Haunting Olivia Read Online Free PDF

wish my sisters were around today, Olivia thought, 34
    Janelle Taylor
    getting out of bed. But Amanda was on her honeymoon and Ivy, a police officer, was on a stakeout in New Jersey. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to opening the envelope by her lonesome.
    It was just a white envelope, legal size, exactly like Amanda’s.
    Olivia spent just a few moments in the lawyer’s office, signing for the envelope, and then left with it unopened in her purse. She took a taxi to the offices of Glitz magazine, then rode up in the elevator to the twenty-second floor, said hello to the recep-tionist and her coworkers, and headed into the kitchenette for some coffee, as she always did.
    “Bitch Face is on the warpath,” Camilla whispered to Olivia. “Stay out of her way.”
    Olivia nodded, pouring a cup of coffee for herself and a cup of decaf for her boss, Vivian. Olivia wanted to have a talk with Vivian, explain that she wasn’t angling—
    “You little bitch,” Vivian screeched at Olivia as the woman suddenly appeared in the doorway of the kitchenette. “You angled for my job and now you’ve gotten it. Congratulations. I’ll send a pitchfork as a gift.” Olivia had never seen Vivian so furious.
    “Vivian, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Olivia said, her heart racing. “Angled for your job?”
    “Cut the goody two-shoes crap,” Vivian spit out.
    “Desdemona just fired me. Don’t act like you don’t know.”
    Olivia stared at Vivian. “Fired? But”—her eyes HAUNTING OLIV IA
    35
    dropped to Vivian’s belly—“she can’t fire you—
    you’re—”
    Desdemona’s assistant appeared in the kitchenette.
    “Ah, there you are, Olivia. Desdemona would like to see you right away.”
    Vivian stalked away.
    “Vivian, wait!” Olivia called, but Vivian didn’t even turn around.
    “Desdemona is waiting,” clipped the assistant.
    Olivia followed the tall, thin woman into Desdemona’s huge corner office, which was larger than Olivia’s entire apartment.
    “Ah, congratulations, Olivia. You’re Glitz magazine’s new features editor. You’ll now be reporting directly to me. Sit. We need to discuss how you’ll handle the transition. Today is Vivian’s last day, and as her employment has been terminated, you may move into her office and adopt her Rolodex.”
    So it really was true. Desdemona had fired a long-term staffer on the eve of her maternity leave. A long-term staffer who’d been very good to Olivia from day one. Vivian had never cared that Olivia’s father was William Sedgwick. She never tried to use Olivia’s supposed connections. And she treated Olivia the way she treated everyone—with respect and professionalism.
    “Actually, Desdemona,” Olivia said, taking a deep breath, “if you’d taken the time to actually offer me the position, I would have declined it.”
    Desdemona glanced up so sharply that her ubiq-uitous Glitz mug of tea spilled on her desk. Her assistant rushed to mop up the mess. “You may go, Eleanor,” she snarled.

    36
    Janelle Taylor
    “I can’t work for someone who’d fire a wonderful person and a top-notch employee when she’s nine months pregnant,” Olivia said. “I learned everything I know from Vivian. I owe her something.”
    “You’re an idiot,” Desdemona said. “You owe her nothing. You don’t owe anyone anything. Spineless bleeding hearts don’t have a place at Glitz anyway.
    Good day, Olivia. Eleanor will escort you out. You have five minutes to collect your personal posses-sions under supervision.”
    As a personnel assistant and Desdemona’s assistant watched with eagle eyes, Olivia took only one thing from her desk: a framed photograph of the three Sedgwick sisters taken a month ago at her sister Amanda’s wedding. Everything else she left behind.
    Olivia sat on the same bench in the same playground she’d visited the day before, this time more intent on the photograph on her lap than on the children playing.
    Now that she’d quit