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‘We don’t date,’ he says with a small smile. Perhaps he sees the way my features blanch of all colour. His wince is almost apologetic. ‘By mutual agreement, we don’t date,’ he reminds me.
But it’s not a reminder; it’s an invention of a conversation we never had and, in the face of this dawning comprehension of my own feelings, it is like being lacerated with a sharp knife. ‘I don’t remember us agreeing that,’ I say stiffly, reaching for my pashmina, biting down on my lower lip to stop it from trembling.
He frowns, uncertain again, apparently sensing the rising tide of my anger anew, and realising a life raft is nowhere to be seen.
‘What are you saying?’ he prompts cautiously.
‘It’s what you’re saying,’ I mutter. ‘That you’re happy to fuck in some hotel room but not meet up in a bar. That it’s absurd of me to have thought that note meant...meant...’ Oh, help me, tears are stinging at my throat and I will not cry in front of him. ‘Forget it.’ I storm past him, but it’s an imitation of my earlier anger. All the fight has left me suddenly.
He grabs my elbow as I pass and his eyes are probing me, searching me, trying to finish the sentence I have left unspoken.
‘What do you want?’ he asks softly, and it’s a softness that renders me weak against the incursion of tears. I can’t stop them from filling my eyes but I glare at him as though he is to blame. And he is. I just need him to know that.
‘I want to go home, now.’
‘Wait.’ He shakes his head, his hand gliding down my arm, his thumb rubbing over my inner wrist. ‘You’re angry that this wasn’t a date. Does that mean you want that? You want us to, what? Go out?’
‘No.’ I shake my head, confusion at my own desires making my argument erratic. It sounds so juvenile. I’m reminded of our age gap and I feel squeamishly young and ill-prepared for this conversation. So I roll my eyes and feign a jadedness that doesn’t resonate within my soul. ‘Don’t overthink it. It’s just that I presumed it was going to be the two of us and instead I felt...ambushed...’
‘It was intended to be a surprise.’
I sweep my eyes shut and nod. ‘It was an insult.’ I pierce him with my frustration when I blink up at him. ‘You think I can’t make it without your help?’
He is stonily silent.
‘You think you owe me that? You laugh at the very idea of dating, like that’s more than I should expect from you after weeks of sharing your bed, but what? Now you’re my recruiter? No.’ I jerk away from him and move down the hallway. He follows, I feel it, but I don’t look back. I yank the door in and only then do I turn. Outside the privacy of his penthouse, I whisper, ‘The fact we’ve had sex has nothing to do with the rest of my life. My grades, my career, anything. I’m yours in bed—nowhere else.’
And I walk down the stairs, my temper broken like an eggshell in my fist—my heart not in much better shape.
* * *
It’s my turn to host the faculty poker game. Ten of the school’s professors are in my lounge and all I see is Olivia as she was last night. Her beautiful body in that dress that practically gave me a stroke at the bar, the way her hair was wild and untamed around her equally untamed and wild rage, the face that rocked me with accusations when her words weaved their indignation into me, hardening me and weakening me all at once.
‘Only two weeks left of term, then you’ll be back to the real world, eh?’
I smile at Simon Farrington and return my attention to the cards. ‘Yes.’ There’s a sharp twisting in my abdomen at this fact—that I will leave. I ignore it. My time in London is temporary. A reprieve from my normal life—a moment out of time.
‘Have you enjoyed your stint as a lowly law professor?’ Clive Amner chips in from my left.
Have I enjoyed myself? Far more than I should have. Flashes of memories slip through my mind, all of them starring Olivia, all of them sending my blood pressure skyrocketing.
She didn’t answer my calls today. I tried once in the morning, and again about an hour before these guys arrived, and both times the phone rang out. Both times I let it play her full voicemail message just because it makes me smile to hear her voice.
I get that she’s pissed. And I get why. I realised, around lunchtime today, that I didn’t even apologise to her for what she described as an ambush. It’s partly why I called—the second time. I am sorry, and
anyone who knows me would know that it’s not often I admit to my faults.
This is one of those occasions when I have no choice but to do so.
She’d told me not to intercede with the Crown Prosecution Service on her behalf. But Dash and I are tight. We go way back. How could I not? And, despite what Olivia might think, calling Dash and setting up the meeting had nothing to do with the fact I think Olivia is sexier than sin. Her passion for the law, for prosecution, is a remarkable thing. How could I not bring her together with the only person I know who shares that same blinkered determination to ‘get the bad guys’?
She’s right about the fact that she has a life beyond this—what we are. That our very temporary, very secret affair can’t be allowed to ricochet through the rest of her existence. She’s right that I have no business meddling in her career.
I did ambush her. A cold trickle of recognition rushes down my spine.
I set up a meeting with Dash and I didn’t let her prepare for it, and she wore a dress that was pure seduction, and she felt...exposed.
I groan inwardly. She’s right. That was an asshole move.
