Chapter 19: Davis
I’m not surprised when Lana agrees to let me take Olivia to London. I’m also not surprised when Lana practically claps her hands together and gushes over what an incomparable opportunity it will be for Olivia. It’s true, after all: flying across the pond to sit in on a legitimate acquisition meeting is the kind of thing that I wasn’t able to do until I was five years into my Davenport-Ridgeway career.
Problem is, I know that Olivia is going to continue to question why I’m bringing her. Whether she says it aloud or not, I know that her imposter syndrome is going to eat away at her, trying to convince her that she’s not enough.
She’s enough. She’s more than enough.
My mind drifts back to Saturday night for the millionth time, when she treated me to an extended view of the woman I fell for in Amsterdam. Confident. Caustic. Unintimidated and unbothered. She threw everything I said to her right back at me—all while she rode me to possibly the best orgasm I’ve had in my life.
She was perfect.
Mind turning, I pull another suit from my closet and walk it over to the garment bag by the open suitcase on the floor of my bedroom. It’s a good suit. A power suit. The kind that a man wears when he needs to intimidate everyone in a ten-foot radius. Briefly, as I place the suit into the garment bag, I wonder if Olivia is fretting over her own wardrobe at that very minute. Is she going to tug at her skirt and wish she had an expensive dress like she did at dinner a few weeks ago? Is this the kind of thing that I’m supposed to buy her?
Stop.
I need to stop thinking about her. The whole situation is screwed up and only gets more complicated. The facts are simple: I paid an intern to sleep with me all so I could carry out a protracted revenge eight years in the making. In doing so, I risked my standing and reputation at a company that I objectively love and may be the most important thing in my life. In doing so, I also inadvertently exploited the weaknesses of a woman who apparently has put up with a lot of men who have sexualized her and objectified her using their money as power. To top it all off: I’m falling for her. Hard. So hard that I may as well be in the ICU.
Lingerie isn’t enough. A trip to London isn’t enough. A hundred sheath dresses and skirt suits would definitely never be enough. There’s not a gesture grand enough in this world that could show Olivia how badly I want her and how much I regret pulling her into my complicated, convoluted web of feelings.
My father never wrote about any of this in the Ridgeway Guide to Success, which was probably for the best because he’s on wife number three and has his divorce lawyer on speed dial. But that puts me in the nebulous position of wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do now…and with nobody to ask.
Do I keep paying her? Do I tell her that my feelings are changing? Do I pretend like nothing is wrong and keep calling her a whore?
My eyes drift to my phone and linger there as a strange thought crosses my mind, possibly for the first time in my life: Kieran is great at this kind of thing. He’s had plenty of relationships, long and short, and seems to have no issue peeling off his psychopath mask and opening up to women. The kid could teach a masterclass on it if he wanted—and has always had that knack, even when we were teenagers.
As quickly as the thought arrived, I shake it off. I would rather tattoo my dick than ask Kieran for romantic advice, especially when it comes to Olivia. The last time I asked Kieran for advice, it started with me nonchalantly sharing with him that I was still a virgin, and ended with him immediately telling all of our childhood friends and then paying Olivia to sleep with me.
I’m not sure why I held on to my virginity for so long, and to be completely honest, was twenty-two that long? My friends thought it was, but they had all been a little too rich and a little too confident to have a valid opinion on the matter (or to be well-adjusted). Being shy and sort of overweight didn’t help. It also didn’t help that I spent nearly all of my life within five feet of Gray Davenport, who I can confidently describe—even as a heterosexual man—as being so attractive that it’s uncomfortable to stare at him for too long.
Fuck it. I grab a handful of socks from the drawer in my closet and drop them onto the top of my suitcase before I head over to my bathroom to gather my toiletries. This isn’t the time to think about Olivia or my virginity. I should be thinking about FundRight: the company that we’ll be meeting this week.
FundRight was a unicorn startup founded twenty years ago by a guy named Gus Winter, who created the company when he was a year out of college and living in London with his then-girlfriend. As the story goes, Gus’s girlfriend broke up with him, which sent him into a coke-addled spiral where he came up with the idea for a financial company that makes investments easier to track. Nowadays, easy investment companies are a dime a dozen, but the thing that I like about FundRight is that it holds the biggest market share of twenty-to-thirty-year-old investors. In simple terms: It holds a vast customer base that is destined to be profitable for the next sixty to seventy years.
In the simplest of terms: It’s a cash cow. I know it, the senior leadership knows it, Olivia knows it—and Gus Winter sure as shit knows it.
And Olivia and I have approximately seventy-two hours to convince him that he should sell his cash cow, his life’s work, the ultimate fuck-you to the girl who broke his heart—to Davenport-Ridgeway, of all places.
Everest is an easier uphill battle.
No less than twelve hours later, I’m trying not to be overbearing as Olivia settles into her seat on one of the company planes. We’re across the aisle from each other, each of us taking up one of the plush chairs that line either side of the cabin.
Is this overkill? Yes.
Did I cancel my commercial ticket so I could fly to London with her on a private plane? Yes.
Is this typically how the company transports interns? No.
Do I give a shit about any of that? Hell no.
“This is insane,” she murmurs as she runs her hands along the thick, cream-leather armrests. Her eyes follow the line of the stitching as she moves her hands, and this expression of wonder has settled nicely onto her face. “This is legitimately beyond my wildest dreams.”
“Do you need anything?” I press, failing at nonchalance. “We have a flight attendant. She’ll bring you a drink.”
“We have a flight attendant?” Olivia blurts out. “For the two of us?”
“Usually the flights have more passengers,” I admit as I glance around the empty cabin. “You look like you want a drink. What do you want?”
“Water is fine.”
“Just water?” I ask, burning any remaining vestiges of plans to play it cool. “Because we can do anything you want. Water with ice. No ice. Lemon. Lime. Mint, probably. You could even have it hot if you wanted.”