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Then and there, I decided that before morning came, I was going to ask her that question again.
13
OLIVE
What the fuck was I doing? Cradled inside Lucas's arms, I could hear my heart racing in the silence of the room. The sound of his breath warmed my face, but my nerves were also heating up my body.
Had I really just said yes to moving in with him? I wanted that, right?
That was why I had just fucked him, wasn't it? Lucas owned the cyber security company that I had hacked. And I was now one hundred percent certain he was searching for the hacker—he just didn't know it was me. And what better way than to throw him off the track by playing house, by giving him endless orgasms, by blurring his mind with serotonin and dopamine?
I would be the last person he would suspect. Especially now that I'd opened up about the trauma in my previous relationship. I hadn't expected to tell him about that, and it had just kind of spilled out of me without even thinking about it.
But now I realized there was a benefit in opening up to him. It made me look vulnerable. Like I was a victim.
Violence had defined my relationship with Carl, and while I had only told Lucas the bare minimum, it had been enough to portray the way I had felt in that time of my life. I'd been a victim back then. And while I had stopped feeling like that a long time ago, talking about it did take me back to that place.
There was enough distance that I didn't emotionally return to that mindset, but I had learned from experience that it didn't matter whether or not I felt like a victim. The people I confided in about the violence with Carl all saw me the same in their mind—once a victim, always a victim.
I'd hated that perspective. I refused to think it was a permanent state of mind. Just because assault had been a part of my past, it no longer defined my present or my future. But people who'd never experienced something like I had didn't see it that way. Nobody understood it unless they had experienced it themselves.
It had bothered me enough that I stopped opening up to people about it. It was the one of the main reasons I hadn't been in a serious relationship since.
However, it was abundantly clear to me that if there was a time in my life that being portrayed as a victim would help me, it was right now.
Because victims didn't commit crimes. They were the ones who had crimes committed against them. Therefore, if Lucas saw me as a victim, then he would never see me as the hacker. And I needed to take advantage of that opportunity.
I would play this role until Quinn contacted me again, and I gave him the video and got my fifty grand. And then I'd get my money, take Claire, and we'd start over somewhere new. It would hurt Lucas—he was her father, after all—but there was no way in hell I was going to become a politician's wife.
Even if all this business with the mayor settled down, even if they never discovered my part in hacking the video, the last thing I wanted was to be in the public eye, to have my life—and Claire's—throughly investigated and ripped apart.
Lucas sighed, his fingers trailing my back. Goosebumps popped up on my skin from where he touched me. If I had to play house with someone, I guess this wasn't so bad.
I opened my eyes. "I never thanked you."
He sat up, resting his head on his palm. "For what?"
"You paid off Claire's school."
His smile was soft. "You don't have to thank me for that, Olive. It's seriously the least I could do. You've been raising her alone for the last ten years. I can't imagine how difficult that's been."
"Well, it's not like I was completely alone. Adam and Mike helped me when they could. We just don't always get along."
"Really?" Lucas cocked his head. "You guys were inseparable in college."
That was before Carl gaslit me into thinking Adam was a bad person. Before Adam discovered how I was making money through hacking, a life of crime he didn't support.
"We're just different people."
Lucas ran his fingers through my hair. "I want to support you both financially. And before you object, trust me when I say I can afford it. But I don't want you to think I'm trying to buy either of you into my life. I know money only goes so far."
"Only people who have money say money only goes so far," I laughed.
He smiled. "I just mean that I know I need to make an effort to get to know Claire...and to get to know you again."
The genuineness in his voice was unmistakable. He actually meant that. Why did that make me feel so...guilty?
Because I was faking this? Telling him what he wanted to hear in order to throw him off my tail, to have a place to stay, someone to keep me safe?
