Midas Touch

"Have fun," teased the man, laughing at his own joke. Olivia glowered at him.

They both watched as Steven strode toward the corner like a man on a mission, which, in essence, he was.

"Why are you being so cruel? If this is about me, why punish Steven? Why take our girls?"

"All will be revealed, missus."

"More damn mystery and riddles."

The man laughed. "You need to learn how to put some fun into your work day."

"Fun?" shrieked Olivia. "You call this fun?"

"Settle down, little lady. You wouldn't want to upset me. Not when I have your precious daughters."

Olivia immediately quietened down. To do so went against her instincts. She normally went straight for the jugular in negotiations. She liked to put her opponent on the back foot. Today, it was her feeling off balance. She hated feeling so powerless, so ineffectual. It smacked of failure and failure wasn't in her vocabulary.

Olivia watched the street, impatient for the sight of her husband. When he finally rounded the corner, her heart sank. He looked like a man beaten. She knew he too must be feeling the same helplessness, not to mention, fear, she was. Being a loving father, as well as a proud and capable man, a man used to being in charge, it must be hell to be at their captor's mercy and not be able to protect his children.

Without saying a word, he slid into the car and handed the man the phone. He buckled his seatbelt before placing his hands on the steering wheel, waiting for his next instruction.

The man chuckled as he looked at the photo. "Geez, man, you could have at least smiled."

Steven pursed his lips, biting back a sharp retort. Olivia reached across and squeezed his forearm comfortingly. Steven smiled at her gratefully.

"Aren't you going to ask where to next?" the man teased.

"You'll tell us when you're ready," Steven replied tersely. "You're the one in charge, after all."

The man laughed. "You'd make a good army officer—even when you disagree or hate the command you follow it anyway."

Steven looked in the rear-vision mirror at the man sharply.

"Yes, I know you spent time in the forces. Not in the field, though. No, you were nice and safe in the command centre assisting with the co-ordination of the covert ops. Others got to do the dirty work."

Olivia looked at her husband. He never spoke of his time in the forces, only once saying he'd lost too many friends to want to mentally revisit his time there.

"My nerdy computer job saved countless lives, you arsehole. A lot of successful missions were done, in part, because of the information I provided the commanders leading those ops. Don't you dare fucking mock me or those men or I'll rip your throat out with my bare hands. And if you hurt my daughters, I'll rip your heart out too."

The man merely laughed, unperturbed by Steven's anger. "Yeah, so I heard, captain. Keep your hat on. No need to go all rogue on me. Keep doing what I tell you and you and your family will do just fine."

Olivia saw Steven was not happy with the man's response. And why should he be? His words made it clear they still had hurdles to leap before he would let them, and their girls go. She refused to even consider her family not surviving the day. To keep going she had to believe.

"Let's see," the man said, steepling his fingers as if deeply pondering a decision. "How about we take a nice little drive out to the Hawkesbury River. I know a nice little B&B with great water views."

With his words, Olivia knew the whole day had been about her. She fought to keep her posture upright and her expression neutral.

How could the man know? She'd been so careful. No routines. No set days or times. No lunches or dinners. Not even coffees outside the office. She was certain no one knew. No one other than Logan. Logan, her lover, her colleague. Logan who was meant to collect her from the domestic terminal after Steven had dropped her off in what seemed a lifetime ago. Yes, Logan. Her teammate. Together they'd pulled off two massive deals in one year. Deals worth billions of dollars to the bank.

Olivia wanted to hit something. She was furious. Her career was in tatters, her family in danger, her husband possibly jobless, and for what? Nothing. Logan was nothing. He meant nothing. He was just a little reward she'd allowed herself for a job well done. She was the same to him. He, too, was married with kids. He loved his wife as much as she loved Steven. They'd had a little self-congratulatory week-long fling after they'd pulled off the first deal and had the occasional tryst when the opportunity arose. Having gotten away with it, neither had seen any obstacle to having another little celebratory few-day romp with the recent deal. It meant nothing, absolutely nothing, but now because of it, her whole life, and that of her family, was in jeopardy.

Frustratingly, knowing the events of the day had something to do with her indiscretion still didn't answer the question of who was behind it.

