The hot flashes started the moment I saw Olivia. When she waltzed across the store in her tight, short, off-white dress, with her boobs pushed up and perfect, and her mouth pouted as she batted her coated eyelashes.

The heart palpitations started when she touched my arm and guided me into her office.

But the despair, the panic, the overwhelming sense of I'm fucked hit me when she closed the door. When she leaned against it, releasing an exaggerated sigh after puffing her cheeks with air, freeing it so it'd fluff through her hair.

"Sorry about that," she said, fluttering past me to sit behind her desk. The room was smaller than I'd have expected for someone like Olivia—she liked spacious surfaces and cozy chairs and expensive artwork all over her walls.

This felt more like a last-minute decision to set up somewhere for her to be alone while her employees rang up her products. The walls were a deep blue, the floors white, the seats made of some fluffy, feathery material.

I sat when she gestured at me to do so; she sat as well, but lazily, purposely shifting left to right to jiggle her breasts. I knew she was doing it on purpose—she'd told me about this trick when we first met and used it on me countless times.

Unfortunately, it still worked. I was ogling her boobs—very real ones, not fake as one would think—and trying not to lick my lips when I realized I needed to rein my feelings in.

While her personality was what ended us, her body never ceased to captivate me. She was like a living doll, not a flaw on her skin, not a hair out of place, even in the early morning when she woke. Without makeup, she was even more beautiful. With it, she was a sex-symbol who could entice with one pucker of her lips and a whip of her glossy, blonde mane.

I'd always been more attracted to the femme-types, but she was excessively femme. I myself was quite feminine, and we were once one of the most striking woman-woman couples in town. Headlines always read that we were the dress-wearing babes who dominated the L.A. night scene.

Those were the good days, when we were young and frivolous and uncaring.

Then we cared too much. Me about her; her about her career. We argued, we threw things, we stopped showing up together at events. We still slept in the same bed—the sex was insanely good with her—but back to back, pretending the other didn't exist.

Oh, she still existed. She was there, right in front of me, hotter than I remembered, harder to resist. Seeing her out in the open made my legs shake; but to be in this narrow room with her, with nothing but the desk to protect me...

Sweat formed on the back of my neck, beneath my hair, and I prayed for this to be over quickly.

"So, Estelle Levine, huh?" She tapped her nails on the desk. "How'd you score that one?"

She knew of Brent Bowers and his rudeness. I started working for L.A. Love Wedding Planners in the days before Olivia's brand blew up. I'd confided my woes to her nearly every night after coming home. She'd told me to stand up to him, but never told me how to do that. Never helped much except for a pat on my back and an offer to eat me out to relax me.

Funny how her methods of relaxing me were similar to Axel's...

"I did Violet Levine's wedding, and they were happy with it, so..."

Never would I tell her that Axel Levine was responsible for this. One, she'd be pissed—she was obsessed with the Levine family, last I checked. And two, she'd know right away that something was going on between him and I.

She had way too big of a mouth to trust with such a secret.

"And you? How'd you score it?" I crossed my legs and internally begged them to quit jittering. Too many racy thoughts shot through my mind, and they all involved Olivia hopping over the desk and landing in my lap, her cleavage right in my face.

I wouldn't know how to resist. What she hid under her dress—pure perfection. The taste of her skin, the feel of her nipples when they hardened in my mouth—

God dammit, Vivi! Quit it!

"Oh, Estelle?" Olivia smiled; one of her genuine smiles, which were so rare I wasn't sure I'd recognize them when I saw them. But this one was. It reached her ears, it flushed her cheeks, and it showed in the glowing of her light green eyes. "We actually go way back. I met her before I met you, in fact." She rubbed her lips and puckered them. "We may or may not have had a, uh," her grin widened, turning spicy and devilish, "thing, a long time ago. But we're great friends now."

Something about Estelle—who I found quite attractive, too—and Olivia banging in some swanky hotel after a night out flipped a switch in me.

So now, on top of the sweat on my neck, I had sweat between my breasts, and moisture pooling in my underwear.

"Plus, I know Mollie. No," she saw my eyebrow quirk, "I didn't sleep with her, but had she asked..." Her lips bunched side-to-side. "Anyway, I know her from the LGBTQIA+ activist scene. We've done a few marches and protests together. That, and I love her food."

Fuck. Even picturing Olivia eating was turning me on.

It made me remember a night when we fed each other pizza and sprayed whipped cream all over each other's breasts and ended up screwing for hours to the point of waking our neighbors.

Again, those were our good days, when we were both broke and living in places with thin walls and not caring who heard our climaxes.

Olivia and I were together for five years. Five years of fucking and fights, of determining what mattered the most to us. Five years of watching her lose interest in me because I didn't climb the ladders of success as fast as she did. Too many years of being unimportant to her.

"And you're not worried about the deadline?" I got out my notepad, assuming Olivia would have a lot of input to give me, from products to styles to trends she'd want Estelle to consider.

Olivia shrugged. "I'm swamped either way, what with the brand expanding into other continents." She beamed. "Isn't that exciting?"

I wanted to be happy for her, but naturally, I was still bitter. Her success came from our failed relationship. She put her work first, and it paid off.

"Sure." I averted my gaze, hoping she wouldn't see the annoyance still lodged within me. "So you're not worried, which means you can respect the deadline?"

She wrinkled her nostrils. "I'm not late anymore, Vivi."

I flinched. Who gave her the right to use my nickname?

"Please don't call me Vivi," I said softly, holding the irritation from my voice.

"Vivienne," she rolled her eyes, "I'm not late anymore. I kicked that habit when the brand got famous, you know? Showing up late to events honoring you is kind of embarrassing."

