Gwen was quiet for a minute. “My God, you already knew.”
“Yes,” Olivia admitted. “I did.”
“So it’s true?”
Olivia sighed. “Why is everyone talking about it?”
“Well, the rumor came from the dean’s office, as far as I can tell. There’s maybe some question about when he started seeing her.”
“Ah.” Here it was. Exactly what Victor had feared. He wouldn’t be fired for it. He was tenured and Allison was a grown woman, not some starry-eyed undergrad. But it would hurt his reputation and his ever-important campaign for department chair.
“I wanted to tell you so it wouldn’t be a blow. Especially after our talk about having children. I’m so sorry, Olivia. This must be really hard to take.”
Olivia took the phone out to the balcony and leaned against the railing. The sun slanted past the roof now, and it felt like golden fire on her arms. “I was shocked, but that’s it. I’ve been thinking about this. Poking at my feelings a little. And I’m so glad I didn’t have kids with him. So thankful. And…I’m not even sure I wanted to. I think it was just one more thing to hold against him. One more thing to call unfair. I’d given up a lot and it was easy to say I gave that up, too.”
“Screw him,” Gwen muttered. “He deserves to be blamed.”
“He does. But I own a lot of it, too. And I’m doing great, aren’t I?”
“Damn right you are.”
“Thanks for telling me. You’re a good friend. I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”
“Be careful,” Gwen admonished.
“You, too. Condoms are your friend.” She hung up on Gwen’s hysterical giggles and glanced at her purse. Her cell phone was there, probably full to bursting with messages. She didn’t know what the hell had happened with Victor, but she didn’t want to find out yet. His problems could wait. She had a drive home to enjoy.
Somehow she managed to slip back into town with no one the wiser. Her peace lasted as she unpacked and showered and washed clothes. But she still hadn’t turned on her phone. And soon enough, she found herself standing in front of her kitchen table, staring down at the dark screen.
“You suck,” she told the phone, but she picked it up and hit the power button. It finally blinked to life with its ridiculous message. “Twenty-two missed calls,” she muttered. “Good God.” Fifteen of them were from Victor. He’d really gone off the deep end, poor guy. She only had four messages, though. And three of those were from Jamie.
Her heart lurched at the thought of hearing his voice again. She missed his late-night phone calls, and she wanted to know if anything good had come of her underhandedness. And…and sadly, she just wanted to hear his voice.
Disgusted with her own stupid heart, she steeled herself against the thrill and started the first message. Her whole body tightened at his voice. “Olivia,” he said. Just her name hanging in the air. She heard him sigh and had to stop herself from answering in kind. “I saw the portfolio. I don’t know what to say. Just call me, okay?”
Another call from Jamie asking her to get in touch. Then another. “I’m worried about you. Hope everything’s okay.”
She saved it, hating herself as she did it.
The last message had been left on her phone late last night. “Did you call the dean?” Victor demanded. “Did you tell him about Allison? Jesus, I never thought you’d really do this, Olivia. This is it now. It’s over for me. I guess you don’t have to worry about me bothering you anymore. I won’t have the fucking time.”
Well, that was mysterious, but she wasn’t even curious. Their lives were no longer intertwined. Heck, they weren’t even walking on parallel paths. She’d veered far off and every step took her farther away from him.
Olivia deleted his message and blocked his number. She blocked his home number, as well. She wished him luck in his new life, but she couldn’t involve herself anymore.
After opening all her windows to an evening breeze, Olivia poured herself a glass of wine and turned on her laptop. The email she was looking for was right there, amazingly, unburied by junk mail. As if it were a sign.
Bracing herself for disappointment, Olivia clicked on the email from the graphic designer. There was a large file attached. It had to be the logo she’d commissioned two weeks before. Olivia crossed her fingers and opened the file. Still, it was hard to see the image with her eyes clenched shut, so she forced her eyes open just a crack, and then she gasped.
“It’s perfect,” she breathed. “Oh, my God, it’s perfect.”
