Web of a lie?
"What kind of idiocy is that, Brad?" Olivia wondered.
"It's not a fool's errand, Miss Moore. Your father left a handwriting and emphasized that if in two days you did not marry one of the twins, the ownership would be passed through a vote to one of the company's directors."
"Olivia, you can stop it from happening!" Samuel pleaded with his sister. "It's Dad's estate. He trusts you enough to leave you all that responsibility." She was the eldest, her rightful post.
Olivia stood up and went in the direction of the two boys, who in her opinion looked like idiots.
"Did you know that?! Did you talk to my father before he left?" the two quietly nodded frantically, denying. "Aaagh!" Olivia let go of her frustration and left the room completely upset by the embarrassing situation they had placed her in.
It was too much pressure.
The girl went through the kitchen and grabbed one of the vodka bottles they were serving at the cocktail party and went to the back garden of the mansion. There was her favorite place. She spent hours admiring the well-kept flowers and the magnificent perfume they exuded. This made her more peaceful.
Her head ached at the thought of the possibilities that damn letter signaled. She had talked many times with her father, but never imagined that he would force her to marry one of his idiot neighbors.
Olivia is young and does not want to think about marriage to anyone.
She opened the bottle of vodka with her teeth and sat in the window of the greenhouse, admiring the calm of the garden. She drank the burning liquid and sighed deeply, trying to forget for a moment the confusion that was happening in her living room.
"I knew I'd find you here." Olivia heard Lian approach and turned sharply in the opposite direction, trying to ignore him. "Is this how you solve your problems? Ignoring me and indulging in drinks that make you numb?" he asked jokingly.
"Yes."
"Give me a little. I'm needing it too." He sat next to her, and she stretched the bottle to him. After drinking a long sip, Lian cleared his mouth, feeling the liquid come down heating his throat. He looked up at the sky and waited for Olivia to start talking, but this did not happen. "When I got the letter, I thought you talked to your father." He commented casually, as he knew the matter was too delicate for both.
"When I found your brother in my room, I thought you talked to him."
"No... wait, what's my brother doing in your room? Ah, it doesn't matter now, and I could never say. You made me promise." He faced her. "When you left, Brad said there would be more rules, which would not be by your personal choice." Lian took the alcohol back to his mouth. It would be easier to talk about it drunk.
"I imagined it would be so. My father had a questionable sense of humor." Olivia supported her head on the wall, with a clear mind because she did not want to spend all day nervous about a brilliant idea of her father. He had died a few hours ago. He still did not deserve to be cursed. Not yet.
"He wants Matteo and me to enter a contest of honor and power. He even made a list with the tasks to be fulfilled." Lian laughed discredited. That would sound really funny if the circumstance were different.
If it was in another family, with another omega, and especially only with his brother. He was not interested in courting anyone. Who he wanted was already part of his life recently.
"What original, funeral games, hurrah!" Olive says ironic. "You said you will not participate right?"
"No, I said yes."
"What is it?" The girl faced him for the first time. Lian was the younger twin with a difference of only three minutes. The two were identical, but Lian had a scar just below the left side of the nose. That’s all that set them apart, and of course, their completely opposite personalities.
"Matteo was excited by this proposal," Lian sighs heavily. "If he did not accept, he would stay with you. The same would happen if he did not want to participate, but you know him, he always wants to show his skills, and if a Moore comes for free, it's the day he always dreamed of."
"I can't believe my father had the courage to do this to me. I wasn't a bad daughter to him! And that's a punishment," she complains while drinking.
"If you had told him about us, this wouldn't be happening." The boy says resentfully. After all, everything could have been avoided by Oliva a few weeks ago. It's okay that her father was sick in the hospital. He was patient about keeping their recent relationship a secret from Mr. Moore. He didn't worry or get too excited. After all, he always wanted Oliva to get into a relationship.
The girl did not want to make her father's condition worse, but she did not foresee such exaggerated actions on the other side. If she had forced Samuel to take the lead, she would not be in this huge problem now. She was angry and jealous of her younger brother.
"This is all my fault. Sorry for putting you through this." She turns to Lian and makes a simple affectionate gesture with his hands. She didn't want them to move away. They had to stay together to get out of this.
"Yes, it's all your fault. What are you considering doing?" he asks hopefully. She was a very smart woman, she had to come up with a quick fix.
"We can talk to my brother about us. He can help..."
"Don't you understand yet?" He nods annoyed. "Nobody can help us. We are alone. If you say something now, you will lose everything! There's no loophole to use!" He gets a little exalted. He was right to be hurt, Oliva knew. "I don't want to make things more complicated, Oliv. I don't want to fight... but now I have to compete with my brother for your hand. That's ridiculous." He faces her and takes one of her hands to gently touch her hair.
Oliva sighed with the touch of the other and approached Lian. It had been almost three days since they had time for each other. After Oliva returned to the hometown, Lian stayed in the capital, waiting for news. He knew it would not be good for them to be seen together. Oliva was not ready to take on a serious relationship, and he was a patient person.
But everything changed when he unexpectedly received a letter from Leonard Moore, a man of few words. No one imagined what was going on in his head.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing, Lian?" The boy, who was ready to kiss his girlfriend, listens to the accusation of the brother in the distance. Lian lowers his head and sighs again. This would not have a good ending. "We agreed not to be near her until the end of the race!"
"You said that, I just listened!" Lian says annoyed. "I'm having a private conversation here, get out."
"None of this can influence Olivia's feelings. The farther away from both of us she'll be, the better off she'll be when she finds out I'll be her husband." Matteo fiercely approaches Lian, who stands up and faces his brother in anger. The two have a brutal fight with glances, and Olivia drinks the rest of the vodka in her hand and rolls her eyes.
She has no patience for stupid dog fights like that.
"Hey assholes, stop playing alphas." She gets up too and comes close to the two. "Hours ago, you didn't even know about this competition. I don't want you to kill each other over a marriage contract."
The brothers look at each other again, as if they were exchanging a subliminal message.
"Sorry, Olivia, but this is way beyond just a marriage contract," Lian says ironically and leaves, pulling his brother grudgingly by the arm, leaving the greenhouse.
Olivia finds the attitude a little strange; maybe the two of them are hiding something.