His Dangerous Love On Ice Chapter 143: Olive's Pov

But he didn't back down.

"I know you've been walking around this house looking like a ghost for the past week," he said, his voice losing its teasing edge and becoming uncomfortably perceptive. "Your face has no color. Your eyes are distant—like you're here physically but mentally you're somewhere else entirely. And you came home for the weekend for the first time in months, which tells me you're running from something."

He pushed off the counter and took a step closer.

"Or someone," he added quietly. "You miss him. Terribly. But you're too stubborn—too proud—to actually pick up the phone and call him. So instead you came here, hoping we could fill whatever void he left. Except we can't. Because whatever you two have—whatever mess you're in—it's something only he can fix."

Every word hit like a physical blow.

Because he was right. Completely, devastatingly right.

Hunter had always been good at this—reading people, understanding their emotional states, unlocking parts of them they didn't even realize existed. It's what made him so successful with women. He could see right through their walls and find exactly what they needed to hear.

And now he was doing it to me.

I felt exposed. Vulnerable. Angry that he could see through me so easily.

"You know nothing," I said, my voice coming out sharper than I intended.

Hunter just looked at me for a long moment, his expression somewhere between sympathy and frustration.

"Keep telling yourself that," he said finally. "Keep pretending you're fine without him. See how long you can maintain that lie before it destroys you."

He turned to leave the kitchen.

And walked directly into Diane, who I hadn't even realized had been standing in the doorway.

How long had she been there? How much had she heard?

"She's doing the right thing, Hunter," Diane said immediately, her voice firm with maternal authority. "By staying away from him. By creating distance. Zane Mercer is dangerous."

I groaned internally, turning back to my vegetables with more force than necessary.

I wasn't ready for another lecture. Another dissertation on all the reasons I should avoid Zane like he was toxic waste.

"What's life without a little danger?" Hunter argued, and I could hear the smile in his voice. He loved pushing back against Diane's overprotective tendencies. "Plus, Zane clearly has genuine feelings for her. I don't see the problem—"

"He's not just 'a little dangerous,'" Diane interrupted, her voice getting harder. "He's a different kind of dangerous. The kind that gets people hurt. The kind that ruins lives. And Olive is doing exactly the right thing by avoiding him completely. There are plenty of other men out there who would be much better for her."

She was right in so many ways.

There were plenty of other men out there. Safer men. Simpler men. Men who didn't come with dangerous pasts and family scandals and secrets they refused to share.

But none of them were Zane Mercer.

None of them made me feel alive the way he did.

None of them made me feel anything at all.

I must have made some sound—a groan or a sigh of frustration—because both Hunter and Diane stopped arguing and turned to look at me.

"Olive, sweetheart," Diane said, and her voice shifted to that gentle, excited tone that immediately made me nervous. "I know you're stressed right now. I know this whole situation with Zane has been difficult. But I have something that might help. Something that might give you some perspective."

Her face was practically glowing with excitement now, her pregnancy giving her this luminous quality that would have been beautiful if it wasn't currently directed at destroying my life.

"What have you done, Mother?" I asked, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.

"Remember Judy Byron?" she asked, beaming at me like she'd just solved all my problems.

My stomach dropped.

No.