Dear Olivia
Bella Fontaine
Contents
Dear Olivia
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Dear Olivia
Beauty and the Bad Boy
Book 1
USA Today Bestselling Author
Khardine Gray
writing as
Bella Fontaine
Copyright © 2019 by Khardine Gray
Dear Olivia Book 1 of Beauty and the Bad Boy Copyright © 2019 by Khardine Gray
All rights reserved.
Cover design © 2019 by Net Hook & Line Design
This work is copyrighted. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The author asserts that all characters and situations depicted in this work of fiction are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations.
It is intended for mature readers. All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual.
Created with Vellum
Chapter 1
Olivia
* * *
“Okay girl. I’m not following.” Jada gave me a pointed stare with her huge brown eyes. “Are you saying something’s wrong with him? Or no?”
Her expression was almost cynical because we both knew for damn certain that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Marcus Patterson.
Marcus Patterson was a senior partner at Silvermans, one of L.A.’s most prestigious law firms. He was also voted one of the hottest eligible bachelors in L.A.
Also, he was the man who mentored me when I started at Silvermans five years ago and literally brought me to the stage where I was today.
Today was the first day of me stepping out into the world as a senior associate at the firm.
The thought made my whole body both buzz with excitement and shriek from anxiety. Add in my confliction over Marcus and I was waiting to implode on myself.
“You know it’s a no, Jada. There’s nothing wrong with him.” I pulled in a ragged breath and slumped against the soft leather back of my chair.
Jada sipped on her espresso but stared at me over the rim of the super-large white ceramic mug. She always had a large mug of whatever it was she was ordering when we came here.
Every morning we’d start our day at Jake’s Spot, the trendy café that had been like a second home to the two of us for the last few years. It was our little sanctuary to air our stresses and, lately, my uncertainty over Marcus.
“You know what my next question’s gonna be?” Jada tilted her head to the side and the cascade of long braids she wore her hair in fell over her shoulders.
I pulled in another breath and chuckled. “Yes. You’re gonna ask me what’s wrong with me.”
She set the mug down and wagged her finger at me, nodding at the same time. “Precisely girl. You got it. But it’s not the question. I’m going to tell you that there’s something wrong with you. Today.” Jada straightened and the sunlight sparkled off the shimmer cream on her skin. The mixture of the golden specks from the cream and the rich, dark-brown color of her skin was mesmerizing, particularly against the bright turquoise of her dress.
“Just today?” I laughed. It may have sounded like I was having a dig at myself but I wasn’t. The truth was I got like this with every guy.
“You’re too conflicted to make decisions about men today. Especially a good one. A damn good one who is F.I.N.E.” She gave me a vigorous nod. “I’m talking young-Denzel-Washington fine, and God, even if he looked like Denzel as he is now, he would still be F.I.N.E.” We both laughed.
“Okay, Jada, so we established that Marcus is F.I.N.E. I got it, it doesn’t help me much, though. What will happen next time? Tomorrow.” My shoulders slumped.
I’d known Marcus for five years, and in that time it never occurred to me that he may have any interest in me other than work. When we met, he had a girlfriend. They broke up three years later but I never knew why, and there was no way I was going to ask.
Three weeks ago he took it upon himself to ask me out. Part of me wanted to say no because I wasn’t sure how it would look to everyone else with me in the run for the senior associate position. I guess I must have liked him enough not to worry too much about that.
As of last night, I thought it was safe to say that we were at the stage where we’d gone out on a few dates and should have at least kissed by now. It was an awkward stage. That should-we-continue-this-or-not stage.
Jada gave me her trademark sassy, one-shoulder shrug. That meant she was transforming into Dr. Jada Dane, New York Times newest number one bestselling author. AKA Dr. Love.
My very best friend in all the world who thought she was the answer God had given humankind when they had questions about relationships.
I may have laughed if it wasn’t true. My best friend had christened herself Dr. Love, and that was what people called her far and wide.
“You’re too conflicted, my dear friend. When tomorrow comes, you allow it to take its course. Today is today with its own problems and tomorrow is another day that won’t carry the burdens of today.”
I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “You simply love listening to yourself talk, don’t you?”
“Yes, because this goddess speaks wisdom. Olivia.” She snapped her fingers, blinked, then focused on me as she reached across the table to take my hand. “He likes you, and that’s a good thing. You like him too, or else you wouldn’t have accepted his offer to go out with him in the first place. Open your heart to the possibility of this.”