Good Table Consulting
stood out in a clean, friendly font. The letters were orange against the pale yellow oval of the background. She’d chosen to forgo any images except for a modern, stylized white plate behind the
G
of
Good Table.
Her eyes filled with tears, and Olivia pressed a hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying. This was real now. It was real and it was hers.
She immediately typed out a gushing thank-you to the designer, then opened her website development application. She knew exactly how she wanted the website to look. Clean, modern and friendly, just like her logo. She’d already written down headers and content ideas. Tonight, she was going to build herself a website.
Olivia sipped her wine, but she didn’t need it. She was dizzy with triumph and confidence and joy. She whipped through design details and layouts, her mind buzzing. Buzzing so loudly that it took her a moment to register the sound of someone knocking on her door. She frowned at being interrupted, then her eyes flew wide at who it might be.
Jamie, Jamie, Jamie,
her stupid heart pattered. She hadn’t called him back, and he wanted to talk. It could be him. Or it could be anyone. Victor or a neighbor or just the UPS guy. But she smoothed down her hair and licked her lips and hoped to God she didn’t look cross-eyed from staring at the computer for so long.
Not that it mattered. He meant nothing to her. As little as she’d meant to him.
She looked through the peephole and her heart flipped before beating even faster. It was him. She braced herself for the sight of him and opened the door. And just like that, all her triumph was gone and all she felt was yearning.
“You’re okay,” he said immediately.
“Yes.” Her eyes disobeyed her, dipping down to take him in. It didn’t matter that he’d hurt her. He’d also inspired the greatest pleasures she’d ever felt, and her nerves seemed to ripple at the sight of him, like rings of warm water spreading through her.
“We need to talk,” Jamie said. He didn’t seem to have any trouble holding her gaze. Apparently he wasn’t quite as afflicted as she was.
Olivia opened her door wide. “Come in.”
He stopped a few feet into her living room, seeming to have no idea where he should go.
“Would you like a drink?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine. I just…” Hands in his pockets, he swept a lost look over the room. “Were you out of town?”
“Yes.”
He waited for her to say more, but if he wanted to talk, he needed to get to it. She didn’t want to pretend they were still friends. Friends didn’t lie to each other.
Jamie cleared his throat. “I don’t quite know where to start.”
“I’ll start,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
His shoulder rose on a deep breath before he turned to face her. “You probably shouldn’t have, but that’s okay.”
“I wanted to help, and…” She held up her hands. “And I just wanted to help.”
“It did help.”
“Yeah?” Relief bloomed inside her.
“We talked. Me and Eric and Tessa. In fact, I’m back at the brewery. We’re making it happen.”
“You’re doing it? Seriously? That’s great.” She started to move toward him, then realized that she shouldn’t.
“I wanted to tell you, but you never answered, and…”
“I was out of town,” she said, as if cell phones didn’t function at a distance. They stood there awkwardly, just staring at each other. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Jamie look awkward before. “Well, I’m truly glad it worked out. I hope you’ll… I hope you’ll keep in touch.”
His eyes flickered to the door, but he didn’t move. “I know what my brother told you,” he said. “And I wanted to explain.”
That snapped her from her awkward hovering. Olivia shook her head and retrieved her wineglass from the table. “There’s no need. Really.”
“No, I want to be—”
“I mean it,” she snapped as she opened her fridge and grabbed the wine. “I don’t want an explanation or…whatever you want to call it. It’s done. I’m over it.”
“You’re
over
it? Just like that?”
“What do you want me to say, Jamie? We had a thing. We had fun. And if you want it to mean something to me, then that would mean your lies meant something, too. And I
need
them not to mean anything.”
“Olivia, please listen. It’s—”
“I don’t want to listen! What could you possibly say? ‘It isn’t what you think? It meant nothing? I only told you that to make you feel better about yourself?’ I’ve heard it all before, Jamie. And believe me, none of it makes it better. Do you know what it’s like to be lied to? To be made a fool of?”
“
Yes.
In fact, I do know what it’s like to be made a fool of. That woman—” He looked up at the ceiling as if it could help guide him through this minefield of manipulation. But apparently the ceiling offered no answers, because Jamie closed his eyes, his brow furrowing.