It couldn't be Steven. Revenge had been wreaked upon him too, and Olivia knew he was incapable of hurting her. If anything, he'd be like he was after discovering her affair with a colleague in Melbourne; he'd be crushed. Depressed and withdrawn and asking what she needed that she wasn't getting out of their relationship. And then there was the call to Mrs. Foster. She'd been terrified. There was no way Steven would have orchestrated something like that.

What about Logan? Could he have arranged it all to discredit her and take her out of the running for any future promotion? He was certainly ambitious and ruthless enough to throw her to the wolves. His drive to succeed was one of the things she found attractive about him. But would he risk her implicating him?

And then there was Logan's wife. She came from old money. Her family had connections and would certainly have the dollars to pull something of this nature off. For all she knew, Logan was himself enduring a similar ordeal.

Olivia gritted her teeth, frustrated. Her mind, her brilliant strategic mind, couldn't come up with solid enough answers to pinpoint the mastermind behind the day's events.

"Figured it out yet, Livvie?" asked the man.

"What's he talking about, Olivia? Do you know why he's doing this to us?"

Olivia hedged, her intellect at war with her heart. Her intellect told her she could turn the situation around. It wouldn't be the first time she'd wrung a win from what appeared a certain defeat. It told her she could put a spin on the events of the day, on the B&B at the Hawkesbury, and save herself from a painful and awkward confession. Steven need never know...

Her heart felt differently. It said enough was enough. Her choices had hurt Steven and her family beyond anything she'd envisaged. Her daughters' lives were at stake. It told her it was time to come clean and give Steven the honesty he deserved.

"Yes, I do. It's all my fault."

"What? What do you mean?" asked Steven.

Olivia cringed. Looking at Steven she felt a remorse so deep, it was a physical pain. She was responsible. Because of her, the stranger had their girls, their money was gone, and Steven had probably lost his job. All of it none of his doing. Her own consequences were deserved; she had, after all, broken the law.

"Oh god. This is so hard. I don't know where to begin," she began, hoping she would be able to find the right words so that Steven would understand and forgive her.

"Is this what you're like in the boardrooms, Livvie?" asked the man. "Stop beating around the bush, and just spit it out, woman."

Olivia turned to glare at the man. Steven waited, hands gripping the steering wheel.

"Steven, I-I-, oh shit. This latest deal, I bent the law. I-"

"You mean you broke it," interrupted the man.

Olivia sighed. "Yes, it's true. I broke it. I found out insider information on the stock. The deal hinged on the client knowing, so I got them the information."

"Let me get this right," Steven said. "You broke the law and risked our family for a deal?"

"When you say it like that, it sounds reckless. Reprehensible. The bonus for us was going to be at least 250K. There was no reason for ASIC to suspect any wrongdoing..." Olivia trailed off, seeing the look of disgust on Steven's face. The look gutted her.

"Thinking you can get away with breaking the law doesn't make it okay to break the law. Honesty and integrity are doing the right thing even when no one is looking," rebuked the man.

Olivia flinched, the irony of a kidnapper lecturing her on ethics and morality went over her head.

"And, what else, missus?"

Olivia stared at the man, her expression that of a woman on her knees begging for mercy. She found none.

Head hanging, eyes closed, she began, her voice barely audible. "On these deals we work as a team. A small, close-knit group, each individual with a skillset needed for the project or deal. Logan Priest and I led the team. We worked closely together. I-we, ah..." Olivia faltered. She knew how devastating her next words would be to Steven. At that moment, she'd have given anything to not have to utter them. "I-we, we fucked as a sort of in-house congratulations."

The car door opened. Olivia's head shot up. She looked to the side, expecting to see Steven exiting the vehicle. She was wrong. Steven was still in his seat, looking at her with something akin to hatred in his eyes. Olivia recoiled as if struck. She turned her head this way and that. The man was gone. All that he'd left was his vest. He'd disappeared into the crowd.

"What? Where?" she asked, confused.

Another look around the car and she could see the man had taken the briefcase holding their life's savings.

"What's happening?" she asked Steven, panicking. "Why did he leave? He's taken the money. What about Hailey and Hannah? How can we get him to free Mrs. Foster and the girls if he's disappeared?"

"No, he didn't. He hasn't taken the money."

"What? Why? But he has the girls. I don't understand what's going on?"

