A Beautiful Mess (6 page)

“Oh my God! What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Kiera. Just a little shaken up and minus a pair of my favorite underwear. He attacked me. It was so weird. I’m such an idiot.” Olivia proceeded to tell her what happened the previous night. “I’m just lucky I got away and that a guy who works in my building saw me being chased and caught him.”

“So he kicked Simon’s ass for you?”

Olivia laughed, thankful her friend had lightened the mood a little. “He definitely did. I didn’t get too close of a look at Simon, but he was unconscious, so…”

“Who was this mystery man?” Kiera interrupted.

“Just someone who works in my building,” she said quickly, not wanting to get into any details about the gorgeous man she met the previous evening, excitement coursing through her veins just thinking about him. “Listen, I’m starving. Want to come over for a girls night? I’ll order some Chinese. We’ll pig out.”

“Fine, but I swear to God, if you order anything with tofu, I’m no longer your friend.”

Olivia laughed at her friend’s response. Kiera despised tofu. Olivia loved it.
 

“Okay. Grab some wine on your way over, please. I think I’m out. Give me about half an hour to take a bath.” She hung up and walked downstairs into the kitchen, grabbing her binder full of various take-out menus and finding their favorite Chinese Bistro. Thankfully they delivered.

Twenty minutes later, after a nice relaxing bath, Olivia was lounging on her couch on the first floor of her house, dressed in a pair of black yoga pants and a green tank top, when her doorbell rang. It couldn’t have been Kiera. She didn’t knock or ring the doorbell. She had a key to Olivia’s place and usually just let herself in. And take-out wouldn’t be arriving for another half an hour or so.

Olivia got off the couch, walking across the large, airy living room and into the hallway toward the front door. She looked out the peephole, a confused look on her face when she saw a man holding a bouquet of flowers. She opened the door and thanked the man, searching for a clue as to who they could be from. No one had ever sent her flowers before. There had to be a card somewhere.

“Who sent you flowers, girly?” she heard Kiera shout from down the street as Olivia turned to head back inside.

“I don’t know,” she replied, walking through her front door. She placed the vase on the kitchen island and found the card that was with the beautiful floral arrangement of calla lilies and yellow tulips. She opened the envelope and pulled out the card.

Just wanted to send you something to
 

brighten your day and help you forget

about last night.

-Yours,

A. T. B.

A smile crept across Olivia’s face as she read the card.

“Who is A. T. B.?” Kiera asked, peering over Olivia’s shoulder at the card.

“He’s the guy who kicked Simon’s ass last night,” she replied dismissively, grabbing the Willamette Valley pinot noir Kiera clutched in her hand.

“Okay. I can tell there’s more to this story than what you’ve been telling me. I mean, look at the type of flowers he sent you!” she said, toying with the arrangement.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why does it matter what type of flowers he sent?” Olivia grabbed a corkscrew and quickly opened the bottle of wine, needing the alcohol at that moment.

“Libs, he sent you yellow tulips and calla lilies. Calla lilies mean beauty, and yellow tulips symbolize hopeless love,” Kiera replied with a dreamy look in her eyes.

Olivia rolled her eyes as she handed her a glass of wine. “Please don’t read too much into the flowers. He probably just had his secretary send them or something.” They made their way into the living room, separated from her kitchen by a simple archway. Olivia loved the open floor plan of her house. It was an old brownstone house, but she had updated it with her modern and simplistic style. They sat down on the couch and Olivia turned on the television, hoping to distract her friend. “He helped me last night and just wanted to bring a smile to my face today. That’s all.”

“So what was he like? There’s definitely something you’re not telling me based on that stupid grin on your face.”

Olivia looked at her friend and couldn’t help it. “He’s the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on,” she blurted out.

 
“Aw, Libby!” she exclaimed, hugging Olivia and nearly spilling her wine. “You’re actually attracted to someone! I didn’t think I would ever see the day this would happen!”

“Hey! I’ve been attracted to guys before! I don’t just sleep with anyone. They’ve got to be good looking.” Olivia took a hearty sip of her wine, needing some liquid courage to get through that conversation.

“Yeah, but it’s easy to have sex without feeling any connection to someone. Hell, that’s all you’ve ever done. And there’s a difference between finding someone good looking and finding them attractive. You can be good looking and not be attractive. Being attracted to someone isn’t just digging them on a physical level. It’s something more. It’s opening your soul to someone, letting them in. Telling them your hopes and dreams and fears. Letting them know the real you. I know you have trouble with that, Libby, but don’t you want to have that connection with someone so you know you’re not all alone in this fucked up world?”

Olivia’s older and wiser friend definitely had a point. “He sent shivers throughout my body every time he touched me,” she gushed. “I had no idea what was going on. Maybe it was because I was just attacked by Simon and he saved me. Maybe I’ve got like Stockholm’s syndrome or something,” she joked.

“Libs, Stockholm syndrome is when you get kidnapped and want to bone your kidnapper. You definitely don’t have Stockholm syndrome. What you’ve got is a bona-fide crush on a man!” She oozed excitement over the thought. “So tell me,” she crossed her legs, turning to face Olivia. “What happened after he kicked Simon’s ass?”

Olivia proceeded to tell Kiera all about Alexander taking her to his office, patching up her head, calling a detective to take her statement, and then driving her home. She left out all the details about him owning the building and having a posh penthouse office, as well as a personal driver and/or badass bodyguard.

She made a mental note to do some research on Alexander later when she had some privacy. She was intrigued to know more about him and how he could have such a successful company when he appeared so young. He seemed relatively quiet the night before, simply listening to her ramble on about her sex life. And he was so gentle when he took care of her. But then she remembered his husky voice saying, “
People only have to call me Mr. Burnham in the bedroom
.” It almost seemed like there were two very different sides of Alexander. Snapping out of her thoughts, she told Kiera that he left his cell phone number with the specific instructions to call if Olivia ever needed to talk.