Open my heart.
“Open my heart?”
Jada nodded. “Open your heart, Olivia. You know what I mean.”
I did know.
Open my heart. Wouldn’t that be nice. My heart closed for business ages ago. Too much heartache. Too much pain.
Just too much.
I tried to open my heart a few years back with Jonathan, my last boyfriend. There was nothing wrong with him either. He was a doctor. A really nice guy who liked me a lot, and I liked him too, I just never allowed myself to be the real me with him.
Not like I was when I was younger. When my soul felt free and open to the possibility of love.
I was young and foolish then. A young, foolish and naïve girl who’d been burned by love in a way that made me wary. It opened the door to vulnerability. That was the kind of thing a high-flying lawyer like me didn’t need. At thirt
y-one years old I would have liked to think that I had my head screwed on. Didn’t mean, though, that I wanted this continuous guard on my heart when I had a new potential guy.
“So, let’s start again. You got to the part of the evening where you could have kissed and didn’t.” She brought her hands together and flicked her braids to the other side. “What happened? What stopped you?”
That was the part I got to when she started her grilling session.
Maybe it was way too early to have guy trouble on my mind, and damn it, she was right, I was in a complete state of conflicted emotion to even think I knew what I wanted to do with my day, let alone the uber gorgeous man I was currently considering giving the brush.
“I don’t know what stopped me.” That was the truth.
The evening was perfect. We had dinner at a little Italian restaurant near the river and talked forever. He took me home, walked me to my door and we had the moment of looking at each other. The kiss should have happened seconds later. Only it didn’t. Something made me start talking about today. The meeting today.
The meeting I should be focused on because it was my first assignment as a senior associate. I was being trusted with a top client. A seriously top-of-the-food-chain client who wanted his merger and intellectual property concerns managed.
It was exciting and thrilling. Scary too, but had that sense of accomplishment I definitely longed for. However, it kind of wasn’t the thing to bring up in the prelude to a kiss.
I couldn’t tell if I averted the kiss because I freaked out on some subconscious level because kissing him would take me right over the line of friendship. Or if I stopped the kiss in its tracks because I liked him more than I wanted to and was afraid of what would happen next.
“I can’t figure you out, Olivia.” Jada shook her head and squinted. Her thick dark lashes cast a shadow over her high cheek bones.
“What does that mean?” I huffed and picked up my cup of hot chocolate. I took a sip and put it back down on the table, frowning. The time we’d taken up talking had turned it luke warm.
She opened her palms and smiled. “Means you working so hard has jaded you in some way. So, let me give you some Miss Jada, New York Times Bestselling Author, diva advice.” She giggled. I had to laugh too.
“Is that what you’re calling yourself now? I liked Dr. Love.”
“I’m still Dr. Love, but Harpers Bazaar called me that and I like it. A lot. I may do a column of sorts.” She shuffled her shoulders in delight. “Anyway, screw it, Olivia, if you feel like kissing the man, kiss him. Just do it. DO. IT.” She tapped on the glossy surface of the mahogany table with her perfectly manicured nail. “Go with the flow.”
I shook my head at her. Go with the flow was the name of her bestselling book and her trademark saying.
“Go with the flow, like what you told me to do with the preacher man’s son?”
Her eyes widened and she winced. “No, nooooo. That was too much. Also, I didn’t mean him. God, why did you have to choose the son of a preacher man?”
Of course she had to do her best impression of Aretha Franklin. We both laughed and I continued to chuckle at the memory of me kissing Dawson Montgomery in the parking lot of Aunt Maureen’s church yard. That was moments before he introduced me to his fiancée.
Jada and I were there for a wedding reception. Aunt Maureen invited us both and we had far too much to drink.
“I was drunk.”
“Whatever, and anyway, all you need to do is go with the flow with Marcus. Him aside…I get the jitters about the guy, but girl, why are you so worried about this meeting of yours? You’ve done this before, and you are fantastic.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that.” I grabbed the ends of my hair and swiveled it around my thumb. It was a nervous habit I hated.
Coop, my brother, would have laughed at me. He said it made me look like I was one of those girls who twirled their hair mindlessly and all I needed to complete the look was a lollypop.
Jada stared at me, waiting for me to continue.
“I just want to make sure I do everything right. The senior partners are going to be watching me closely. It’s a big project.”
It was a seriously big project. Bradley Henderson, tech wiz and owner of Concubus Software, had hired us to oversee his merger with Stephens Inc., a FTSE 500 investment company.
