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“That’s fine. I can live with you thinking I’m being ridiculous. Isn’t that what you’ve always thought about me?”
I sighed and rubbed my temples. “Olivia…don’t be hasty about this. Come on. If you tell them you never had a husband, they are going to fire you. You and I can figure something out. I don’t want you to lose this job.”
“Don’t pretend you care about me.”
“I do care about you.”
“Or it’s more like you don’t want to explain to Danny that I lost my job because you couldn’t follow through, more like.” She sighed. “You don’t have to worry, okay? I already spoke to Michael.”
“You mean you told him?”
“I told him my husband had had another commitment come up and wouldn’t be able to help on the movie anymore. I told him if we had any urgent questions, we could always email you, and you’d get the answers to us.”
That annoyed me. “If you think you can take me off the project, and I’ll still be available for correspondence, think again.”
She laughed. “Oh, okay. I thought what mattered most to you was helping me out. But I guess not.”
Furious, I said nothing. That had been a clear trick, and it pissed me off. She had been trying to trap me into saying that her needs weren’t the most important thing to me.
Well, why the hell should they be? Why shouldn’t I want to get something for myself out of this whole arrangement? It was selfish of her to expect me to do this without trying to find any personal gain in it at all. And if that was how she felt…
“Fine,” I said. “Do whatever you want, Olivia, but don’t think I will answer your emails.”
“I don’t need you to do that,” she said. “Don’t forget, Idohave a Navy SEAL for a brother. You’re not the only military man I know. And if I really get stuck, I can always use the internet. I’m pretty good at research.”
“Well, I hope it works out for you,” I said sharply. “Just so you know, I would have helped you with this. I would have done whatever you needed to become a success on this project.”
“Right. You would have done whatever I needed, apart from not treating me like an annoying child who wanted a seat at the adults’ table,” she snapped. “You would have done whatever I needed except for once in your life, let me be the most important person in the room?
You would have done whatever I needed as long as it didn’t mean setting aside whatyou wanted. Don’t worry about it, Jake. I can handle this on my own. I don’t need anything at all from you.”
“Fine.”
I didn’t know what else to say after that, and apparently, neither did she, because the next thing I knew, the phone had disconnected.
I sat down on my bed, wondering what to make of what had happened.
She’d been clear about one thing. Even though she didn’t want our sexual relationship to continue—a fact I frankly didn’t understand at all, given the chemistry between us—that wasn’t why she had cut off the working relationship. I hadn’t pushed her too far in that way.
If that had been the problem, I would have backed off. But since it wasn’t…
How seriously was I required to take this?
She hadn’t told Michael Sanders that we weren’t married.Hedidn’t know that he had been lied to. And I was a Navy SEAL, and he was interested in my military experience.
Olivia didn’t want to see me again. But did that mean I couldn’t see Michael again?
She couldn’t stop me.
I stood up and pocketed my phone, feeling full of righteous indignation. Maybe this wasn’t over yet. Maybe there was a way I could still get everything I’d hoped for out of this situation.
And in the process, maybe I could show Olivia Montgomery why it wasn’t a good idea to try to tell me what to do.
Chapter 10
OLIVIA
Ihadn’tbeencompletelyhonest with Jake on the phone, telling him that I’d already let Michael Sanders know he wouldn’t be on the project and that Michael had been fine with it.
