AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hale stood and walked toward the door. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”
“What?” I followed him to the door, confused.
“In case they ask a lot of questions,” he said. “Just for backup.”
“You don’t need to go,” I said. Who would I say he was? I stared at him, trying to figure out what he wasn’t telling me. “How will I introduce you?” If I was honest, it would be a relief to have an ally, but it made no sense.
He smiled at me again, my heart skipping as if on cue. A shadow flickered through his eyes and he seemed to hesitate, but then his chin lifted and he continued. “About that, I’ve been meaning to tell you something, and you’ll definitely need to know for the meeting.”
“What?”
“I told you Hale was a nickname.”
“Right.”
“My name is Oliver.”
I nodded, not sure why he chose this moment to tell me that. “Okay…”
The look he gave me before he disappeared out the door was strange. He looked guilty. And it was almost like he waited a beat to see if I reacted to the name. Did he really think not telling me his name was that big of a deal? Lots of people went by nicknames.
“I’ll pick you up Monday, Holland.”
I nodded, feeling confused as my mind turned over this strange development. “Bye, Oliver.” I let the name slide off my tongue as the door shut.
—
By Monday morning, I had some dark suspicions about why Oliver had decided to tell me his real name, most of which revolved around my memory of the photos hanging in my company’s lobby and the striking resemblance he bore to the CEO. When a Mercedes coupe pulled up at my apartment building just before eight and Oliver stepped out in a tailored suit with his hair cut short and the three-day scruff trimmed to a very manicured shadow, the suspicions I’d been trying to ignore were confirmed.
Oliver was Oliver Cody. As in Cody Technology. As in the CEO of my company, and therefore my boss. Actually, my boss’s boss.
I walked out the front door to meet him, my fury barely contained. “You lied to me,” I hissed.
“Good morning,” he said, a wary smile on his too-handsome face. He opened the passenger door and saw me settled before closing it behind me and getting in on the other side.
Once he was seated, I turned and let him have it. “How the hell could you not tell me who you are? From the very first moment? You let me believe you were some kind of down-and-out developer! Some…some nobody!”
“Holland,” he said, but I wasn’t done.
“No! You made a fool of me, letting me whine to you about the hiring process…and I just read an email telling me the analyst I told you about was demoted last Friday! You did that, didn’t you?” Pamela had forwarded the email to me. Pamela, my confidante at work. Oliver’s secretary. I hadn’t told her anything about my involvement with the mysterious guy in the coffeehouse, Hale. I should have. She would have put two and two together much more quickly than I had.
“He didn’t deserve the position. He has the opportunity to work back up to it. The demotion was based on a review of his work.”
“I don’t care! That wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t who you are, and if you hadn’t been pretending to be someone else! Who does that? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Oliver didn’t answer, just looked away to stare at his hands on the steering wheel. After a long silence, he said, “I wanted to tell you. I tried…”
“I didn’t stop you.”
He looked sad again, and I fought to keep the anger burning inside me. He’d been dishonest, he’d lied. That was a hard thing for me to overlook, even when his very presence seemed to make the air between us vibrate, even when every cell in my body was screaming for me to forgive him and climb into his lap. I had another thought as we sat there at the curb, an image of the angry man I’d seen on the executive floor flashed into my mind. “That was you,” I whispered, realizing the truth of it. “You were up in the executive tower that night, a few days before I met you, throwing things and screaming!”
“I let things get a little out of control.”
“I saw you. I sent security up.”
He looked at me, an eyebrow lifted and a tiny smile lifting one corner of his mouth.
“Jesus,” I breathed. “Who does that? What were you so angry about?”
