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ChapterTwo
Picking up Olivia had been a true test of Rick’s patience. Five minutes with her and he wanted to leave her at the airport. Better yet, book her a one-way flight back to California. Sure, he’d caught her off guard, but when she’d first spotted him, she acted like she hated him.
Which was grossly unfair.
She was the one who’d ghosted him after they’d been sent home in disgrace from the Clear Lake dig. Now she was treating him like the bad guy?
To think, he’d been looking forward to seeing Frida again. He’d met her two years ago on a dig in Greece. She was a hardworking, hard-partying grad student who loved a good challenge. Rock climbing, scuba diving, spelunking—she was up for all of it.
Why hadn’t she warned him Olivia was taking her place?
Probably because she knew how you’d react.
To say he’d been stunned was putting it mildly. Especially since he hadn’t known about Olivia until two hours ago, when the assistant director had pulled him aside to talk to him. “When you get to the airport, you’ll be picking up Olivia Sanchez instead of Frida Gallego,” he said. “Do you need me to send you her photo? So you’ll know what she looks like?”
Rick had stood there in shocked silence, unable to form a coherent response. Olivia was coming to Cyprus? Today?
Once he’d recovered, he shook his head. “Nah. I can find her.”
Even if seven years had passed, he’d never forget what she looked like. Short, curvy, and gorgeous, with dark brown curls that cascaded past her shoulders. Large, expressive eyes the color of rich chocolate. Olive-toned skin that burned first, then tanned beautifully. A rainbow of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
He’d seen her naked, under the light of a full moon. He knew she loved pistachio ice cream, hated spiders, and had a beautiful singing voice. Like him, her favorite movie was Raiders of the Lost Ark. She’d seen it numerous times and had most of the lines memorized.
Finding her had been easy. Working with her? Another matter entirely.
TJ leaned forward to catch his attention, jolting him back to the present day. “Hey. You were at Berkeley, right?”
“Good memory. Yeah. Graduated four years ago.” Rick had done so much traveling since then he could barely remember what it felt like to be in a real classroom.
“I haven’t seen you at any conferences or caught your name on any publications,” TJ said. “Where are you doing your graduate work?”
There it was. The usual questions. Where are you getting your doctorate? Who’s your adviser? What’s the subject of your dissertation? Rick always got them at the start of any project, especially if it was affiliated with a university. By now, he’d learned to shrug off the judgment.
“I’m not in grad school. This is a job.”
TJ gave a derisive chuckle. “Oh, a shovel bum, eh?”
Rick’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. Though the term didn’t sting as much as it once had, he didn’t appreciate it. He glanced in the rearview mirror to gauge Olivia’s reaction, but her gaze was focused on the scenery outside her window.
“You can’t go far without a graduate degree, you know,” TJ said. “It’s all about making connections—who you know, where you’ve been, that kind of thing.”
Even if Rick had spent the past four years busting his ass in the field, he suspected he wasn’t the type of connection TJ wanted. Not that he gave a damn. He’d worked in projects all over the Mediterranean and was fluent in Greek and Italian. He had his scuba license and had helped uncover the ruins of an underwater shipwreck. But to people obsessed with academia, he was a grunt without a degree.
“Hey, Olivia,” TJ said. “You’re one of the teaching assistants, right?”
“Huh?” she said. “Sorry. I was spacing out. Yeah, I’m here as a TA. I’m getting my doctorate in classical history at UCLA.”
Rick’s ears perked up. Even if he wasn’t thrilled to be working with Olivia, he was curious about her. Clearly, she’d gone the full academic route in her passion for ancient history. But why hadn’t he crossed paths with her sooner? The world of classical archaeology was so insular he should have run into her—or heard of her—at some point in the past four years. He suspected it was because she’d confined her studies to archival research rather than venturing back into the field.
Not that he had any right to judge, but the Olivia he’d known had been passionate about hands-on archaeology. She wouldn’t have traded the adventure of fieldwork for the tedium of poring over musty tomes in some library.
TJ snapped his fingers. “Now I remember where I heard your name. You’re writing a dissertation on the wine trade in Ancient Greece during the Hellenistic era.”
“How’d you know that?” she asked.
“I heard you speak at the AIA meetings in San Francisco last year. Killer presentation. Did I mention I’m at Harvard? I’m working with Dr. Preziosi. He’s phenomenal. Did you go to his talk when you were in San Fran? It was mind-blowing.”
Blah, blah, blah. TJ rambled on about the American Institute of Archaeology meetings, making sure to name-drop every prestigious professor he’d encountered. Naturally, Olivia was familiar with all of them.
