Heaven And Hell novel Chapter 131

"Stop being melodramatic," Cole said calmly, like I was acting like a child.

That was it. I huffed and started to spin on my heel when Cole's biting, icy tone sent a cold shiver down my spine and halted me in my attempted exit. "Sit down!" he clipped. He didn't shout, didn't pull me down, but I sat down automatically as if my body had a mind of its own. Or Cole could control it.

Also, he was being really scary at the moment.

You could basically hear a pin drop, with the silence in the room. No one breathed.

"What we need to do is stay calm in situations like these, rather than be hysterical." His eyes swivelled toward me; I glared back. "The news is out there now -- we can keep ignoring their shots, address that everything isn't true and risk you being doubly humiliated, Olivia, because, believe me, they will make their own conclusions...or we can play along to entertain them. Whatever we choose, it will keep coming one way or another, no matter how we react and act."

He had a point. I wasn't used to this, obviously. I wasn't a celebrity, plus high school popularity sure as heck was far from being royalty status. The only news that spread back in secondary school were rumours slinking through hallways and classrooms, not two countries across one giant pond!

As if things couldn't get any more worse, a tiny maid with red hair came inside the room, bearing a silver tray with a flat object on it. Pemberley stepped in and stuck out his hand in command, so the maid gave it to him quietly. He then came to us and silently leaned a little bit downward to level with Cole and my sitting positions, serving us the tray.

Without a word, Cole took the sheet and eyed it. This made his face white with anger so I just had to see what made him get angrier. Let me tell you now: I wish I hadn't checked it out. It was so slanderous that only the meanest gossipmongers were capable of doing such an awful thing. There, on the gossip headline, was my face, clearly photoshopped (except to people who didn't know any better), in a sexy lingerie and posing in such a way that was one step from being called slutty.

MERRY MARE TO MOUNT FOR HIRE?

MARQUESS OF HAVENHURST ONLY PAID FOR OLIVIA MATHISON'S SWEET COMPANY

I shakily sat on one of the small chairs and placed my arms on the desk and stared out the window that overlooked the garden.

And then I sobbed.

Cole took a moment to find Livvy but a server boy heard sobs and cries in the old nursery room down in the east wing, at the very far corner of the estate. The room had been used from the eighteenth to early twentieth century, where most parents from the Quality dumped their children so they could spend the late hours of the evening until dawn, partying at balls. Cole never really took the time to have the nursery remodelled into something more useful, but he did order a servant to rid the place of dust regularly.

He paused and raised his hand to knock, then checked himself at the sound of Livvy's harsh weeping, his forehead creased into a deep frown. She would probably feel better if she cried everything out of her system, he believed. On the other hand, if she continued crying like that, she would definitely make herself sick. After a few moments' hesitation he went to an old drawing room where the rare and aged liquor were held, poured some long-forgotten, untouched scotch into a glass, and returned to Livvy's location.