"Leave."

"Liv-"

"Leave."

"Baby-"

The tears slid down her cheeks and the whisper came again.

"You're killing me."

He said nothing and not just because she wasn't letting him.

"And she's gonna kill you, Nicky," she kept whispering. "I can try to stop her but there's no stopping Georgie. It'll be her or you. I know it. I don't want it to be either. Please be safe. Please get safe. Please get out of here and make yourself and your family safe."

"I love you, Liv."

More tears fell as she replied, "I wish, honest to G.o.d, I really wish I could believe that, Sebring."

He held her eyes and watched the tears fall.

Then he made a decision.

"It's gonna gut me to walk outta here not touching you."

Her lip quivered so she bit it.

His stomach roiled like he was going to vomit.

He fought through it and did what he had to do.

"I love you, Olivia. And I can make you safe. I can make you happy. I want a lifetime of nothing but that."

Another tear fell out of her swelling eye but she said nothing.

"I'm gonna walk out of here not touching you and the last thing you're gonna hear from me is that I love you, baby. f.u.c.k, I so f.u.c.kin' love you."

They stood, her in front of her couch, him behind it, and stared at each other.

Neither moved except for the wet that slid out of Livvie's sad, dead, beautiful green eyes.

"Love you, Livvie," he whispered.

She pressed her lips together.

Nick Sebring watched.

Then he turned and walked out.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

No Soul Olivia Fifteen Weeks Later I looked to my list of Today as shown to me down the side of my email screen as I heard the noises in the outer office.

On a sigh I turned my attention to my office door.

Georgie came in.

"You know, us getting rid of that s.h.i.+thole warehouse and me getting awesome new offices you won't move into so I don't have to haul my a.s.s all the way to DTC to have a sit down with you is a pain in said a.s.s," she complained instead of offering a greeting.

I didn't reply.

I had no intention of moving into her offices.

Not because, even with the exit of Nick from my life, Tommy did not reenter it and he didn't take very kindly to that. Although this surprised Georgia, she didn't say anything. She had (albeit doing it as a means to a current end) encouraged me to get over him. She couldn't be upset I'd actually done that.

And since Tommy was the man behind the less seemly part of Shade operations, he never came to her office anyway.

Which meant, thankfully, I never saw him.

Also not because Gill did show at the offices frequently. What happened with Nick and his girlfriend notwithstanding, he was as clean as Georgia (though not as clean as me). He was also officially taking Georgia's hand in marriage. With Tommy managing the boys, he was therefore recruiting them, so her p.u.s.s.y was now out of commission except for Gill's use. They were planning a lavish affair where the flowers cost more than an SUV and her gown was being custom made.

I had no idea my sister had fallen in love with a man seven years ago.

I was fine with that.

I'd had plenty of time to think about it and the decision I'd made was I was fine with anything that kept me out of their loop.

I was also fine with my father being out of the picture. The evidence pointing to the fact that he shot Drake Nair in the head in cold blood overwhelming (because he actually shot Drake Nair in the head in cold blood), he copped a plea. That still put him behind bars for twenty years, which meant he'd be deep in his seventies when he got out.

There was a small blip to this insofar as Dad got a message to Georgia reminding her she and I were present at that particular murder. His insinuation was that, if he went down, he was taking both of us with him, so he needed her to be certain he did not go down.

Considering the fact she'd masterminded his arrest, and he wasn't stupid enough not to know that, he figured she could do something to reverse the situation, and as was his wont, he was using both of his daughters as a means to that end.

Georgia communicated to me precisely what a ha.s.sle she felt this was for her. Regardless (mostly, my guess, because she needed me to do the job I was doing for the family, and no way in h.e.l.l she was going down), she negotiated a deal that my father would make it through that twenty years in prison without any issues if he left both of us be.

He'd balked at first. But something I was not made privy to happened in lockup so he changed his mind and made the deal.

He was no longer in our lives.

I had no intention of deepening my relations.h.i.+p with my sister because of that.

I also had no intention of continuing a relations.h.i.+p at all with my father, so I didn't.

And as life was already dismal enough, I didn't need other sources making it more so, therefore when Georgia cut off our stepfather's kickback, I cut off my mother.

She brought me no joy so why bother?