“Dude, you should totally call him!” Kiera shouted excitedly. She bounced up and down on the couch with an infectious smile on her face. Olivia worried that she would spill wine on the red sofa. “Come on. Do it right now so I can hear his voice, too.” She giggled.

“I think after my last failed ‘relationship,’” Olivia said, quoting the word relationship with her fingers, “I’m off men for a bit. Maybe the whole no-strings-attached thing isn’t such a smart idea, anyway. When I don’t get to know the person, I am blind to whatever propensities they have, you know?”

She paused for a moment and looked at Kiera who remained silent. She didn’t have to say anything. Olivia knew what she was thinking just by looking at her eyes. Kiera was happy that her friend had finally realized her approach to relationships had been anything but healthy.

“Anyway, I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Olivia said, breaking the growing tension in the room. “Let’s rent a cheesy movie and drink wine, okay?”

“Okay.” Kiera relaxed into the couch. Their food arrived a few minutes later. They watched a few chick flicks, drank a bottle of wine, and ate almost half of the Chinese feast Olivia ordered.

At midnight, Kiera left to go home. Olivia, however, was wide-awake, having slept most of the day away. So, she did what she had wanted to do all night. She grabbed her MacBook out of her bag, powered it up, and typed “Alexander Burnham” into the search engine.

Olivia was surprised at the magnitude of hits that were returned, her heart beating rapidly as she started to get an overall picture of the beautiful man with green eyes.

Alexander Burnham dropped out of Harvard after a semester and joined the Navy. He eventually passed SEAL training and had been deployed on a variety of special ops around the world. After his father died five years ago, he left the Navy to take over his security company at the age of twenty-four. He was able to use his SEAL training in building his company into one of the foremost private security firms in the world.

His firm provided security and military services across the globe. Its contractors had trained local militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Africa and South America. In addition to training local militaries, its contractors often provided protection services for key staff members traveling abroad and domestically, as well as protection of important natural resources, such as the oil fields in the Middle East.

Apparently, it also assisted various government and private entities in conducting certain classified operations, which Olivia deducted was a nice way of saying covert and clandestine services. Further, his company had recently expanded its services to include military aviation support, offering air support, medical evacuations, and armed air escort to any location on earth.

In addition to its vast overseas presence, his company also provided security for a wide variety of clients on domestic soil, from dignitaries to celebrities. What caught Olivia’s eye was the amount of pro bono work his firm did, offering protection services for victims of a variety of crimes, including new identities. He had offices all over the country and abroad, although he made the Boston office his home. All that and he hadn’t even hit his thirtieth birthday. Her research showed that he was successful and compassionate at the same time. It was a unique combination of qualities that most men she came across didn’t even come close to possessing.

Sighing, she got up from the couch and looked at the flowers he sent, reading the card again. She was about to put it back into the envelope when writing on the back of the card caught her eye.

Please call me. Anytime.

So he did send them himself and didn’t just have his secretary send them, she thought to herself. Olivia glanced at the clock in the kitchen, observing that it was after one in the morning. She debated calling him. But what would her reason have been for doing so? To thank him for sending flowers maybe? But it was late. She decided to call him the following day.

Olivia closed her laptop and went upstairs to settle into her bed. Her mind raced thinking about Alexander Burnham. She closed her eyes and thought about what it would be like to actually have a relationship with someone who genuinely cared about her.

She recalled all of Alexander’s accomplishments and her subconscious instantly told her that he was so far out of her league. He was beautiful and successful. And, while Olivia was attractive enough, she was still trying to figure everything out. Her past haunted her. She had trouble just making it through the day sometimes. She didn’t have anything to offer any relationship. She wouldn’t even know how to act in a relationship. With that thought, sleep enveloped Olivia.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the South End of Boston, a man answered his cell phone, his deep voice reverberating through the room. “Donovan.”

“Mark, um, I mean Donovan, it’s me. Simon,” he said nervously.

“I thought I made it rather clear that you were never to call this number. Not unless you had good news. Do you have good news?”

“Well, no. Not really. I tried to get the information you wanted, and the bitch fought back, and, well… I’m in jail. I need a lawyer, man, and you’ve got to get me out of here.”

“Fuck.”

T
HE
sun seeped into Alexander’s bedroom, waking him up on Sunday morning. Finally, a full night of sleep. He looked at his nightstand and glared at the envelope. “Not yet,” he said to himself. “Soon.”

Alexander picked his cell phone off the charger and saw that it was eight in the morning. He reluctantly got out of bed and made a cup of coffee in order to prepare for his morning run. Coffee in hand, he made his way into the study to get a few e-mails out of the way before going out.

As he sat at his desk, his thoughts were consumed by one woman.
Olivia
. His feelings for her confused him. He was attracted to her. That much was evident. But there was something more there. And he wasn’t sure whether it was because he desperately wanted her to be
her
, the girl he failed to save all those years ago, or because they connected on a deeper level. Normally, Alexander would ask her out, sleep with her, and then never see her again. But something about Olivia made him want more than just a quick fuck.

After throwing on some running clothes, Alexander left his three-story penthouse apartment and ran toward Boston Common Park. Olivia lived right around the corner from the famous Boston landmark and he secretly hoped that she was heading out for her morning run at the same location.

After braving the Boston streets teeming with tourists, Alexander finally reached Boston Common, inwardly detesting the hot and humid weather that early in the morning, but he had run in tougher conditions in the past. As he ran through the large park, he couldn’t stop thinking about the woman he met just a few nights before. Her eyes flashed through his memory. He smirked a little as he recalled the expression on her face during his attempts to hit on her.