Chapter 15
One month later
Olivia checked the time on her computer and groaned. She shouldn’t have agreed to meet her friend for lunch; she had way too
much work to do.
Her phone beeped with a message from Meera.
Presume you’re just running late and aren’t canceling on me. Again. M x
Muttering a curse, she messaged that she was on her way.
Usually she’d take the stairs—she made sure to do at least ten thousand steps a day and sometimes her morning run wasn’t quite
enough—but she figured Meera was pissed off enough at her for missing their lunch date last week, so she flew into the lift.
A few minutes later, she slid into the vacant seat opposite Meera at their favorite café by the North Dock in Canary Wharf.
“Sorry, sorry.” She smiled when she saw the salmon salad bowl and matcha latte in front of her. “Thanks for ordering.”
Meera eyed the green drink like it was filled with deadly poison. “I don’t know how you drink that stuff.”
“It’s better for me and it’s more effective than coffee at keeping me alert.”
“Well, clearly it’s working. I hear you nailed the presentation at the investor meeting this morning.”
Olivia felt a bump of pride. “Yeah? Who told you that?”
“Sally, who heard it from none other than Simon himself.” Sally was Simon’s PA and a vital source of gossip. “That’s the second
time I’ve heard glowing reports about one of your presentations since you came back from Nantucket. Told you a holiday would
do you good.” Her gaze skimmed over Olivia’s face, curious, assessing. “Or maybe it was the sex?”
Olivia had known her friend would ask at some point. A few days after Olivia had come back, Meera had gone on holiday, and
ever since she’d returned, work had been so full on, Olivia had been able to duck the conversation: I’ll tell you when we’ve time to sit and talk.
Well, now they were both sitting.
Meera looked at her watch, then back at her. “You promised me thirty minutes. By my reckoning, I’ve still got twenty-six to
go. Plenty of time for you to update me on your holiday fling with Mr. Eleven Out of Ten.”
Crap, had she really boasted about him? She wouldn’t have changed her rating, but she would’ve changed her decision to tell
Meera about him if she could, because now she’d have to take those memories out of the box she’d so carefully stuffed them
in.
And she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to do that quite yet.
“It was a month ago,” Olivia protested. “Old news.”
Meera stared at her. “You’ve not been with a guy since Jeremy, and that was how many years ago?”
“Four,” she mumbled, taking a bite of salad.
Meera gave her a triumphant smile. “Exactly. So you having a fling is major news, and as your best friend, I deserve to hear
about it.”
Meera was every bit as smart and tenacious as she was. “Fine.” Olivia sighed, bowing to the inevitable. “His name was Connor.
He’s a chef. We had a nice week together after my family left.”
“Just nice?”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Yes. Nice. That’s about all there is to say.”
“Uh-huh.” Meera studied her for a beat, then dropped her gaze to the multicolored bracelet on Olivia’s wrist. “That’s pretty.
Not your usual choice of jewelry.”
Bollocks. She wasn’t going to blush, she wasn’t. “Thought I’d have a change.” Meera said nothing. “Okay, okay, he bought it
for me.”
“You must like it a lot to still be wearing it. And every day, from what I’ve seen.” Meera’s brown eyes locked on hers. “Or
maybe it was Connor you liked a lot.”
Why hadn’t she taken it off? She wasn’t sentimental, so it made no sense that she was still wearing a bracelet that didn’t
match anything she owned. “I did like him.” She took a sip of her matcha and hoped it would ease the fluttering in her stomach.
“He was very attentive and a lot of fun.”
Meera huffed. “Come on, this is me. Stop with the banal statements and tell me what he was really like because an eleven out
of ten tells me he was way more than a kind bloke with a good sense of humor.”
“He was both of those.” Olivia pushed away her half-eaten salad. “He was ten years younger than me, and my niece’s friends
all fancied him. The word sexy is overused but I can’t think of a better way to describe a guy who can make hormones spike with just a look.” She took another
sip of her matcha to try and loosen her throat. “The sex was off the scale, but he also made picnics for me, challenged me
to do stuff like parasailing and windsurfing. Then he’d take me to a beach and we’d watch the sunset together.”
