‘No! No! No! No! This can’t be happening! This isn’t real!’I pressed my hand on my mouth, choking back the scream that tried to escape. It couldn’t hold back the tears already spilling from my eyes.‘This isn’t real! This isn’t fricken real.’Tears streamed down my cheeks as I took another step into the disaster.The kitchen was a mess.All the meals I had prepared. All my hard work. All my labour. Gone. Ruined.Scattered all over the floor like a tsunami had hit the kitchen.My chest felt heavy, and I stumbled back, reaching for the door to support my weight.‘Why? Who could have done this?’ I ran out of the kitchen, almost tripping on my feet, and I burst into the dining room.Eve, Alice, Leon, Michael, and Nathan turned, and their eyes widened at my rattled appearance.“Olivia? What’s going on?” Alice took a tentative step towards me.“T–the kit–chen, t-he food, e-verything is…”Gone, I wanted to say it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t dare say that word. That all my hard work was…I b

My face blanched, and I took a step back.It was her, angelic singer and actress Laura Kingsley, Dante’s ex-fiancée. The one he broke up with a week before our sex scandal. She was standing before me in the flesh, smiling like we were old friends.If I were her fan, I would be on cloud nine, gushing about how excited I was to see her. But I wasn’t, and I was filled with crippling dread and anxiety.‘Why was she here? What did she want? Did she come to lash out at me for stealing her man? She already made a post about me, painting me as her enemy and causing her fans to almost kill me. What else did she want to do? And why did Dante invite her? Is there something happening between them? Are they getting back together? Why does my hear–‘“May we sit, please? My ankles are hurting terribly.” Laura nudged at the couch beside us, and I realised I had been staring at her for too long. I nodded, too tongue-tied to do anything, and we sat down.The room plunged into an uncomfortable silence a

“Why won’t I?” Dante tilted his head. “All that she said about you isn’t true.” “I don’t understand you, Dante.” I sighed and shook my head. “What’s there not to understand about me?” He asked. “Well…” I trailed off and clasped my hands together. ‘This is it, Olly. Time to know where you truly stand in his life.’ “Give it to me plain because I’ve tried to understand but I couldn’t. So tell me, Dante, what do I mean to you?” I said. My voice was barely higher than a whisper but firm and loud enough for him to hear. “I mean, do you think I’m a good person or a bad person? Because sometimes I think you think I’m a bad person, but the way you treat me doesn’t feel like you feel that way. And I’m just so confused. The first time we met, you weren’t shy about telling me that you thought I had planned what happened between us five years ago and that I was after money. You even called me a seductress and a gold digger, but yet in the garden you said all those really, really sweet things,

‘Did I hear what I think he said?! He’ll let me go?!’ My brain tried to wrap itself around his statement, but it couldn’t. “You’re serious?” I whispered, staring at him like he had grow. feet on his head. “You’ll allow me to go with the boys? Don’t you love them?” I couldn’t understand him. I couldn’t understand him at all. Doesn’t he love them? What about his talk of owning a family? Doesn’t he not want them to be part of it? Was he planning on getting married to another woman, starting a family with her, and abandoning us— I mean, his sons? “I love my sons, and I don’t want them to go. But I don’t want it to be that you’re here because I’m forcing you to stay.” Dante replied, and a sliver of pain danced in his blue eyes. “Once I deal with Laura, you’re free to go. Of course, we’ll set the days I’ll be visiting them, I’ll pay child support, and I’ll make sure you guys are living comfortably. I’ll even pull some strings to get you a good job as a chef if you want.” “Don’t you thin

Dante led me to my room with my hand on his arm, and just like last night, I dreaded the moment we would reach my room. For once, why couldn’t time obey my will? I just wanted to be beside Dante—no talking, no nothing, just him holding me close. Was that too much to ask? ‘I just wanted him to hold and snuggle me, and maybe if the mood is right, he could give me one of his amazing kisses— I swear you’re really going crazy, Olly. Very crazy cause if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be thinking all these weird thoughts about him’ I stuffed the silly thoughts into the darkest corner of my head before they became all I could think about and searched for a quick distraction. My gaze flickered to Dante, and I watched him with as much discretion as possible. He was still relaxed and had a warmth around him that made me want to wrap my arms around him and snuggle into him. It seemed like every time we spent together and every conversation we had washed away bits of the ice king façade and opened up