I’d always found in similar cases that, while both parties wanted something from each other and merging was a great idea, there was always some aspect of the individual businesses that each wanted to keep individual control over.
That was where I stepped in. This was my area of specialty. Merger and acquisitions, and most especially anything to do with intellectual property. It served me right that I was nervous because I was the one who loved a challenge.
“You can do it.” Jada’s reassurance cut into my thoughts. “Olivia, you were born to do this.”
I smiled at the compliment. My father always told me that too.
“I was born to do this.”
“That’s the spirit. Onwards and upwards. Senior associate now and senior partner next.”
Jada was on a roll with this pep talk of hers and it was working.
I nodded. “Yes. Looks like my path’s coming together, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
This path found me. I’d always, always wanted to be a lawyer firm as far back as I could remember, but I never planned to work at Silvermans. Honestly, I didn’t think I would get in. I did, though, and I was doing really well. I was happy with my accomplishments. It was a plus, even if I sucked at relationships.
“Okay, I’m myself again. Nerves be gone.” I glanced at my watch. I had fifteen minutes before the meeting started. If I got up to the meeting room now, I could get settled in before everyone else got there. “I better go up. I’ll call you later.”
“You better. Then with your clearer mind we can talk about Marcus, and you can give me any extra updates from today.” She nodded enthusiastically.
She seemed to have such high hopes for Marcus and me working out. I wished I could feel the same, or feel that my head would really be clearer later.
Right now I didn’t know and I was torn. At least I was less nervous about my meeting, and that was a good thing.
“Give me some sugar.” She spread her arms and I got up to give her a quick hug.
“Stay out of trouble, Miss Thing,” I cautioned, grinning.
“What would be the fun in that?” She shrugged and laughed.
I smirked, shaking my head at her, and left.
Jada was such a character. She’d always been that way. Always the one to see the silver lining on any kind of cloud and she saw the light at the end of the tunnel even before the light switched on.
It was a good way to be and I wished I could have a third of whatever essence God mixed up when he made Jada Dane. At least I’d know what to do about Marcus.
It was really bugging me, and as I went into the Silvermans building I couldn’t shake my worries over him. I’d see him today at some point. We always talked over coffee or caught up with each other during the day.
Today I kind of wanted to avoid that.
I guess this was why people never mixed business with pleasure: there would be some element of it that would come back to bite you. Marcus was great and, yes, F.I.N.E, but he was business. We talked about work eighty percent of the time, and when we tried to talk about life the conversation would steer back to work.
That wasn’t chemistry.
I could almost laugh at myself. Chemistry was something I didn’t want either. My heart wanted it badly but it wasn’t good for me. For the one time in my life that I had it, it got me in trouble and took me to a place I never thought I could come back from. Everything blew up in my face.
I got to the reception on the tenth floor where the meeting was taking place and ran into a very troubled looking Elspeth. She was my secretary and nothing ever rattled her. She, however, looked like she was
about to explode as she marched around the reception counter with a tray topped with a hot water jug and coffee cups.
“Morning, what’s going on?”
Elspeth winced. “They’re here already and driving me crazy.”
I widened my eyes. “The clients?”
“Yes, and you know how we always heard how Bradley Henderson is a total prick? Well, he is. He was a complete ass to me when he got here and completely rude to the guy from Stephens.”
“Really?” That did not sound good.
She nodded vigorously. “Damn prick, and the tension is high.”
“How long have they been here?” If I’d known, I would have gotten in earlier. If only to take the edge off for Elspeth. She didn’t deserve rudeness from anyone, no matter how VIP they were.
“A little over half an hour. Bradley got here first, then the business development manager from Stephens came five minutes later. Oh, heads up.” A mischievous glint flickered in her eyes. “The guy from Stephens is incredibly hot. Sure, I know I got married last month, but I’m not dead or blind, and hot damn the guy is hot.”
We both laughed, but then I shuddered.
“So I’m walking into an office with a seriously hot guy and a prick?” Great. Just what I needed.
“You sure are. What a way to start your new role. You’ll be fine, though. It’s just too much for a Monday morning.”
It sounded like too much for any kind of morning.
I’d met Bradley before. Once. It was enough. He was alright with me, but I heard what he could be like, and as a very wealthy long-standing client to Silvermans, he was always given the five-star treatment. That meant he had the powers that be eating out of his hands.
Dear Olivia Page 1