Meera’s mouth fell open, “Oh my God, Olivia. Please tell me you have his number.”
“I don’t.” Did she regret not getting it? Only every evening when she was alone with her thoughts. “I told you, it was a holiday
fling. It was . . . pleasant. But now it’s over.” Her stomach twisted as she remembered how devastated Connor had looked when
she’d used that totally inadequate word. She’d been trying to hold it together, trying not to give in to the immense temptation
to see him again in England, because she knew herself. However much she enjoyed him, there was no place in her life for a
boyfriend. She’d wobbled, though—by God, she’d wobbled in that taxi ride to the airport.
Meera scoffed. “Pleasant is a walk by the sea, a pastry with your coffee. Not off-the-scale sex with a guy you seem to really like.”
Olivia waved her hand in surrender. “Fine, it was a bloody great week and I’m so grateful you pressured me into taking it.
But I’ll be even more grateful if you’d forget about it now and help me get this damn promotion.” She fixed her friend with
a look she’d used in countless meetings to get her way. “I’d be the first female CIO in Techtonic Capital Management, and
though gender shouldn’t matter, it would mean something. Send a signal to the group that we’re just as capable as men. More
than that, it would be a promotion based on merit, not on some chummy male-bonding shit. I’ve been working toward it for fifteen
years, Meera. I don’t want a relationship, don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s happiness, to have my dreams crushed
as I try to accommodate his. I want this.”
Meera sighed and slumped back in her chair. “You know I can’t argue when you go all Boudicca on me. But I want to state it
for the record that I’ve never seen you look as positive, as glowing, as I can take on the world as you did when you first came back to the office. That fling, as you call it, did you a world of good, and I think it’s
a real shame you’re not going to see what it could have grown into. And before you drag out your exes, Jeremy and the super-sweet
Charles, as excuses, I know you felt bad about them, but they were never right for you. They were weaker versions of you when
what you need is the yang to your yin.”
“You’re making me sound like a panda.”
“You know what I mean. The light to your dark, the carefree to your obsessive planning, the fun to your serious, the wild
to your tamed.” She looked pointedly at Olivia’s bracelet. “The color to your monochrome.”
“Your comment is duly noted.” Olivia checked the time on her phone. “But now I’m going to have to dash because I’ve got a
meeting with the team.”
“I still have five minutes left of the thirty you allotted me,” Meera complained as Olivia pushed back her chair and stood
up.
“Add it to our next lunch meeting.” She bent to give her friend a hug. “And I promise to be on time and pay for it.”
“Do you also promise to tell me what out-of-this-world sex is like? Because I think I’ve forgotten.”
Olivia laughed. “You chose to get married and have kids.”
“I know, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. And at least I’ve got a warm, sexy body in my bed, even if we’re both too knackered
to do anything about it right now.”
“And I’ve got a whole king-size bed to myself,” Olivia countered. “No one to steal the duvet, to snore and wake me up.”
No one to wrap his arms around you. To have wonderful, sweaty sex with and fall into a satisfied sleep with.
Damn, why did her thoughts always swing back to Connor? It had been over a month. Wasn’t the point of a holiday fling that
the feelings disappeared once the holiday was over?
It was nearly ten o’clock when Olivia finally let herself into her flat that evening. Long days were the norm in her world,
but she hadn’t gotten into the rhythm of them again since returning from Nantucket.
With a sigh, she flopped onto the sofa, dug out her phone, opened the food-delivery app. Another night, another takeout. Connor
would be horrified.
Annoyed with herself for thinking of him again, she selected her usual and was about to head for a shower when her phone buzzed
with a video call. She rested the phone against the scented candle on the coffee table and pressed Accept.
“Hi, Ashley.”
