Heaven And Hell novel Chapter 132

He knocked but when she didn't answer, he opened the door and went inside. He stood beside the desk she was at, mildly amused at the sight of a leggy, grown woman wedged between a tiny chair meant for a six-year-old and a desk as old as this house. He watched her shoulders shake with sadness that tore from her body.

He'd seen women cry before, but their tears were always dainty and deliberate, intended to bend a man's will. Livvy had stood in his study that first day they'd met and argued, hurtling verbal knives at him like a warrioress.

Cole put his hand on her shoulder. "Olivia --"

Livvy looked and jerked up onto her elbows, her eyes a deep blue, her thick sooty lashes sparkling with tears. "Go away!" she demanded in a hoarse whisper. "Go away before someone spies on us outside and take another picture so they could make up some story about me being a slut again!"

"The nursery is on the top floor, Olivia," Cole put in gently. "If a journalist with a camera wanted to spy on us, he'd have to risk breaking his neck from a fall."

Livvy irritably rubbed the tears from her eyes and cheeks with her palms. Cole made no move to leave, which made her roll her eyes. "Do you know how caught up we are in this stupid intangible web now?" she snapped. "Don't you have any decency or principles or something in that black heart of yours?"

"Zero," he averred casually, not insulted in the least. "I prefer being practical above all else." Ignoring Livvy's dagger eyes, he sat down on the teacher's desk in the centre of the room, right in front of her, and said, "Drink this."

In his hand was a glass of amber liquid close enough to her face for Livvy to smell the strong spirits. "Uh-uh," she said, shaking her head. "Nope. I drink beer sometimes but not this."

"Drink it," he calmly countered, "or I'll pour it down your throat."

"You wouldn't!"

"Yes, I would. Now drink it down, it will make you feel better."

Livvy could see there was no point in arguing and she looked too exhausted to put up a fight. She took a resentful sip of the alcohol and tried to thrust it back into his hand. "I feel much better," she wheezed in a cough, lying.

A spark of amusement lit Cole's eyes. "Go on. Drink the rest."

"I didn't know you drink alcohol," she distracted. "You never touch it."

"Yes," she grumbled.

"Might as well do the same thing to Brett. Wouldn't want the paintballs to go to waste."

Her expression sobered. "I know it's not just about them, but they added to the hurt I feel right now and --" She knew she'd start crying if she continued on, so she shook her head got up from the seat, and started to walk away to find somewhere to weep out her anguish in privacy. "I'm sorry, but I just need to be alone for a while."

Helpless to let her go without at least trying to comfort her, Cole caught her shoulders and pulled her against his chest, tightening his arms when she tried to wrench free. "Don't, please," he whispered against her fragrant hair. "Don't go. Don't waste your tears. She's not worth your tears, nor is that guy."

The shock of being held in his arms again was almost great as Livvy's misery, and the combination of emotions left her paralysed, it seemed. With her head bowed, she stood silently in his arms, tears racing from her eyes, her body jerking with suppressed sobs.

Cole tightened his arms more, as if he could absorb her hurt by holding her closer, and when that didn't console her after several minutes, he began in sheer desperation to tease her. "If she'd known what a good shot you are," he whispered past the unfamiliar tightness in his throat, "she'd never have dared." His hand lifted to her wet cheek, holding it pressed against his chest. "You could always tell her to have a shooting competition, you know." The spasmodic shaking in Livvy's slender shoulders began to subside, and Cole added with forced tightness, "Better yet, Michael should stand in for you as your second. He's not as fine a shot as you are, I guess, but he's a hell of a lot faster..."