I bit back a curse the moment I stepped out of Pete's Tavern to a blast of bone-chilling wind.

Despite the alcohol warming my belly from the several drinks I had with some friends at one of the oldest taverns in the city, my teeth chattered at the cold. The luxurious, military-inspired red wool coat I'd thrown over my figure-hugging sweater dress and black tights was warm but it wouldn't hold in this continually plunging temperature for very long.

I stood there for five minutes, trying to flag down a taxi despite knowing that on a brutally cold Saturday night in New York City, it was going to be tough.

"Vivienne, I'll drive you home."

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Tate stepping through the door and turning up the collar of his navy blue coat. Vapor escaped his lips but he still looked quite dashing in the dark coat, his golden brown hair tousled and falling over his brows. Even with a slight frown, he looked like a damned nice guy. Which he was. Considering the merry chase I led him tonight, the fact that he wasn't swearing me off yet or shoving me in front of a speeding car indicated the extent of his apparently enduring patience with me. It reminded me of the last person I wanted to think about tonight, when I was as feeling almost as sloshed as the last cocktail I had.

"I can take care of myself just fine, Tate. Thank you," I said firmly, rocking back on my heels and flinging an arm out again as more cabs sped past. "I get it—you're a gentleman—and despite evidence to the contrary, I appreciate it but I expect you to have limits."

Which I apparently should've anticipated for myself as well, despite the very strong vindictive streak that possessed me tonight.

In the last few days, knowing it wouldn't be long before Oliver finally tracked me down to my new studio apartment, I took myself off to different places to try and dodge him. Hanging out with Tate for lunch, dinner and the weekend seemed to be the best workaround. He was happy to tag along and stopped asking questions the minute it became clear, in not so many words, that I didn't wish to explain myself. It was utterly selfish, of course, but I felt like being selfish. It felt good—somehow believing that I wasn't a complete pity-case even though in the back of my head, I knew, such childish acts only ever proved the opposite.

God, even in my misery, I'm way too logical.

It absolutely took the fun out of it but I wasn't prepared to give up just yet.

Tonight, I came with Tate to have some drinks with a few mutual friends, with him hovering around me possessively like an actual boyfriend. I didn't mind it. I actually let myself enjoy it for a little bit.

I was young and beautiful and had my entire life ahead of me.

Being married, impulsively and with great foolishness, was simply one of the bad mistakes any young twenty-something was due to make. The acknowledgement that I wasn't always so smart gave me this false sense of freedom to act more unwisely, leading up to the half a dozen or so tequila shots I'd gulped down fast. Buzzed, brazen and not feeling so heartbroken anymore, I grabbed Tate and ground my body against his to the music. Right in front of everyone in the group, I pulled his face down and mauled his mouth for a kiss that lasted a good minute or so. I started to enjoy it, feeling the fringes of that familiar pleasure from the intimacy until a totally different face swam up to my brain—crystal blue eyes sparkling, full mouth smiling. The mortification dropped on me like a bucket of ice water and I pulled away, gasping in what really sounded like horror as our small, immediate audience halted their hoots and calls. When Tate's coffee brown eyes fluttered open to gaze at me with such soft, sweet desire, my hand jerked and before I realized what I was doing, my palm made contact with his face in a stinging slap.

I was the one who actually deserved that humiliating slap because Tate did nothing more than respond to my shameless assault but I couldn't form the words to explain why I did something like that in the first place.

Muttering a hasty apology, I slapped down some money on the table, grabbed my purse and bolted for the door. I couldn't stay and even make a bigger joke of myself or take further advantage of Tate.

It was bad enough to be a mixed-signal, superbly selfish, coldly logical, emotional baggage-towing cocktease. To inflict myself further on a decent guy like Tate, who cared for me more than was smart, was something else much, much worse.

"You had too much to drink—it happens. We make stupid mistakes," Tate said as he fell into a step next to me, jamming his hands into his coat pockets.

I scoffed. "I've had a twenty-one year streak of hardly any mistakes. Since that marker, I've been making one after another."

"It doesn't have to be a mistake, you know?" he said quietly. "Tonight, I mean."

I glanced at him and saw the serious, hopeful expression on his face. I felt the swift pang of guilt and sighed out loud from it.