“Even if she screwed you over, Jamie, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t count. How many other women have you slept with that you don’t count? Jesus, were there others while you were seeing
me?
”
“No. And that’s not why I don’t count her.”
“Did you have sex with her?”
“Yes,” he growled.
“Then why are we having this conversation? You made a damned
point
of telling me you hadn’t slept with anyone in over a year. You didn’t even have to say it! I wasn’t asking!”
“I wanted you to understand that you meant something to me.”
“Jamie…” Olivia threw her hands up. “I feel like I’m in the twilight zone! It doesn’t mean
anything
if you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying!” he shouted. “I don’t count her, because I didn’t want it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. I give up.”
Jamie paced to the dining room table and put both his hands flat on the wood. His head dropped, the muscles in his neck standing sharp against the skin. “My brother had been working this deal for months. He didn’t want to involve me, but I insisted on coming to dinner with Roland Kendall.”
“Roland Kendall?” She tried to figure out how she knew the name.
“He’s a real bigwig. The owner of High West Air.”
Oh, right. He was a huge name in Colorado business. She waved an impatient hand.
“We struck a deal to become the sole provider of beer for High West. It was a big deal. Our biggest ever. It would get our beer into the hands of a national audience. And I wanted to be involved. Wanted to prove myself. So I went to dinner with Eric and Roland Kendall and the VP of High West…who just happened to be Kendall’s daughter.”
When her eyes widened, he laughed bitterly. “Yeah. Exactly. But I’m not an idiot. I’m honestly not. A few weeks later, she came into the brewery. Wanted to try some of the beer. I gave her the VIP treatment, of course.”
He laughed again, and goose bumps spread over Olivia’s skin at the sound. Bitterness sounded completely wrong coming from Jamie.
“By closing time, she said she was too drunk to drive. I was playing the part, you know? Friendly, helpful. I offered to give her a ride. That’s all I offered. In fact, I very pointedly said that I’d drive her car and take a taxi back to the brewery. She was all over me in the fucking car. What was I supposed to do? I pulled up to her place, and she asked me to walk her in….”
“And you had sex?”
“Yeah, we had sex. After I told her I wasn’t interested. Said I didn’t want to complicate things since we were going to have a working relationship. She didn’t like that at all. Monica is pretty. She’s rich. Used to getting what she wants. She said if I was going to be rude about it, maybe we shouldn’t have a working relationship at all.”
Olivia had told herself she was only listening so he’d get it over with and leave. There was nothing he could possibly say that would make a difference. But her frown edged from scorn to concern. “She said that?”
“Yeah. ‘What will my father say when he finds out I asked you to drive me home and you wouldn’t keep your hands off me?’”
When Olivia gasped, Jamie laughed that awful laugh again. “I realized I was going to ruin the deal. The damn irony almost killed me. It was all my brother had talked about for months. He insisted it was the future of the brewery. And this bitch was going to kick it aside like garbage if I didn’t stay. So I stayed.”
“Oh, Jamie…”
“I spent the night, and then I went home in the morning, and I’d ruined everything anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her father saw me leaving. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Because while Monica Kendall was, literally, fucking me over, her brother used my absence to break into the brewery in an attempt to steal credit card information.”
When Olivia’s forehead wrinkled in confusion, Jamie waved a hand. “It’s a long, screwed-up story. The deal fell through, and my brother had yet more proof that I was the ultimate fuckup.”
“He didn’t understand why you did it?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Why?” she cried.
“First of all, I didn’t particularly want to talk about it. Second, what could it possibly matter? Was Eric going to explain to her father that his little girl had forced me into her bed? No, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“It would’ve changed how your brother felt.”
“No, it’s going to take a lot more than that to change how he feels about me, but I’m doing it.”
“Jamie…” She didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have told you, either, but… That’s why I don’t count her, Olivia.”
She had no fight against this. She couldn’t stop herself from walking to him, putting her arms around him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Tears choked her voice at the thought of what that woman had done to him. “I’m so sorry.”