"How does that feel, Olivia? How does it feel to not understand? To have nothing make sense? To be left in the dark about things that have great bearing on your life?"

"Steven, what's going on?"

Steven ignored her questions. "Do you like feeling out of loop? Do you like feeling uncertain? Scared? Confused? Powerless?"

"Steven, what do you mean? What about Hailey and Hannah? For god's sake, tell me what's going on?"

"Why should I? Perhaps I like having my secrets as much as you like having yours."

"What? What is wrong with you? You're not making sense. None of this is making sense."

"I know, Olivia. I know about Logan Priest. I know about the deal, the insider trading. Just like I know about the previous deal and the little 'aren't-we-such-a-good-team fling you had with him when you pulled off that one. I know about your trysts. And I know all about your, ah, Midas Touch. Guess Logan Priest has it too. Certainly had it when he got into your panties, by all accounts."

Olivia stared at Steven in disbelief. Her mind was in denial, but her body telegraphed her guilt by sending a deep red flush up her chest and into her cheeks. Steven couldn't have known. She'd been so careful.

But he had known. He'd just said he had. He knew about the other fling with Logan, too. And their random get-togethers.

And he'd hidden his knowledge from her. She felt ill. Her stomach cramped violently. Olivia opened the car door and leaned out, foul smelling, bitter tasting vomit erupted from her, splattering the gutter. Olivia swirled saliva around her mouth, trying to wash the sour taste from her tongue. She spat it into the mess she'd already made on the road.

Olivia inhaled a few slow deep breaths, trying to centre herself. Her mind raced. She struggled to accept that Steven had had something to do with the events of the day. To have been a party to it was so out of character as to be impossible to believe that he was the same man she'd married. But it wasn't. He knew. Knew everything. How could he be so cruel? How could he torture her so terrifyingly?

"You must truly hate me to organise that man to take the girls. Where are they? Are they okay?"

"Yes. They're fine. At home with Mrs. Foster. Where they've been ever since they got home from the zoo. They had a lovely time, by the way."

"But, Mrs. Foster. She sounded terrified..."

"Yes, she did rather well. She thought I was playing a joke on you. She thought it a mean joke, but I assured her you'd appreciate it at the end."

"Oh, my god," Olivia whispered. She looked at Steven, not recognising him at all. The Steven she knew was incapable of such viciousness, such duplicity.

"You had that man steal all our money."

"No, I didn't." Steven reached to the back seat, moving the vest aside to reveal all their phones. "Here, go to the banking app on your phone and check. All I took out was $100."

Olivia didn't move. She believed him. It was all coming together. It had all been an elaborate hoax.

"Who is he?"

"No one you know."

By his tone, Olivia knew it was pointless to pursue the question of the man's identity.

"And the papers you delivered to ASIC? You want me to go to jail? You must really hate me."

Steven shrugged. "The envelope was full of blank paper. ASIC got nigh on a ream of paper out of us."

She wasn't going to jail. Olivia sagged, relief making her weak.

"So, the delivery to your client was fake too?"

Steven nodded.

"Why? Why go to so much trouble?"

"Why do you think?"

"I don't know, Steven. I don't know what to make of any of it. I'm not even sure I know you anymore."

"No, you probably don't. You turned me into a new man. Congratulations. I now have the killer instinct you so admire."

"Oh, Steven. Please don't say that. I love you just the way you are."

Steven ignored Olivia's declaration. "Do you really want to know why?"

Olivia nodded, though her gut, which she so relied on in the boardroom was telling her she wouldn't like the answer.

"I wanted you to experience some of what I've been feeling for the last six to eight months. What I experienced back in Melbourne seven years ago. I figured this was the only way. Had I just had a revenge affair or divorced you, you wouldn't have known the depth of my feelings. I needed you to have a taste of what my life has been like. I needed you to feel lost and abandoned. To feel demeaned, betrayed, powerless, not good enough, and all the other shit a betrayed spouse feels when their partner, the person who is meant to love them above all else, stabs them in the back in the cruellest of ways. You've been subjected to those feelings for less than a day; I've experienced them for over six months. And that's just this time around.

"Oh, Steven. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean to. I never meant for you to find out-"

Steven barrelled on, ignoring Olivia's apologies.

