Chapter 29 OLIVE
OLIVE
Rejection
“Ilove you.”
The words hang in the air between us, fragile and trembling, like the wings of a moth too close to a flame.
My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might bruise my ribs.
I didn’t plan to say it. It just spilled out—soft, raw, soaked in everything I’ve been trying not to feel too loudly.
But I meant it. God, I meant it.
Because what we just did—what we shared—wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t casual or messy or impulsive. It was slow and deep and tethering. The kind of intimacy that leaves fingerprints on your soul. The kind that shifts something permanent inside you.
And the way he looked at me… the way he touched me… the way he held me like I was precious—like I mattered—I felt his love in every moment. Every movement. Every whispered breath against my skin.
The second the words leave my mouth, Ash goes still. His eyes stay wide open, fixed on the ceiling like it might offer him a way out. His arm tightens around my waist—just slightly, maybe out of instinct. But he doesn’t say anything.
Not a word.
The silence wraps around us, heavy and deafening.
I blink once, twice, trying to make sense of it. He heard me, right? He has to have heard me.
I search his face, but it’s unreadable.
My stomach twists.
His eyes finally flick down to mine, and for a second, I think I see something flicker—panic? Longing? Pain? But it’s gone too fast to name.
He doesn’t let go of me. He strokes my back, kisses my temple, his touch tender like always. But it’s the absence of his words that echoes the loudest.
I wait.
He stays quiet.
And I try to swallow around the lump forming in my throat.
This is the moment I’ve imagined over and over in my head—late at night when I couldn’t sleep, when I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, this was more than a fling.
And still, Ash doesn’t speak. I can see him trying to find the words—his jaw tightening, his throat working around a swallow, a flicker behind his eyes that makes my breath catch. Something raw. Something real.
Hope flares in my chest, even now.
Maybe he needs a second to catch up, because I know what we just shared wasn’t meaningless. I felt him in every touch, every kiss, every slow, reverent movement like he was worshiping my body and trying to keep from falling apart at the same time.
He looked at me like I was the only thing in the world he wanted to hold onto.
So when he finally speaks, I brace myself for something tender. Maybe even hesitant. But what I don’t expect—what knocks the wind from my chest like a sucker punch—is his voice, low and flat.
“I think…” He pauses, eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder. “It’s probably better if we just… stick to the deal.”
My heart stutters. “What?”
He shifts beneath me, sitting up, and I instinctively clutch the blanket to my chest. The movement is sudden, jarring—like someone slammed the emergency brakes and we’re skidding across concrete.
“The fake relationship thing,” he says, like I’m slow to catch on. “That’s what this is. That’s what it should be. Let’s not… make it more complicated.”
More complicated?
My spine goes stiff. “Is that what this was to you? Complicated?”
Ash exhales and finally meets my eyes. There’s a war happening on his face, emotion flashing too quickly to pin down—guilt, longing, fear—but in the end, it all hardens into something cold. Controlled.
“I think it’s better if we keep it simple,” he says.
And just like that, I feel something inside me shrink.
“What about what just happened?” I whisper. “Was that fake too?”
His jaw clenches. “You know it wasn’t.”
“Then why are you pretending it didn’t mean anything?”
“I’m not,” he snaps—too fast, too sharp. Then he scrubs a hand over his face and looks away. “I just… This was never supposed to be real. You and me. We had a plan. Something clean. Something with boundaries.”
I sit up straighter, wrapping the blanket around myself like armor. “And you’re the one who kissed me. You’re the one who climbed into my bed, Ash. Don’t rewrite history now just because you’re scared.”
That lands. His mouth opens, then closes again. His eyes flash, but instead of answering, he stands—naked, beautiful, and emotionally unreachable as ever.
“I’m not scared,” he mutters, pulling on his boxers. “I’m being realistic.”
Realistic.
Right.
“Got it,” I say, voice tight. “Back to business, then. The good little fake girlfriend, keeping things uncomplicated.”
He flinches, barely, but his back is to me now. I can’t see his face, and I hate that it hurts. That even now, I want to see some kind of regret in his eyes. Something to tell me I’m not losing my mind.
But when he turns back around, his expression is unreadable.
And distant.
Like a wall has slammed down between us. One I wasn’t invited to climb.
“I’ll go for a run,” he says, already turning away.
I sit there, blinking at the empty space where he stood, and feel the emotional whiplash hit me full force.
I bury my face in my hands, trying to breathe through the knot forming in my throat.
It’s still morning, and I already feel like I’ve lived through an entire week.
First the fight with Liam—ugly and loud and heartbreaking.
Then Ash, kissing me like he needed me, holding me like I was something to be treasured.
And then the words I couldn’t hold back, and the look on his face when I said them.
Now he’s shutting me out completely.
I feel… older.
Like something inside me aged in a matter of hours. Like I just got a crash course in how stupid it is to fall in love with a man who doesn’t know what to do with your heart once you give it to him.
I stand slowly, wrapping the blanket tighter around my body, and walk toward the bathroom without saying a word.