"I wish I had better words to tell you, Tate, but I don't have what you're looking for," I told him as gently as I could, my gaze drifting back to the street, feeling the burning pressure of tears behind my eyes. "Not anymore."

Tate was a nice guy who deserved someone who would be good to him—who would have a heart to give him and love him with. I never seemed to have had mine, really, and the one person my heart ever belonged to was as gone to me as the second that just passed. I would offer Tate no more than a complicated, half-hearted attempt at affection, and no one who deserved happiness should settle with that.

We were quiet for a while, content to let the sound of traffic buzzing by fill the gap as we found our places with each other again and maybe, finally, decide to stay there for good.

"If you can't let me be more to you, Viv, then at least let me still be your friend," he said.

I managed a small smile for him. "Why do I always have to fall for the sinners instead of the saints?"

Tate chuckled softly. "I could try to be a bad boy but I can't promise it'll last."

A little more at ease with each other again, I said nothing and just laughed along with Tate as I followed him to the end of the block where his car was parked.

If writing off mistakes were really this easy.

It wasn't but I'd take what I could get.

"I'll walk you to your door," Tate said when he pulled over on the other side of the street across from my building. Without waiting for a response, he got out of the car to come around and open the door for me.

We were laughing about a pedestrian joke he'd made as we crossed the street but I stopped short when I saw a tall, lean figure looming by the building entrance.

Thank God I already had my arm looped around Tate's or I would've probably slipped and fallen flat on my face when I skidded to a halt.

Even half-shrouded in the shadows, I had no trouble recognizing him. I also didn't miss the sudden tension in his stance, like a predator alerted to its victim.

"You okay, Vivienne?" Tate sounded like he was speaking to me from a world away, which I might as well be as those crystalline blue eyes bore into mine with savage heat.

"I'm fine," I said in as steady a voice as I could manage despite my instinct to turn around and run.

I steeled my spine, forcing my shoulders up.

This is my place, my time, my life and not one bit of them belongs to Oliver anymore.

The wise choice would be to stop right here and send Tate home to spare him the drama but I didn't quite trust myself to be alone with Oliver—not just yet.

When Oliver straightened away from the wall and stepped out fully into the light of the street lamps, Tate instinctively put a protective arm around me, drawing me closer to his side. The fury in Oliver's eyes flared more wildly even as he casually shoved his hands into his jean pockets and tipped his chin up defiantly.

He looked like he did a few weeks ago except that all traces of softness that had once been there were gone. His eyes were bleak, his face even sharper, his skin pale except for the slash of pink on his cheeks from the cold.

"I need to talk to you," Oliver said through gritted teeth. "Alone."

Tate's head slowly swung back and forth between me and Oliver. "You know him?"

"Yeah," I said airily, punctuating my portrayal of indifference with a dismissive shrug and the deliberate choice of my next words. "Oliver, this is Tate Worthington. Tate, meet Oliver Yates—my older brother's best friend."

"I can expound on that introduction further," Oliver seethed, the violent energy radiating from him so palpable I almost backed up a step. "In case your friend here hasn't been enlightened yet."

It was a dare and Oliver was foolish if he thought he could taunt me. I held more cards than he did.

Summoning all the ice in my blood, I met Oliver's gaze directly, schooling my expression to remain calm and composed even as my insides started to turn molten. It was freezing but I was burning up. "I have company for the evening as you can see so I guess I'll see you when I see you, Oliver."

Which is going to be never. At least not until I'm patched up and you're nothing more than a fading scar from an old life.

"I'm not leaving, Vivienne," Oliver said in that low, even voice I've heard him use only a couple times in all the years I've known him. It was deadly soft and threatening. "Your company for the evening can see himself back to his car or I'll happily deposit him in it."

Tate was nearly as tall as Oliver but I suspected he'd had fewer opportunities to use his fists.

I didn't want a brawl with Oliver to be on top of every other crappy thing I'd already heaped on his head tonight so as much as I wanted him to stick around, I couldn't let him.

I turned to Tate, smiling sweetly, my arm still looped around his own and I leaned up to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'll deal with this. Go home. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

Yeah, I sounded more promising than I really intended to but I couldn't help my vindictive streak, even at Tate's expense. But I would call Tate because he deserved that at the very least from me.