I wasn't certain if I should believe it. Olivia was never punctual, always disorganized, and all over the place. Her body was a delight, but her mind was a mess. Before she'd hired an actual assistant, she'd used my organizational skills to keep track of her appointments, whether personal or professional.

"As long as you're certain. There's a contract to sign." I got the document out. "But I wanted to point out that timeline again. The wedding is in less than three months." I gulped; repeating it didn't get any easier. Panic still bubbled up inside whenever I reiterated how short this preparation would be. "I need you to promise me you'll keep that in mind."

Olivia's eyes narrowed; another signature move of hers, meant to intimidate, but it had always charged me with attraction towards her. "Estelle already warned me, Vivienne. I'm not stupid."

"I never said you were—"

"—being the artist at this wedding? It'll give me even more exposure. I'd be able to expand farther out, open more stores, make the merchandise more accessible. I'm talking thousands of locations, okay? No way would I fuck that up."

I angled back in my seat, her words hitting me hard. She sounded like she had the night of our break-up; when she made it evident that I was holding her back, I was preventing her from reaching her goals.

But this time she wasn't aiming those words at me. We were adults, unattached, discussing terms of a contract.

To see her all dressed up, in her boss-lady mode, in her environment, was a bigger turn-on than I'd have predicted it to be.

And it was a problem.

Perceptive as she could be, she knew I was bothered by all this. She'd surely detected it from the moment our gazes met, back in the crowded store. She'd observed me from afar, and marched over with the confidence that she could have me in the palm of her hand if she put in the effort.

I hated her, but I couldn't resist her. I'd never been able to. Even after arguments, after insults, I always fell into her arms again.

Shit. This was a trap, and I was unable to escape it. Not until she signed the contract.

I slid the paper across the desk towards her. "If you could sign it, then I can be off and out of your hair. You've got a lot going on—"

She smacked a hand onto the paper, startling me. "I could, but shouldn't we discuss more details? When I'll do tryouts on Estelle and Mollie, the color scheme, palettes, all that stuff?"

She leaned forward, pressing her bosom into the desk, which didn't make it smaller, but instead made it appear bigger. Shined a light on them. Reminded me how fucking fantastic they were without a bra on—

"Olivia," I cautioned, knowing her well enough to be conscious of the game she was playing.

Seduction—of course she'd want to lure me back in.

Olivia was possessive. Even after we broke up, she thought she could control who I dated, who I slept with; not that there was anyone, but I'd never tell her that.

She'd sent texts over the weeks to "check up" on me, but it was never because she cared for me. She wanted to know what I was doing, who I was with, who I'd replaced her with.

And she was back at it now, roughly a year later. She couldn't help it.

She'd made it obvious with that text a few weeks back that she was keeping tabs on me. Still interested in me. After all, the sex was good for her, too, she'd admitted that many times. That was never what broke us up.

Maybe, in her new empire of makeup, surrounded by opulent products and salespeople and money, she was lonely. She wanted affection, companionship. Temporary love.

Maybe she wanted...me.

"I'm going to be an important part of the process," she said, her voice taking on its low, provocative tone. "Everyone looks at the dress, sure; but the face is a big deal, too, for the bride. And there are two brides here." She stood up and angled over the desk, now dangling her breasts in front of me like candies for me to drool over. "I'll be heavily involved. So if I want to discuss terms before signing, shouldn't that be feasible for you?"

I wanted to shake my head, but to do so would be admitting defeat. I couldn't lose, not when losing meant Olivia would hop over and kiss me. She always tasted like a dulcet pastry, warm and baked, fresh out of the oven. If I got a whiff of that now, I'd lose it. We'd lose it.

"It is," I said, with a gulp, "but that wasn't the plan for today. I have other appointments to get to." It was a lie, and I loathed lying, but what other choice did I have? Being stuck with Olivia was bad, really bad.

I was over her. I'd been over her for a long time...as long as we remained at a distance. When she didn't text me, when she moved on and left me alone, everything was great. I forgot about her, she never entered my mind, and I was able to fall for other billionaires.

Such as Axel.

But in proximity, in enclosed spaces like this, Olivia would always have the upper hand. She knew me, how to toy with me, how to twirl me around her finger and get what she wanted. With the way her lips puffed out, how she positioned herself just right to show off her amazing figure, there was no mistaking her intentions.

She wanted to fuck me and would do anything in her power to seduce me.

"Vivienne," she breathed, leaning deeper over the desk, tiptoeing her fingers to where mine were, gripping onto the wooden surface. I didn't even remember taking hold of the desk; in this space with her, I'd already lost command of myself. It was almost too late to turn back.

I shot up from my seat, clutching my purse to my chest. "No, Olivia." I pointed a shaky finger at the contract. "Sign it, and I'll go. You and me? No."

She straightened up, painfully slowly. Furrowing her eyebrows, she took her time in picking up the contract and stood with one hand on her poked-out hip as she studied the words.

"I wasn't coming on to you," she said as she finally grabbed a pen and clicked it open. She set the paper down, again arching her spine as if I were behind her, waiting for her ass to smack against me. "But hey, it's flattering that you would think so."

She always did that, too: pretend like she wasn't flirting, and make it seem like I was delusional. Even when we were dating. It was her favorite game of cat and mouse, and while she was definitely the cat, she loved acting like the innocent, eager-to-be-deflowered mouse.

I scoffed as she handed me the document. "Thanks."

As I backed away, she hurried around the desk before I could grab the door handle. "We'll be in touch?" Her hand launched forward, about to seize me, but I anticipated her move and rushed farther back. "Vivienne, come on, I'm not that bad."

"You are." I stuffed the contract into the folder in my purse, then used said purse as a barrier, against my torso. "And I need to go."

Without giving her a chance to reply—which would have been some snarky comment about how she'd done nothing wrong—I wrenched the door open and crashed through the store, desperate for outside air.

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