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‘Yes, Rebecca?’
‘Is...is everything okay? It just seemed like that Harrington woman was kind of...difficult.’
‘I handled it, it’s fine.’ Too late Ben realised he shouldn’t have talked that way about his alleged girlfriend. Shaking his head, he rose from the desk. ‘We were just discussing our plans tonight,’ he added, and Rebecca looked incredulous.
Who could blame her, Ben thought as he headed out of his office. He wasn’t exactly doing a spectacular job as a boyfriend, real or pretend.
* * *
Olivia gazed at her reflection and frowned. The pale gold sheath dress was the last fancy outfit in her wardrobe; the extra birthday party with Ben had depleted her fashion resources. She’d thrown this dress in as an emergency measure, and now she wondered if it really worked. Its clean, simple lines might be a little on the dull side, but the shimmery material hopefully made up for that. Her silver pendant didn’t really go with the gold, but she hadn’t taken that necklace off in fourteen years and she wasn’t going to tonight.
She touched the lopsided heart with its overlapping edges and thought of her mother’s words as she’d given it to her.
Because my love for you will go on and on, Olivia, just like this heart. It never stops. It will never end.
She closed her eyes, guilt and grief twisting inside her. She tried not to think about her mom too much, or how much she’d let her down. It hurt even to think about the necklace. But she’d still keep it on. Always.
A knock sounded at the door, a short rat-a-tat-tat that had Olivia opening her eyes and grimacing at her reflection. Ben had arrived.
She opened the door, tried to keep her expression neutral as she took in his black trousers and white dress shirt, an outfit that should be boring and ordinary but of course looked amazing on Ben. It simply wasn’t fair for him to be so abominably attractive.
He nodded his greeting. ‘Are you ready?’
No compliments about how fantastic she looked or amazing she was tonight, Olivia noted sourly. Had he ever meant any of it? Maybe he’d just been trying to get her into bed.
Of course he was, you idiot.
He’d made no bones about that and yet it still hurt that he’d dropped her like a hot potato the moment he’d got what he’d wanted.
‘Yes, I’m ready.’ She reached for her matching bag and wrap and headed out into the corridor, not even looking at Ben as he fell into step beside her. Still she could feel the tension between them, and not the exciting, sexual kind. It tautened the air as they stepped into the lift, both of them staring ahead, Ben with his arms folded, looking as if he’d rather be just about anywhere else.
‘You’re going to have to up your game if you want the public to believe we’re actually dating,’ Olivia snapped in the seconds before the doors opened onto the lobby. ‘You look one step up from being tortured.’
He looked as if he were about to fire off a retort in kind when he shut his mouth with a snap and looked away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and Olivia had no idea—again—what he was sorry for. But this time she was going to ask.
‘What are you sorry for?’ she asked as they stepped out of the lift and she stretched her mouth into a smile, even let out a little, tinkling laugh as if she were having the time of her life with the man in her life.
‘Olivia...’
‘Are you sorry, for example, for running away from me as fast as you could after having got what you wanted?’
‘I did not run away...’ Ben interjected, his jaw like granite.
‘Or,’ Olivia continued, still smiling, ‘for ignoring me for the next forty-eight hours?’
‘I was busy with something called a job...’
‘Or maybe it’s the charming way you’ve behaved since I saw you in your office this afternoon? As if you couldn’t so much as bear the sight of me?’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Really?’ They stepped outside the hotel, the cold air like a slap in the face. ‘You could have fooled me,’ she said, and raised her arm to hail a cab.
Satisfyingly, one pulled to the kerb with a screech and Olivia slid inside. Ben followed, his leg nudging hers before he moved away, his hands resting on his thighs.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a moment when Olivia had given the address of the benefit and they’d moved off into the traffic streaming down Stulerstrasse, ‘for leaving the way I did, without explaining. And for not coming to talk to you since then. And for acting as if I didn’t want to see you when you came and found me.’ He turned to her then with a bleak smile that shouldn’t have made Olivia ache but did anyway. A lot. ‘So you see,’ he said, his voice low and rough, ‘I’m sorry for all the things you said. And more.’