Nothing brought me joy but Mom not only didn't bring joy, she was a pain in the a.s.s.

So seriously.

Why bother?

It was not a surprise when my mother didn't bother either. I imagined it was actually a relief to her. It freed up her social schedule and added time she could berate her employees and control my stepfather.

I went to work because I got paid to do it. I went home to the huge-a.s.s house my father made me buy that it was annoying to try to sell, and since I didn't have to anymore, I took it off the market. I did Pilates. I walked on the treadmill. I had my eyebrows shaped and my pubic hair waxed. I went to movies by myself. I went to dinner by myself.

I breathed.

I existed.

I pushed as far as Georgia would allow me to do so as my only enjoyment.

When I knew I was pus.h.i.+ng too far, I toed the line.

The only other blip to getting to that was the unsurprising fact that Georgia had lost her mind about the fact that Nick had played me. She'd been infuriated at Nick for making that move. She'd been more infuriated at me that I'd let him.

The conversation with my sister that came right after the conversation I had with Tommy telling him I was over him and we had no future, regardless of his plans for six years he shared not an iota of with me, was unpleasant to say the least.

But one thing you could say for it, outside of it being done, was that I now definitely knew my place.

My father might be incarcerated but I was a Shade and my life was owned by the head of the House.

I could f.u.c.k who I wanted (not that I did) just as long as they were nameless and harmless. If I actually developed feelings for someone, the silent understanding was that I told Georgia.

I might have found this even bleaker than my life if I had any intention to have feelings for anyone.

Since I did not, it wasn't a problem.

In the case of Nick, I had no idea what was happening. That was part of the business she didn't share with me. Although part of the unpleasantness of our conversation was me sharing I would very much rather my sister not put a hit out on the man who had dishonestly won my heart, but he'd done it all the same.

This was taken as a weakness in my allegiance.

I said no further to my sister on the subject.

I'd made my warnings to Nick. He could take care of himself.

Nevertheless, I sent an anonymous letter to his brother at his nightclub, sharing that the danger was still very real and measures should be taken.

That was all I allowed myself to do mostly because it was all I could do.

As I was not of that world anymore, I'd heard nothing. But watching the news and reading the paper daily did not share that a young, vital, handsome man had been found dead.

So Nick was taking care of himself.

That was good.

In the four months since Nick walked out of my house, I heard nothing from him and saw nothing of him, which proved my a.s.sertions during our heinous final conversation true.

I did not believe because there was nothing to believe.

I had no earthly idea but my guess would be that a man who loved a woman would not walk away from her and not look back.

So there it was.

And in the four months since Nick walked out of my house, as I had a great deal of time, I spent a majority of that time wondering how I ever believed in the first place.

Quite frankly, there wasn't anything about me to love.

I was quite attractive, but deep down, people didn't love looks.

They loved senses of humor. They loved personality. They loved manner. They loved someone who loved dogs, like they did. Or they loved someone who was pa.s.sionate about issues, like they were.

Whatever.

There had to be substance to a person to be a person who could be loved.

There was nothing to me. There'd never been anything to me.

Now Nick, he was a person you could love. He teased great and he cooked great and he kissed great and when you spoke, he listened like there was nothing on earth he wanted more to do. He made me laugh. He made me feel. He made me believe there was something to me.

The woman he spent years plotting revenge for, I bet there was something to her.

But me?

I was a woman he could walk out of my house and never again see.

Truth be told, one of the reasons I decided to keep that house was because it was like keeping a bit of Nick with me. It was the only thing I had, memories of the few times he'd been there. Memories, if I was in the mood, I could pretend were based on something different.

Something real.

I'd been right that first day I woke up to him in my bed. Sometimes, if I was allowing myself to wallow (which I didn't allow often, but it happened), I would ramble and remember his joke about the wood-fired stove. I'd remember falling asleep beside him on the couch after we got back from Vegas.

I'd remember right where he was, right where I was, precisely what he looked like when he lied that lie that was so pretty, telling me he loved me.

"Right, I'm here, I don't wanna be here forever, so let's start this. Harry's retiring and he wanted me to ask you personally to come to his party," my sister announced.

"His reinstatement didn't last long," I murmured.

"He wasn't really reinstated, Liv," Georgie murmured back.