His Dangerous Love On Ice Chapter 217: Olive's Pov

The admission hung in the air—Grayson's quiet "yes" confirming what Brenda had just confessed—and I watched as my mother's face transformed from shock into something cold and hard and absolutely terrifying.

"Get out," she said to Grayson, her voice so calm it was almost worse than if she'd been screaming. "Get out of this room. Get out of this restaurant. Get the fuck out of my life."

"Diane, please, if you would just listen—"

"OUT!" my mother roared, and I'd never heard her sound like that before, never seen her lose control so completely.

Grayson flinched like she'd struck him, and I could see him warring with himself over whether to try to stay and explain or just do what she'd asked.

He chose the latter, turning toward the door with his head down, his shoulders hunched, looking like a man who'd just lost everything that mattered.

But before he could actually leave, Brenda's voice rang out again, stopping everyone mid-movement.

"Wait."

It was one word, but it carried so much weight, so much desperation, that even Grayson paused with his hand on the door handle.

"There's something else," Brenda said, and her voice had gone eerily calm despite the tears still streaming down her face. "Something else you all need to know before anyone leaves. Before this gets any worse."

"What could possibly be worse than what you've already done?" JT demanded, his voice raw with pain and anger. "What could you possibly say that would make any of this okay?"

Brenda turned to look at him, and I saw her take a deep, shuddering breath like she was preparing herself for something.

"I'm pregnant," she said quietly.

The room fell silent.

Completely, utterly silent.

For a moment, nobody moved, nobody spoke, nobody seemed to even breathe as those two words echoed in the space between us.

"What?" JT finally whispered, and I could see hope flickering in his eyes—desperate, foolish hope that maybe this changed things, that maybe the baby was his, that maybe they could still somehow salvage this.

But I knew.

Even before Brenda said it, I knew from the way she was looking at Grayson instead of JT, from the guilt written all over her face, from the way this entire nightmare kept getting worse with each passing second.

"It's not yours," Brenda said to JT, and her voice broke on the words. "JT, I'm so sorry. God, I'm so, so sorry. But the baby—it's not yours."

JT actually stumbled backward like he'd been physically hit, his hand coming up to grip the back of a chair to keep himself upright.

"No," he said, shaking his head frantically. "No, that's not—you said it was one time. You said it was a mistake. How do you even know if—"

"Because we haven't slept together in six weeks," Brenda said flatly, cutting through his denial. "Because I've been avoiding you, making excuses, and I'm five weeks along. The math doesn't lie, Jonathan. I wish it did, but it doesn't."

I felt like I was going to be sick, actually physically ill, because this was too much, too overwhelming, too absolutely devastating to process.

My best friend was pregnant.

With my stepfather's baby.

While she'd been dating JT, who'd just proposed to her in the most romantic way possible.

"Oh my God," my mother breathed, and when I turned to look at her I saw that all the color had drained from her face. "Oh my God. You're—you're pregnant? With his baby?"

She pointed at Grayson, who looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

"Diane, I didn't know," Grayson said quickly, turning back toward her with his hands raised like he was trying to calm a wild animal. "I swear to God, I had no idea. She never told me. I never would have—if I'd known—"

"You never would have WHAT?" my mother shrieked, all her careful composure completely shattered now. "You never would have fucked her in the first place? Is that what you were going to say? Because news flash, Grayson—you shouldn't have slept with my step-daughter's best friend regardless of whether she was carrying your child! Is my daughter even fucking safe with you!"

Grayson froze at her words, unable to speak, and I could feel the last words slicing through him, even I whimpered on his behalf.

And Brenda also whimpered—actually whimpered like a wounded animal—and wrapped her arms around her stomach protectively.

"I'm sorry," she kept saying, over and over like a broken record. "I'm so sorry. To everyone. To JT, to Diane, to Olive, to everyone I've hurt. I never meant for any of this to happen. I never meant to—"

"But you did," I heard myself say, and my voice sounded strange to my own ears—cold and distant and nothing like how I normally spoke to Brenda. "You did do it. You made these choices. You slept with Grayson. You kept it a secret. You let JT plan this entire proposal knowing you were carrying another man's baby."

Brenda turned to look at me, and the devastation in her eyes would have broken my heart if I wasn't already too numb to feel anything.

"Olive, please," she begged. "You're my best friend. My sister. You know me better than anyone. You know I never wanted to hurt you. Never wanted any of this."

"Do I?" I asked, standing up from my chair finally, my legs shaking but holding me up. "Do I know you, Brenda? Because the person I thought I knew would never do something like this. Would never betray someone she loved. Would never sleep with her best friend's family."

"It wasn't like that," Brenda insisted, but her voice was weak, unconvincing even to herself. "It was—we were working late, and I was stressed about a project, and he was too, but Grayson was being nice, offering to help, and things just—they escalated and before I knew what was happening—"

"Stop," JT said, and his voice was so dead, so emotionless, that it was somehow worse than all his earlier anger. "Just stop talking. Stop trying to explain it away. Stop making excuses."

He looked at Brenda with eyes that held nothing—no love, no anger, no pain, just empty devastation.

"You should have told me," he said quietly. "When it happened. Right after. You should have come to me and told me the truth instead of letting me fall deeper in love with you. Instead of letting me plan this. Instead of letting me make a fool of myself."

"I was scared," Brenda whispered.

"Of what?" JT demanded. "Of me? Of losing me? Because guess what, Brenda—you lost me anyway. You lost me the second you decided to keep this secret. The second you decided lying to me was easier than being honest."

He grabbed her hands in one yank, pulling off the promise ring she'd given him months ago—the one that matched the one she wore, the one that had symbolized their commitment before he'd bought an actual engagement ring—and set it on the table with a quiet click.

"I'm done," he said. "I'm done with this relationship. Done with the lies. Done with everything."

And then he walked out, pushing past Grayson without even looking at him, and I heard the door to the restaurant slam shut with a finality that made my chest ache.

The room fell quiet again, and I looked around at what was left—my mother standing rigid with tears streaming silently down her face, Grayson hovering near the door looking like he'd aged ten years in the last ten minutes, and Brenda collapsed in her chair sobbing so hard her whole body shook.

This was supposed to have been a celebration.

A happy moment.

A beginning.

Instead, it was an ending.

Everything was ending, falling apart, shattering into pieces I didn't know how to put back together.

"I need to leave," I said to no one in particular, grabbing my purse and standing on legs that felt like they might give out at any moment.

"Olive, wait—" Brenda started, but I cut her off.

"Don't," I said sharply. "Don't try to apologize. Don't try to explain. Just—don't. I can't deal with this right now. I can't deal with you right now."

And before anyone could stop me, before my mother could try to involve me in whatever she was about to do to Grayson, I walked out of that room and didn't look back.

Because if I had, if I'd let myself see Brenda's devastated face one more time, I might have done something I'd regret.

Like forgive her before she'd earned it.

Or worse—like stay and try to fix something that was so thoroughly broken I didn't even know where to start.

So I left.

Left them all to deal with the consequences of their choices.

And prayed that somehow, someway, we'd all survive this.