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“You’ll keep me warm. Won’t you?”
He smiled slightly and nodded. He left the bottle on the counter to take my coat from me. I let him wrap me in it, and I tied it closed as we made our way out of the apartment.
In the car, the mood was off, and I wanted desperately to cut through the silence. “Have you had a nice week?” I asked.
“Not particularly.”
I didn’t want to stare at him as he drove in the dark so I focused my gaze ahead of us. “Mine was interesting. Four girls makes for an intense few days.”
“How so?”
“We gossiped, went out, drank, you know. It’s been a long time since I did all that without someone by my side.”
“Someone meaning a man.”
“I guess so. It wasn’t better, just different.”
“I can’t begrudge you having fun with your girlfriends.”
“It wasn’t that fun though. I missed you.”
“Can’t say that doesn’t make me a little happy to hear.”
I smiled. “I saw Brian, too. Just so you know.”
“Brian?” he repeated quickly.
“Um, Ayers,” I added.
He shifted in his seat but didn’t respond. “How are Greg and Gretchen getting on?”
“Really well.” I smiled.
“Are they a good match?”
I furrowed my brow. Yes. Does he not think so? They definitely were in college, so I hadn’t really thought twice about it. “I think so,” I said.
“And what about us? Are we a good match?” he asked.
I was thankful that he couldn’t see my face. The tension in the car thickened as the question hung in the air. “Of course we are,” I said softly. I continued to look at anything but him, and he was staring out the windshield. He hadn’t looked at me once since the apartment. I was relieved when we arrived at the restaurant.
“Dylan, two,” he told the hostess and took my hand as she led us to our table. His hand over mine felt nice; warm and protective.
It was dark outside and dim in the restaurant. I was untying my coat when David’s hands rested on my shoulders from behind. His fingers brushed the back of my neck. I paused, waiting as he seemed to hesitate. He removed the coat, handed it to the hostess and pulled out my chair for me.
I watched him survey our surroundings as he rounded the table to his seat. Our spot was small and intimate, lit softly by a single candle. It was romantic, but my wayward mind could only think of the hard body underneath David’s suit.
“Everyone here is looking at you,” he remarked with a frown, scanning the room behind me.
I followed his gaze. I didn’t see anyone looking at me, but I did catch two pairs of big, bright female eyes focused on him. I pursed my lips and stared at one girl until she noticed and looked away sheepishly.
David ordered a bottle of something before I even noticed the waiter, something I didn’t catch because he’d said it in French. I chose not to comment but folded my hands in my lap instead. His unreadable eyes were fixed on me as he sat motionless.
If his intent was to make me uncomfortable, it was working. His stoicism since the moment I’d seen him was making me self-conscious and a little flustered. “Are you having second thoughts?” I asked finally.
“Me?”
I nodded hesitantly, put off by his clipped tone.
He responded by dropping his forehead in his hands and sighing irritably. “You’re the one hitting the brakes, Olivia.”
“You just seem . . . distant.”
“Can you blame me?”
The waiter appeared, and David gestured at me. The man poured me a taste from the bottle in his hands. Without removing my eyes from David, I swirled, sniffed and took an uninspired sip of red wine. When I nodded, he filled our glasses without a word and slunk away.
“I spoke to Andrew,” David said. “Apparently you and Dani had some kind of altercation last night?” I tried to keep composed, but I could feel heat creeping up my neck. “He wouldn’t tell me any more. Care to explain?”
I bit my lip. “Bill thinks I’m making a mistake. He said that both he and Andrew are concerned about your past. And that you’re using me. He thinks I made a rash decision, a wrong decision, a huge mistake, in fact. He wants me back.”
The angles of David’s long jaw sharpened as he gritted his teeth.
“He told me you slept with Dani and then never called her again.”
David suddenly looked as red as I felt, but it wasn’t because he was embarrassed like me. It was an anger that hit me hard, like the night of the masquerade ball, when he’d seen me dancing with Bill. Now that he was feet away though, it was more palpable.
When he didn’t speak, I continued. “Dani wouldn’t return my calls, so I went to see her in person.”
“You should have come to me,” he fumed.
“I surprised her at a bar in Near North,” I said. “I asked her if she’d slept with you. She told me that Bill had lied and asked her to corroborate his story. His reasoning was that it would be better for me in the long run if I realized who you are and broke things off now before I got hurt.”
“He lied?” David asked, dumbfounded. “And you believed him?”
“Not really, but I didn’t know what to think – ”
“Haven’t I told you repeatedly that I won’t lie to you? Under any circumstances? If I said I didn’t touch her, I didn’t. I don’t fucking like having to repeat myself.”
I nodded and shrank back in my chair. “Are you mad?”
“Yes,” he snapped. “I’m mad at that son of a bitch for lying and at you for believing him.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking back at my hands. “I didn’t believe it was true, but I wanted to hear it from her mouth.”
“Why can’t you trust me?”
“I do.”
“You don’t. It took all this for you to finally come to me? That’s bullshit, Olivia. I should be the first person you come to. This is a bullshit relationship.”