I close the bathroom door and lock it, waiting until I’m sure Ash has left for his run.
Only then do I pad into the living room, blanket clutched to my chest, and start searching for my phone.
My dress is draped over one arm of the couch, my bra caught awkwardly on the corner like a white flag of surrender. I crouch and lift the cushions, thinking my phone might’ve slipped beneath them during the chaos of… before.
Instead, I find his phone.
Half-buried between the cushions. Face-up. Unlocked. Looks like he was reading something before he left for his run.
The screen is still on. A note is open. The title in bold at the top:
Fake Wife Criteria
I don’t mean to read it. But my eyes catch on the first few lines before I can look away.
- Wholesome
- Low-drama
- Not famous
- Not sexy in a threatening way
I freeze. Each bullet point slams into me like a cold gust of wind.
- Comfortable in the background
- Easy to explain
- Won’t fall in love
- Will say yes for the right price
My mouth goes dry.
I read it again, slower this time, like maybe I’ve misunderstood. Like maybe there’s a version of this that doesn’t make my stomach turn and my throat ache.
But no.
It’s exactly what it looks like.
He made a list—a literal checklist. And I tick every single box except one.
'Won’t fall in love.' That was one of his criteria.
Except I did. Stupidly. Fully. Hopelessly.
I told him I loved him, bare and vulnerable and breathless, and he didn’t say it back—not because he didn’t know what to say. Not because he was overwhelmed.
Because he never intended for me to get that close.
Because he chose me based on this.
My legs fold beneath me, and I sit on the floor, the blanket pooling in my lap. I’m still holding his phone, the screen bright and brutal in my hand.
The last line is the one that seals it:
Will say yes for the right price.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the words are burned into my brain now.
The ache in my chest is sharp and deep. Like grief. Like betrayal. Like shame.
Of course he didn’t want to complicate things. Of course he pulled away the moment I said I loved him. I wasn’t supposed to feel anything.
I wasn’t supposed to matter.
This whole time, I’ve been trying to prove I’m not just some shy, background girl. That I can take up space. That I deserve more.
And now I’m staring at a list that makes it clear—he never wanted that from me.
I press the side button on his phone and let the screen go dark.
It’s ridiculous how something so small—a note in his phone, eight tidy little bullet points—can rip the ground out from under me. But it does. It has. And I can’t sit here any longer, half-naked in his living room, blanketed in shame and silence while he pretends none of this matters.
I need to go.
No more conversation. No confrontation. No desperate demand for answers or some sad attempt to make him say something he clearly won’t.
I just… need to leave with the pieces of myself I still have left.
I stand slowly, clutching the blanket tighter around me like it might hold me together, and drift toward my bedroom—moving through the hallway like a ghost, numb and hollow.
My bedroom smells like him—spice and cedar and some elusive note I’ve come to associate with safety. It’s awful how comforting it still feels.
How badly I wanted to belong here.
My hedgehog-shaped pillow is tucked at the head of the bed, right next to where he slept last night, like it was part of the scene too.
I look at Bernard and nearly lose it.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself, like I’m my own lifeline. “You can do this. Just get your things. One step at a time.”
I grab my suitcase from the corner of the closet and unzip it with shaking hands. The noise is too loud in the quiet room, but I welcome the sound. It makes me feel solid.
Mechanical.
I start with clothes. My jeans, my T-shirts, my dresses.
Next come my shoes. My sensible flats. The sandals I wore in Mexico. My slippers that look like little foxes, which Ash teased me.
I shove them in the bottom of the suitcase and zip it partway closed.
Then I turn to the other half of the closet.
My fuzzy blanket is still folded neatly on the armchair, right where I put it the day I arrived. I pull it down, and the scent of lavender dryer sheets hits me like a memory I didn’t ask for. I hug it to my chest for a second too long before rolling it tight and wedging it into the second suitcase.
My books are stacked beside it. Dog-eared and well-loved. A mix of swoony classics and spicy paperbacks with bent covers and cracked spines. I reach for them carefully, running my fingers over the titles as I tuck them into a tote bag.
I want to laugh. Or scream. Or throw them all across the room.
But I just keep packing.
Bernard gets nestled in last, tucked protectively around the books like it's still doing its job. Still keeping me safe.
The room is empty of me now. Stripped bare of all the cozy little touches I brought with me. No more fuzzy textures or stacks of books. Just Ash’s cool minimalism.
Just the way he likes it.
I glance around once more. Check the bathroom for my toothbrush, the charger near the bed, the little jar of moisturizer he kept stealing from because he “liked the smell.”
Gone. All packed.
I zip the final suitcase closed and wipe my hands on my thighs like I’ve just completed some impossible task. My chest still aches. My eyes sting, but the tears are slow this time. Heavy, quiet things that fall one at a time.
I grab my phone. I can’t stay at Liam’s—and I don’t want to face him right now. I’m too embarrassed. Because he was right. Right about everything.
So I call Nina. She answers on the first ring. “Hey. Can I stay with you for a bit?”
I open the door and walk out.
I don’t look back.