"You sure?" he asked softly, his expression serious. "I'm not comfortable leaving you here with him like this."

"I'm not going to hurt her," Oliver grated and I shot him a warning look that sobered him up real quick.

He'd already hurt me, worse than any physical blow he could inflict on me now. Whether he knew the specifics of how didn't matter.

"I can handle this just fine, Tate, but thank you for your concern," I said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Tate nodded solemnly and narrowed his eyes at Oliver for a second before turning to leave.

"Can we talk inside?"

I didn't want to be alone in any kind of enclosed space with Oliver because while my anger was still boiling over, I couldn't trust myself to be strong enough to hold on to it with him so close.

Wordlessly, I let myself in and he followed, saying nothing even as he practically vibrated with tension on the quiet ride up the elevator.

The moment the door of my apartment closed, Oliver leapt for me but I stepped back, putting a hand up to stop him.

"Don't even think about it, Oliver," I said coldly. "You don't get to touch me. Whatever you have to say, say it now and leave. You've wasted enough of my time—of my life."

Regret and pain warred on Oliver's face as he ran a hand through his short hair, his breathing becoming ragged. "I know what you saw, Viv. Thalia conveniently told me after you'd walked out."

So she now had a name, which made the gutting I felt a hundred times worse than it did when she'd been nothing more than another woman on Oliver's list—a list that should've ended with me.

"What? You had a nice little post-coital chat about your wife walking in on you cheating on her?" I taunted, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice for all my efforts to be indifferent.

I hated my own reminder of the reckless mistake I'd made but I wanted to hurt Oliver—to hurt him until he could feel just how raw the wound he'd left me felt.

His next words were slowly said, his voice low and hollow. "Thalia was a job, Viv. A job I'd started before you showed up in Vegas."

My jaw clenched as my heart fought with my consciousness as I slowly understood his meaning. "I thought you were there for the Cranston deal with Greaves."

"Thalia is married to Wesley Greaves."

My lips curled in a sneer. "Then you're an even more callous bastard."

"I'm a callous bastard who used whoever and whatever he could not only to survive but to get ahead so I could rebuild my family's legacy," he bit out as he started to pace. "I didn't have to tell you but you knew just how big a mess everything was after I lost my family. Dad never said a word about how deep in debt we were. Uncle Bertrand had to sell the company piece by piece."

"And you've been building it back up in the last few years," I retorted. "You've been working your butt off since you were sixteen to regain everything."

Oliver's eyes flashed with bitter irony. "I have. But to scrape by and do what I have to do, I needed funding. Uncle Bertrand did everything he could to help me but I couldn't make him pay for all the appearances that were necessary to retain the respect I needed if I were to convince investors and other industry members to trust me with their money. College, a nice penthouse, a couple flashy cars, money to donate to charity and invest in ventures—someone had to pay for all of that. You have to spend money to make money."

Ice started to coat whatever had been churning hot inside my stomach as possibilities began taking shape in my head. I fiercely shook them off, unable to comprehend the truth he was confessing. "What exactly did you do, Oliver?"

Oliver's hand raked through his short hair, tugging at it with a white-knuckled grip as he glanced up the ceiling, derision stark on his face. "My plan at first was to do it the hard, honest way. I was just a kid then, trying to figure out how to rebuild my life, my family's business. But I met a woman—older and married and rich and who knew what she wanted. She started spending money on me—money I desperately needed. It was a great arrangement for a while until it wasn't. After I left her, I realized what I had—an opportunity to further my plans and shorten my timeline. So I took up with one rich, married woman after another—each one just like a job. They paid me to pleasure them and they paid me to keep quiet—another opportunity I discovered once I got into it at a deeper and darker degree. Some things you'd pay a fortune for them to never see the light of day. I made it my specialty for a very steep price."

I hated hearing every word but I was rooted to the spot, trying to fight the flashes of imagination currently pushing my brain over the edge.

Oliver, barely old enough to know what he was doing, at the whim of some woman's fancy. Oliver, using his body to pay the bills, to pay for school, to look the part of a young executive, to buy me fucking presents.

I almost threw up right then and there.

This was not the Oliver I knew. Not the Oliver I'd loved and dreamed of marrying my whole life.

