“Why is that?”
“Because I can hear your heartbeat. It’s the only way I can tell how much you secretly like me.”
Instinctually, I freeze and will my heart to slow. It only makes it beat faster, I can tell, and suddenly I feel trapped beneath her. I begin to shift, but she stops me.
“What?” She props herself up on my chest and lets a frown cross her face. “What did I do?”
“Nothing,” I respond unconvincingly, which makes Olivia roll her eyes.
“Davis, maybe you like me. It’s not a big deal.”
But it is a big deal, because this wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to know that I do like her—that “like” is a sickening understatement. She was supposed to think that I was keeping her for sex. She was supposed to fall for me so I could rip it out from beneath her feet and leave her wondering how this happened for the next eight—or eighty—years.
“You make me nervous,” I finally admit, letting out a heavy breath.
“I can’t believe anything makes you nervous.”
“Most things do.”
“But you’re so—”
“I fake it,” I admit. “Constantly. I’m pretending that I have it together, but so much of my own life terrifies the shit out of me.”
Her expression shifts out of its frown. “There he is,” she murmurs.
Confused, I tilt my head to the side.
“The Davis I met eight years ago,” she clarifies. “There he is. I missed him.”
“You did?”
“Of course I did,” she replies as she lowers herself down to my chest again, placing her ear right on top of my heart. “He’s the one I didn’t stop thinking about for eight years. The one who brought me to the Rijksmuseum. The one who held me like this after we finished together. The one who I Googled every week and looked up on Instagram to make sure he wasn’t dating anyone. Of course I missed him.”
Well, fuck.
The next morning, Olivia gets out of bed before I do, which is a first.
“Come back.” I gesture for her blindly, mostly just waving my arm around the empty space next to me in the bed.
“I’m thirsty,” she protests as she creeps around in the dark. “Not to mention hungry. Where do you want to get breakfast?”
“Somewhere near a canal.”
“What canal?” Olivia sips from a water bottle and watches me from across the room. At some point, she helped herself to one of my undershirts and it’s enormous on her. She looks amazing regardless; I can’t help but imagine her sleeping in one of my t-shirts every night from now on.
“The ones in Amsterdam.”
“Screw you,” she replies, going so far as to raise her middle finger. “I knew it was a matter of time before you made an Amsterdam joke.”
“Not joking.”
Even in the darkness, I can see her scowling. “What do you…”
“Come with me to Amsterdam,” I request, despite every practical cell in my body begging me to be logical and reasonable. “Forget our other obligations. Let’s go.”
“But work—”
I shrug, and it’s genuinely the first time I’ve ever just shrugged when it comes to my job. “We did our job here. I have other meetings this week, but they’re completely unrelated to FundRight. I’ll cancel them. I’ll take them remotely. I don’t care. I just want to spend time with you.”
“Davis!” she blurts out, laughing through disbelief.
“What?”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“So you don’t want to go to Amsterdam with me?” I ask, knowing well that she wants this.
“I do,” she admits. “Davis, I really do. Can we do this?”
“We can do anything we want,” I reply, stopping short of reminding her that my name is on the company letterhead. “So, do you want to do this?”
“More than anything.”
“Then I’ll take care of it,” I assure her. “Anything for you, Olivia Nolan.”