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Two hoursand two coffees later, Sammy sat in a nearby cafe’s leather booth, digesting what Olivia had just told him. Her mother, her sister, her father...Jesus, her father.
She’d lived a lifetime in the time they’d been apart.
“I found out about him right before I left for Italy.” Olivia swirled a finger over the tabletop, tracing an invisible pattern. “For the first time in my life, I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t think. The situation with us, my job, my family, plus the craziness of school and Kris’s wedding—it was too much. I wasn’t in the right place mentally or emotionally to jump into a relationship again, and it didn’t seem fair to bring you into my mess. I didn’t expect to be so affected by what happened with my parents, considering I wasn’t close to either of them—I didn’t even know my father—but I was. I couldn’t talk about it because I didn’t knowhowto talk about it. I’m still figuring it out, but the trip to Nevada brought some much-needed closure, and I’m in a better place now. Plus, I wanted to talk to you. To see you.” Her voice softened. “To thank you for waiting.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I said I would wait for as long as you needed, and I meant it.” Sammy reached across the table and took one of her hands in his. Her cool palms warmed beneath his touch. “For the record, you wouldn’t have been stringing me along. Iwantto be there for you, even when you’re a mess—especiallywhen you’re a mess. That’s what a relationship is all about. Being there for each other through the highest of highs and lowest of lows. If you don’t want to talk about something, you don’t have to talk about it. If you do want to talk about it, I’m here. Like I said, I love you. That’ll never change.”
That was all there was to it. Love. Such a simple concept that humans liked to twist and complicate with their fears and insecurities, but eventually, everyone had to make a choice—let the doubt consume them, or let love carry them through.
Olivia squeezed his hand back, and the glow in his chest burned brighter.
“I have something else to tell you,” she said. “I didn’t want to say anything until it was official.”
He waited, his breath stuck somewhere between his lungs and throat.
“I quit Pine Hill.”
“What?” The word exploded out of him. “Liv—”
“Let me finish.” Her eyes glittered. “I quit, and they hired me back. I agreed—on the condition that I could date whoever I want unless it’s a coworker. They have no say in my personal life as long as I don’t do anything illegal or anything that conflicts with the business. You and I? Not a conflict, not based on the flimsy reasoning they gave me about ‘preventing image issues before they arise.’”
“How?” Sammy managed, still trying to sort through his shock.
“Leverage.” Olivia lifted her shoulder in a tiny shrug. “I applied to a bunch of other PE firms and got an offer that matched my current position and salary at PHC. It would’ve taken a few extra years to become VP, but I didn’t care. I made sure they wouldn’t care who I dated on my personal time before I put in my two weeks' notice with PHC. I swear I heard their eyes pop out of their head over the phone—I don’t think they expected me to push back like that. They asked me to hold off on signing anything until they ‘reviewed my case and came to a decision.’ But the real kicker was when Ty Winstock found out about my resignation through Kat, and he threatened to follow me to my new firm.” A wry smile. “I suspect Kat had something to do with that decision, but Ty told PHC I was the reason he’d signed on in the first place, and he wouldn’t stay if I wasn’t there. The rest is history.”
“So you and I...”
“Are free to do whatever we want.” Olivia smiled, but her eyes were worried. “What do you want, Sammy?”
He didn’t have to think about it. “I want you.”
The worry disappeared, replaced with a sparkle that shone brighter than the stars. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
They sealed their promise with a kiss—a declaration to the world that they would be together, no matter what. A kiss that had been a long time coming, that left them both gasping for breath and their waitress’s face beet-red when she cleared off their table.
“I realized something,” Sammy said as they walked toward his car, parked in front of his now-dark bakery. He hadn’t said goodbye to his staff, but he’d see them tomorrow. Maybe. He was tempted to take the rest of the week off and spend it in Olivia’s arms instead. “About us.”
She raised a questioning brow.
“Our problem wasn’t timing. It’s self-martyrdom.” He leaned against the passenger door. “You lied to your mother in New York to protect me. I pretended to be you and lied to your boss to protect you. You asked me to wait because you didn’t want to string me along. And so on and so forth. Self-martyrdom.”
Olivia huffed out a laugh. “When you put it like that...we’ve been idiots.”
“Kinda. But we also ended up here, so we’re nottotalidiots.” Sammy wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her close.
“Here is good?” she teased.
“Here is very good.”
He dipped his head and they kissed again, long and slow and leisurely, ignoring the catcalls of passersby as they got lost in a world where nothing existed except the two of them.
