At that mont, upon hearing the words Oliver just said, Cora found herself completely frozen in her seat, unable to speak, unable to formulate a single coherent response. Because this was more than just an uncomfortable situation - this was a deeply personal violation, this was a slap directly to her face that stung with the kind of sha and humiliation that went all the way down to her core.
She genuinely couldn’t believe that a good-for-nothing person like Lovi would actually stoop this low, would actually go through with sothing this despicable after everything.
The silence inside the car beca thick and heavy as Cora sat there staring blankly at her phone screen, her lips pressed tightly together, her mind racing through a thousand different thoughts and emotions simultaneously while her hands continued their barely perceptible trembling in her lap.
Seeing her completely quiet and withdrawn like that, Oliver glanced over at her again with concern etched deeply across his face. He could tell that whatever was happening was serious - far more serious than a simple work ergency or a minor inconvenience. He had been around enough people and navigated enough difficult situations in his life to recognize when soone was genuinely in distress.
That was when Oliver spoke again, his voice dropping to sothing softer and more intimate, cutting gently through the suffocating silence.
"It seems like whatever ca through in that ssage is literally weighing on you so heavily that you can’t even bring yourself to say a single word about it," he said quietly, his eyes flickering between her face and the road ahead with equal asures of concern and attentiveness.
"For you to go from being the woman who was ready to grab every opportunity with both hands just twenty minutes ago, to sitting there completely silent and shaking - that tells that whatever this is, it’s genuinely serious and it’s hurting you right now."
Oliver exhaled softly before continuing.
"And I want to help you, Cora. I genuinely, sincerely want to help you through whatever this is. I’m not asking out of idle curiosity or because I want to pry into your personal life unnecessarily." His jaw tightened slightly as an instinct seed to kick in sowhere deep within him.
"But why do I get this very strong feeling that sobody out there is literally trying to blackmail you right now? Why do I feel that soone is deliberately trying to get under your skin and use sothing against you? I can feel it - I can sense it from the way your whole energy changed the mont you opened that email."
He paused, letting his words settle before adding with quiet urgency.
"Cora, talk to . We are already well past the level of keeping secrets from each other. Whatever it is, whatever happened in your past, whatever soone is trying to use against you - you can tell . I’m sitting right here."
At that mont, Cora kept quiet for what felt like an eternity, staring down at her lap with her bottom lip caught between her teeth. The internal battle raging inside her was almost visible on her face - the part of her that wanted desperately to handle this alone fighting against the part that recognized she was genuinely terrified and didn’t know what to do.
Finally, she cleared her throat softly and lifted her eyes, though she still couldn’t quite bring herself to et Oliver’s gaze directly.
"I know you’re probably going to be disappointed in when you find out," she began, her voice barely above a whisper and carrying the weight of deep vulnerability.
"And I know you might even be mad at for this, but the truth is that mistakes I made in my past, things I did during a Chapter of my life that I’m not particularly proud of - I thought I had cleaned all of it up completely. I thought I had put it all behind and buried it so deep that it could never resurface." Her voice cracked slightly.
"But it seems like my past just keeps finding its way back to no matter how hard I try to move forward from it."
She sat with that confession hanging in the air between them for just a mont longer, and then with a deep breath that seed to cost her everything she had, she turned and held her phone out toward Oliver, the screen still glowing with Lovi’s email open and the video ready to be seen.
"Here,"she said quietly, her hand trembling as she extended it toward him.
"Check it out yourself."
Imdiately, without wasting another second, Oliver collected the phone from Cora’s trembling hand with a steady, calm grip that sohow made her feel slightly less like the world was crumbling around her. He held the screen up and began scrolling through the email thodically, his eyes moving across Lovi’s carefully crafted words with an expression that was difficult to read - focused, intense, but remarkably controlled.
He read through the entire ssage first, taking in every single word that Lovi had written about being sorry and having no other choice and being pushed into this decision. Oliver’s expression remained unreadable as he absorbed every line, every carefully calculated phrase that Lovi had used to dress up what was essentially a cold and calculated act of betrayal.
And then that was when he saw the video attachnt at the bottom of the email. Without hesitating, he clicked on it and watched it play out on the small screen, his thumb holding the phone steady even as the content of the footage registered in his mind.
Oliver’s jaw got tight - not in the explosive, dramatic way that so n might react, not with shouting or imdiate outrage - but in that quiet, controlled way that actually suggested sothing far more dangerous than a simple emotional reaction. It was the kind of jaw tightening that ca from a man who was rapidly and thodically calculating exactly how to dismantle a situation completely.
Without wasting another second, he lowered the phone slightly and turned his head to face Cora directly, his eyes eting hers with an intensity that demanded complete honesty.
"So you know this person?" he asked, his voice remarkably level and controlled given what he had just watched.
Cora nodded her head slowly, the sha and embarrassnt written clearly across every feature of her face as she prepared herself to explain.
"Yes," she said quietly, exhaling a long breath before continuing.
"It was actually my secretary who introduced to him initially, because of everything that was happening during my divorce and the aftermath of all of that chaos. During that period, I beca aware that certain private materials existed - things from my marriage that I desperately needed to have permanently deleted and completely erased from existence." She swallowed hard.
"I knew that sothing like this might still be in soone’s possession, floating around sowhere out there, and I was terrified of what could happen if the wrong person got hold of it."
User Comments
0 comments from readers