His Dangerous Love On Ice Chapter 218: Olive's Pov

I had been avoiding Brenda's calls for the past week now, letting each one ring through to voicemail, watching her name flash across my screen over and over until the buzzing finally stopped.

And for the first time ever, I was glad—no matter how disturbing that sounded—that I wasn't working physically in the Hopkins company building where Brenda and I had desks on the same floor, where running into her in the hallway or the break room would have been inevitable.

Working from home had never felt more like a blessing and a curse simultaneously.

It was crazy, fucking annoying to imagine that my own best friend had slept with Grayson and was now pregnant with his baby.

I grimaced at the thought as I furiously typed on my keyboard like I had a personal vendetta against each individual key, my fingers slamming down harder than necessary.

She slept with Grayson.

The thought hit me again like a physical blow, making my hands smash against the keyboard hard enough that several random letters appeared on my screen.

I backspaced aggressively, deleting the gibberish.

How many things could go wrong in my life at once?

Klaus being gay—a secret kept from me for thirteen years.

Judy being murdered.

Threatening messages about my brother's death.

And now this—my best friend pregnant with my stepfather's baby, destroying not just her own relationship but my mother's marriage in the process.

For once, I wanted it to be over.

I wanted all of this chaos, all of these revelations, all of these betrayals to just stop piling up on top of each other until I couldn't breathe under the weight of them.

And my mother.

God, my mother.

My chest constricted just thinking about her because she hadn't picked up my calls since that night at the restaurant—well, she'd picked up once, just long enough to blame me for not telling her, for hiding the truth as if I'd somehow known that my best friend was fucking her husband behind everyone's backs.

As if I'd been complicit in the deception instead of just as blindsided as everyone else.

I felt horrible about it, actually physically sick with guilt even though logically I knew this wasn't my fault.

Because I'd always wanted my mother to have a happy marriage after everything with Walter fell apart, had watched her grow into this woman who didn't easily break down, who'd rebuilt herself piece by piece into someone strong and independent.

And now I could feel her withdrawing back into that shell, could sense her returning to that broken version of herself she'd worked so hard to escape.

All while she had a baby on the way—my future sibling growing inside her while her marriage crumbled around her.

I grabbed my phone again, hoping maybe this time she'd pick up, and dialed Diane's number with shaking fingers.

It rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then clicked over to voicemail, her calm, professional voice telling me to leave a message.

"Do I need to be blamed for everything?" I whispered to the empty room, setting the phone face-down on my desk.

Just then, there was a knock on my door—well, on my apartment door, which I could see through the transparent glass panel.

I looked up to find Jessica standing there, her face concerned, and I waved her in.

She stepped inside cautiously, like she was approaching a wild animal that might bolt.

"Are you fine, Olive?" Jessica asked gently, crossing her arms. "You've been feeling off for days now. At first I thought maybe it was the weather or you were coming down with something, but it seems like something is actually wrong."

I stopped typing mid-word and looked up at her, really looked at her, and I wanted to lie.

Wanted to throw out some easy excuse about being sick or stressed about work or maybe just needing a mental health day.

But I was so tired of lying, so exhausted from keeping secrets and pretending everything was fine when my entire life was falling apart.

"My best friend slept with my stepfather," I said flatly, not filtering a single word. "And now she's pregnant with his baby. And my own mother has decided I'm somehow at fault for the whole affair because she thinks I knew about it and didn't tell her."

I didn't fail to miss the way Jessica's face went through a rapid series of expressions—shock, then horror, then something that looked almost like panic.

"What?" she breathed, her hand flying to her mouth. "OMG. I'm—I'm so sorry, Olive. That's—Jesus, that's awful."

Her voice came out sharp and high, like she was genuinely panicking on my behalf, and her face had flushed red—probably from the bomb I'd just dropped on her without any warning.

And honestly? I felt a little bit better knowing I wasn't the only one equally shocked by this news, that my reaction of complete devastation was actually proportional to how fucked up the situation was.

At least I knew I was mentally okay, or as okay as anyone could be given the circumstances.

The room fell quiet for a second before Jessica finally spoke again, uncrossing her arms and then immediately crossing her fingers instead—some nervous gesture I'd seen her do before when she was uncomfortable.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked quietly.

I looked up at her, her question catching me completely off guard because I honestly hadn't thought that far ahead.

Was I supposed to do something?

Was there even anything I could do except maybe invent a time machine and prevent any of this from happening in the first place?

I'd been doing the only things that kept me mentally stable—avoiding Brenda's calls, refusing to speak to Grayson, and talking like a crazy person to Zane, who'd been keeping me sane through all of this.

Zane hadn't even seemed that shocked when I'd broken the news to him, which had been suspicious at first, but then again, Zane was Zane—nothing seemed to surprise him anymore.

"I'm doing nothing," I responded after my internal debate, because it was the truth.

There was nothing I could do, no magic solution that would fix what Brenda and Grayson had broken.

"Well," Jessica said carefully. "It seems like you're the only stable person in this situation right now. Maybe you need to bring them together and help them find some kind of reasoning. Some way forward."

I instantly snapped my head toward her, my eyes narrowing.

"Reasoning?" I huffed. "Reasoning for what? Why do I need to be the one to solve every problem? And this one—this one involves two fucking lives. Two newborns who don't even know what they just signed up for, being born into this shit world with this fucked up situation as their origin story. I don't have the capability to do anything or make any reasoning about this."

The words burst out of me with everything I had, all my frustration and hurt and anger pouring out, and I realized too late that I was using Jessica as the perfect target for my misery even though none of this was her fault.

She didn't flinch though, just absorbed my outburst with patient understanding.

"Okay," she said softly. "So your mom is pregnant too. Shit. That's—that's a lot."

She paused, seeming to process that additional bombshell.

"Perhaps you should go visit her," Jessica suggested gently. "See how she's doing. Check in on her. And also—maybe your best friend needs you now more than anything. I know she did something wrong, but—"

She stopped, clearly choosing her next words carefully.

"Did she regret it?" Jessica asked. "Did she ever actually want your stepfather? Or perhaps all this is completely new to her too, and it just happened without her planning it. Maybe we can start from there."

Her suggestions weren't something I was particularly eager to partake in, but I had to admit I was curious.

Curious to know if Brenda had actually developed feelings for Grayson, if there was some secret attraction I'd missed, or if this really had been a mistake—a terrible, life-altering mistake that she regretted as much as everyone else.

And I wasn't sure I was ready to go back home and face my mother directly, to see that broken version of her that hurt more than anything because it reminded me of how she'd been after Walter left.

"I'll think about it," I said finally. "I guess I can't hide from my problems forever, right?"

Jessica nodded, then smiled at me.

"Fighting!" she said enthusiastically, her hands pushing up into the air like she was about to throw a punch.

I stared at her in complete confusion, my brain short-circuiting trying to figure out what the hell she meant.

Jessica's eyes widened when she saw my expression, and she laughed.

"Oh, you don't know what fighting means?" she asked. "It's a Korean thing—or Konglish term, actually. It just means 'all the best' or 'good luck' or 'you can do this.' It's encouragement."

"Ohhh," I said, my mouth forming a perfect circle of understanding, feeling slightly embarrassed that I hadn't known that.

Jessica's expression shifted then, becoming more serious, and I felt my stomach drop because I recognized that look.

"Well," she said slowly. "We have a problem. That's actually why I came over."

Her face had gone from supportive friend to concerned coworker in seconds.

"What problem?" I asked, already dreading the answer.