Her sister’s face filled the screen. “Hi, baby sis. And wow, look at you, sitting in your swanky flat with the lights of London
twinkling behind you.”
She turned to look out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. When had she last noticed the view she’d paid nearly two million pounds
for? “How come you’re calling so late? Aren’t you usually tucked up in bed with a good book by now?”
“Ha, that was the old me, before I went to Nantucket. I bring you news.”
“Jessica?”
“How did you guess?”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Well, it was either that or you’re phoning to tell me you’ve got a hot date following your dubious
idea to try that dating app.”
“Well, there is progress on that front—I have a date—but this news is more important. Jessica’s gone into labor. I’m at their
house now, and Nick’s just driven her to hospital. She was fine, calm as you like.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Think I’ve got it covered. Mia’s already asleep, and Matt and Harry are big enough to sort themselves out. I’m just sitting
here twiddling my thumbs, waiting for news.”
Olivia took a deep breath. Jessica would be fine. This was her fourth, and she’d had no trouble with the others. “She’s forty-two,”
she blurted out.
On the screen, Ashley smiled. “I know, but she’s fit, healthy, her blood pressure is normal. She’ll be fine.”
“Yes, of course she will.” She tried another calming breath. “Okay, to distract us both, tell me about this date you’ve got
lined up.”
“He’s called Tom. Fifty years old, an accountant. We’ve been messaging and he seems nice.”
“Nice? Is that all?”
“Hey, don’t knock it. You used to be happy dating nice, if I recall.”
No, she wasn’t going to take that bait. “How do you know this Tom is who he says he is?”
“Relax, I’m taking precautions.”
Ashley’s gaze drifted away and Olivia frowned. “You’re looking shifty.”
“I’m not.” Her sister blew out a breath, then met her eyes again through the screen. “Okay, don’t shout, but I contacted the
restaurant where Connor works.”
“Connor?” Her heart began to pound.
“I know you agreed not to see each other, but it doesn’t mean I can’t see him,” Ashley protested. “I remembered where he said
he worked and thought it would be a good place to meet my date for the first time. You’re the one who kept badgering me about
safety. What could be safer than a restaurant with a six-foot-three ripped chef to act as my bodyguard?”
So many thoughts and feelings tumbled through her, she didn’t know where to start. Ashley was going to see Connor. Okay, it seemed that was where she was starting. “Does he know you’re coming?”
“Oh, yes, we had a lovely chat. Said he’d be honored to be my protector. And he’d check the guy out to make sure he was good
enough for me,” her sister added with a hint of smug.
She couldn’t even be cross with Ashley; she was too proud of her. Since Connor had helped her regain her confidence at the
wedding, she’d been determined to get out there again. “How did he sound?” She immediately regretted the question.
Ashley gave her a knowing look. “He sounded like Connor. Easygoing, funny, charming, kind.” Her sister’s gaze zeroed in on
her wrist. “I see you’re still wearing his bracelet.”
Olivia yanked her arm out of view. “I keep forgetting to take it off.”
“Sure you do. Just like you’re totally unbothered that I’ll be seeing him and you won’t.”
“I hope you have a good date,” Olivia replied calmly, ignoring the painful twist in her chest. “And I’m happy you’re going
to his restaurant. I trust him to look out for you. But if I’d wanted to see him again, I would have contacted the restaurant,
just as you have.” Had she googled it? Yes, three days after she’d arrived home, when every time she’d closed her eyes, she’d
pictured his face. But then she’d started going into work earlier, coming home later, and the urge to see him had gone from
a sharp pain to a dull ache.
Ashley sighed. “I thought the pair of you had something special going on, but obviously you’ve moved on, so I’ll shut up about
him.”
“Good. Let me know the moment—”
“I hear about our new niece or nephew,” Ashley interrupted. “Of course I will.”
After ending the call, Olivia carefully and deliberately removed the bracelet from her wrist and slid it into her jewelry
box.
Maybe if she no longer wore it, she’d no longer think about him.