When his eyes fell on me again, blazing blue with heat that I suspected was coming from an inner hell, I trembled with emotions so visceral I nearly fell to the floor when my knees jerked into motion.

"I did all of that without losing any sleep knowing that none of them would matter to me someday because I was going to leave it all behind," he said, his voice raspy. "It was just a means to an end, Viv. A distasteful but necessary job to get me by until I had the life I wanted. And that life's the one I planned to spend with you."

I put a hand up to stop him and another to press against my mouth. "I don't want to hear this. Don't tell me this."

"I didn't want to, Viv. None of this was supposed to taint you but I don't have a choice now. I have to tell you, Vivienne, because you need to understand why I did something so appallingly crude to you," Oliver insisted, striding over and grasping me by the arms. I tried to move away but he wouldn't release me. "I was done with that life the night I asked you to marry me."

A hysterical laugh bubbled out of me. "Done? You didn't look done that day I walked in on you after we were well and truly married. Thalia was just about to finish you off! So get away from me because I don't believe you, Oliver!"

The desperate tears shining in his eyes made them look like blue crystals. "Thalia was helping me secure her husband's backing for the Cranston deal. I told her I'd fulfilled my end of the bargain and that it was over. Greaves was going to sign off and we would all walk away happy but at the last minute, she threatened to turn the deal around. She insisted I still owed her and I was too selfish to let that deal go because I'd put so much on the line for it. Losing the Cranston deal meant losing so much of what I'd recouped the past few years. I'd be back at mere scraps. I didn't want that life for you, for us."

"Can't you tell how fucking honored I feel?" I taunted, pitching forward with all my weight and shoving against his chest until he finally freed me. A frantic kind of fury was lighting up a fuse inside me, leaving a scorched trail that would scar as soon as the wounds healed, if they ever did.

"Why didn't you just come to me?" I demanded, inwardly trying to latch on to something fiercer so I didn't go collapsing on the floor, devastated by the twister of emotions rending me apart inside. The only thing I could find was cold, steely determination to hurt no more. "I could've paid your price, too! And maybe if I'd offered you more, I could've convinced you to give up all your women and stick with me. What's your number, Oliver? Name it and I might just pay it. I'm a little younger than your usual taste but I'm loaded. Come on. I'll buy your body, your silence. I'll buy all of you."

I saw the second the warm, searing light in his eyes died.

His shoulders fell, his lips disappeared into a thin line, his face paling as if ice had replaced his blood.

"I may have sold most of my soul but I gave you what no one could've bought from me. If it's not good enough for you, Viv, then I guess I have nothing else to offer."

The moment he walked out the door, I felt the hole in my chest—as physical a loss as his presence was in my life.

Hot tears spilled down my cheeks as I sagged against the kitchen counter, sinking to the floor and gasping through sob after sob.

They say the truth makes things better.

They were wrong because the truth was killing me right now.

Suddenly, I wasn't just angry at Oliver. I was angry at the cruel stroke of fate that forced his hand. I was angry at the women whose names and faces I didn't know. I was angry at my ignorance for years. I was angry at my helplessness. I was angry at the fact that there wasn't a single thing I could do to change it now.

Most of all, I was angry that despite everything, and maybe because of it, I loved Oliver more than I ever did and he was gone.

***

So, what do you think?

So yes, there was a reason for Oliver's actions and while at its heart is a desperation to have a life with Vivienne, it's still hard to swallow all of that and say everything's alright. And yes, Vivienne didn't say the smartest things but how do you handle someone who did some terrible things, to you included, for you? 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it. 

Make sure to vote and comment!

XOXO,

Ninya

♪♪♪ Chapter Soundtrack: Hurts Like Hell by Fleurie ♪♪♪

How can I say this without breaking

How can I say this without taking over

How can I put it down into words

When it's almost too much for my soul alone

I loved and I loved and I lost you

I loved and I loved and I lost you

I loved and I loved and I lost you

And it hurts like hell

Yeah it hurts like hell

I don't want them to know the secrets

I don't want them to know the way I loved you

I don't think they'd understand it, no

I don't think they would accept me, no

I loved and I loved and I lost you

I loved and I loved and I lost you

I loved and I loved and I lost you

And it hurts like hell

Yeah it hurts like hell