"Olivia, the two worst moments of my life involve you. Do you comprehend the depth of that statement? I've seen death. I've been responsible for sending friends and comrades into enemy territory and watching as they lost their lives for their country. Do you understand that what you did to me was far more difficult to deal with? Few things are worse than discovering the person you've committed your life to has betrayed you. When the person you've promised to love treats you with utter disrespect-"

"But I didn't disrespect you and I'd never allow anyone else to either," Olivia protested, reaching across to touch Steven's arm. Steven shook her hand off.

"I think you and I have a different idea about what constitutes respect. You think because you went to great pains to hide your infidelity and didn't allow your lover to denigrate me—yes, I know you stopped him when he tried—that you've treated me with respect. I, on the other hand, feel that by screwing around behind my back you've disrespected my feelings, disrespected the vows you made to me all those years ago, and disrespected my beliefs of which you were fully aware and have been since we got engaged. Even more so after Melbourne."

Steven paused, turning to look out the window. He had so much he wanted to say, but at the same time, he didn't want to waste the rest of his life having one conversation after another rehashing the downfall of their marriage. He'd wasted enough of his life on her. Taking a breath, he decided to say as much as he could in this one conversation and, once done, to let it go. If his words penetrated; fantastic. Score one for the good guys. If not; he'd move on. A life filled with bitterness and resentment was no life at all. That would be like sipping poison on a daily basis and expecting the enemy to die.

"To me, being betrayed felt like experiencing death while still living and breathing. The first thing that died because of your deceit was our past. What of it was real? What, a lie? I'll never know because I only have your word and your word has been proven to be false. Twice. Do you know what the second thing to die was, Olivia?"

Olivia shook her head, her cheeks wet with tears.

"The second victim was our future. The one we vowed to spend together till death do us do part. We have no future anymore, Olivia. Not a joint one, at least. You killed it. You made a corpse of it with every secret assignation, every lie."

"We can get through this, Steven. You forgave me once before. Please try and forgive me once again. I promise I won't let you down again. I've learned my lesson. We can move if you want."

Steven shook his head. "What do you think this is? Third time lucky? You promised to forsake all others on our wedding day. You broke that promise within a matter of a few short years. Seven years ago, you promised me again that you were mine and mine alone. That you'd never be unfaithful to me again. You broke that promise too.

"Olivia, when someone treats you with such disregard, such dishonesty, such disrespect again and again and again, something happens to you. Bit by bit the way you look at them changes. Your feelings change. They diminish. It's deceptive. It kind of creeps up on you.

"I tried. I tried so damned hard to forgive and forget Melbourne. It wasn't easy. It was hard. Very hard, but I tried. Initially, I tried for you, later for the girls. I wanted to be able to trust you. To look in your eyes and see only the clever, funny, beautiful woman I fell in love with. I didn't want to see the conniving, deceitful, selfish bitch you'd shown yourself capable of being.

"Funny thing is, I'd almost succeeded and then I noticed the same slightly off things happening again. Nothing to really put a finger on. Just a gut feeling, a sense of déjà vu. At first, I was in denial. No, I said, she wouldn't do this to me again. She wouldn't do this to the girls, but the conviction that something was going on just wouldn't go away. It grew and grew and when I couldn't stand it any longer and started checking what I found confirmed my worst fears. You were betraying me again. Lying to me again. Stabbing me in the back again.

"After that, all I could see was the bitch. I lost sight of the girl I married. She doesn't exist anymore, if she ever existed at all."

"I do. I'm here. I'm still the same person you married. Please, Steven. I'm so sorry. It kills me to know I hurt you. I got caught up in the game. In winning. I felt invincible. You said it yourself; I have the Midas Touch. Everything I touched turned to gold. Logan was just part of the game. It meant nothing. There was no emotion, no bond between Logan and me. It wasn't intimate. It was sport. It was like running a victory lap."

Steven shook his head at Olivia, a look of pity on his face. "Again, you and I think differently when it comes to love and sex. For you, it's just another physical activity. For me, whether I'm spending an entire afternoon on foreplay or fucking you over the kitchen counter, racing to finish before Mrs. Foster returns with the girls, is irrelevant. The mere act of joining my body to yours, of sharing bodily fluids, has created an intimacy. All of it is a physical expression of my love. It's personal. Sex is personal. It doesn't get more personal."