was shrinking listening to her. I would have to measure it when I got home because I might have just lost two inches just being in her presence.

Olivia would be furious. I was pretty sure I was making her addicted to my dick.

Jolette cleared her throat and I put my bad bitch mask back on, deciding that thinking about fucking her daughter was probably not a good idea at the moment.

Disinterested. That’s what I needed to go for.

“Quite the contract you recently signed,” Marco simpered, and I mean simpered. He resembled a scavenger, ready to pounce on any opportunity. He stunk of desperation, practically reeked of it as a matter of fact.

‘I have a little proposition for you,’ I said, settling into my seat and grabbing a breadstick.

Their gazes were locked on me, waiting for me to continue. Marco leaned forward, eager to hear what I had to say, while Jolette remained composed, her cold blue eyes studying me intently.

‘I’m sure you’ve seen the recent headlines. They’ve been quite good for your daughter.” I threw down my phone, scrolling through the articles that I’m sure they’d already been through at least twice this morning.

I could feel their energy shift, both of them frothing at the mouth as they began to realize where I was going with this.

“I’m offering that I date Olivia. I need the publicity for my new gig with Dallas, and she needs the reputation boost.” I flashed them what I hoped was a brilliant looking smile, the words I’d just said feeling like ash on my fucking tongue. “And we all know that dating someone like me would be good for her.”

“I’m sorry,” Jolette giggled, and it was too high pitched, like she’d practiced how to sound like a demented clown child for hours before this moment. “I’m struggling to understand what Olivia can offer you. Besides her most likely diseased cunt.”

I blinked slowly, because…I knew she was an evil bitch, but I had not expected those words to come out of her mouth. I clenched my fists under the table, struggling to keep a calm facade and not knock her out.

As a rule, I was against hitting women, but this “cunt” in front of me wasn’t a woman.

She was a monstrous bitch.

“Now Jolette, try and keep calm. I know it’s difficult with everything she’s put us through,” cooed Marco, smoothing his slicked back hair like he thought he was some kind of Bond villain.

I pasted on a smile, this time not channeling Lincoln because I didn’t want Jolette to start humping my leg…something she felt dangerously close to doing.

“Easy. I need a little something to set me apart in Dallas. The team’s full of All Stars. It’s easy to fade into the background with people like Lincoln Daniels and Ari Lancaster in the building.”

“Don’t forget about Camden James. That was quite the offseason for Dallas,” added Marco.

I nodded because Camden was a baller.

I shrugged though, like all of it meant nothing. “What better way to do that than to date Olivia and be the man responsible for bringing her back in the limelight?”

Jolette’s gross flirty smile remained in place, but I could see the gears turning in her mind. Marco, on the other hand, looked positively ecstatic at the idea, as if he could already see the dollar signs in his future.

This whole conversation made me feel the worst kind of dirty, and I was hoping it could hurry up so I could get as far away from these people as possible.

I was going to destroy these two fools. Make them wish they’d never been born.

“Do you understand, Mr. Davis…that we own Olivia?” Jolette finally asked slowly as she stared me down, holding a finger up when Marco tried to interject something.

I swallowed down my rage…and kept my face blank. “Why do you think I’m here?” I said lightly.

She tipped her head at me, obviously liking that answer.

“It will mean she has to move to Dallas. I can’t have a relationship with someone in L.A. during the season. That’s not going to do anything for me.”

I’d brought up the idea of moving and Olivia had refused to even talk about it, thinking it was impossible.

Hopefully she’d be pleased with this little change.

Jolette’s nails tapped on the table.

“That’s fine,” agreed Marco, sounding like he was getting bored with the conversation as he picked up his phone and fired off a text. “Her Dallas gig went perfectly. I’ll plan a few more of those and that, combined with new headlines with you, and we’ll be golden.”

Jolette nodded, her piercing gaze still trying to dig a hole into my forehead.

I stood up to leave and Jolette held up one taloned red fingernail. “Why were you with my daughter the other night, Mr. Davis?”

I plastered on another smile.

“Getting a meeting with you,” I winked, pretending her answering blush and cackle didn’t make me want to be sick.

I walked out of the restaurant, their numbers in my phone, feeling like I needed to take a scalding hot shower to wash off the nastiness of what I’d just done.

As I was learning though…sometimes when you found the right girl…to get her…you had to do all the wrong things.

“Would you move to Dallas if they agreed?” I asked later as she was laying in my arms on her couch while we watched a movie.

She froze, and then finally laughed, the sound fake and wrong in my ears. “It’s a little early to talk about something like that,” she finally said.

I frowned, wondering how much I should push this issue. She was about to move to Dallas. It would be nice if she was happy about it.

“What’s early? I’m in. You’re in. We’re good to go,” I pressed.

She glanced up at me with wary eyes. “Why are you pushing this? What’s the rush?”

“I have to leave soon for Dallas. I’d like for you to come with me,” I answered quietly.

She sighed, and I hated the sound of it. “I’m sorry. I can’t—I can’t rush this thing between us. I have too much to lose.”

I understood what she was saying. But it didn’t mean that I had to accept it.

“Olivia—”

“Don’t,” she sprung out of my arms and turned to face me, the soft flicker of the television playing across her beautiful features. “You don’t understand. I’m a mess. Every day I’m just holding it together. You’ve seen me at my best, believe it or not, and what’s happened between us? A couple of panic attacks…lots of crying. That’s just the beginning.”

I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t care about that, that I was there for her no matter what.

But she shook her head ferociously.

“I had to distract myself for hours today because I wanted those pills. The same pills that I took every day for years. The same ones that made me an idiot, and let them take everything from me little by little because I was so high.” Olivia shook her head and my chest ached seeing how much she hated herself. She stood up. “I can’t jump headfirst into something with you, Walker. Even if you seem like ‘Prince Charming’. Even if you seem like the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me. Moving to Dallas is definitely jumping in headfirst,” she ended quietly.

“Come here,” I growled, watching her lower lip tremble.

“Why?” she whispered.

“Come here,” I pressed again, and this time she practically threw herself into my arms, burying her face in my neck, her whole body shaking.

Oh sweetheart, I’m going to take care of everything, I vowed silently.

No matter what it took.

Olivia

“I’d like to think there is a place for us, all the people that walk around perpetually empty, with something missing inside of them. Somewhere where we can belong, and exist without this…pain,” I murmured against his skin as he held me through yet another one of my meltdowns.

He gently lifted me off his chest, his stare burning into my tear stained gaze. “There is a place,” he told me fiercely, making me want to die with the devotion in his eyes. “I was put on this earth to be that place. To be those missing pieces.”

I just continued to look at him. I wanted to believe him. But every person I’d ever met had only made those missing pieces bigger.

I’d like to think that place actually exists.

But I don’t tell him that I don’t.

“I want to be wrapped in your skin…in your bones. I want every piece of you, all over me. There isn’t anything about you that I don’t want. That I don’t covet,” he whispered. “There’s nothing you could show me that’s going to make me change my mind.”

“Change your mind?”

“That you’re mine. Your body belongs to me. Your heart belongs to me. Your soul. Is. Mine.”

He kissed me like he owned me.

And as I settled back into his chest…I was a little afraid that he did.