Davis reads through the email and gives it a nod of approval. “Much better.”
“Great. Sent.” I close my laptop and relax against the plush cushions. “You know, if c-suite doesn’t work out, you could be a great workplace coach.”
“I learned it from my father,” he responds as he directs his attention back to his laptop.
Absentmindedly, I reach over and fiddle with a lock of his short hair. “Right, from his book.”
“The Ridgeway Guide to Success,” he clarifies as he leans into my touch.
“You know, most rich men just buy their sons fancy cars for their sixteenth birthdays.”
“Don’t worry. He got me a car too,” Davis admits. “A hideous Mercedes that I dented within two hours in a Burger King drive thru.”
“Your father is a billionaire and you spent your sixteenth birthday at a drive thru?”
“I had never been before,” he answers, as if that’s a reasonable response. “I was curious.”
“You’re such a mystery. Honing your executive presence and joyriding to shitty fast-food restaurants was your idea of a hot sixteenth birthday.”
“Not exactly. I didn’t read my dad’s entire book right away. Just parts.”
I smooth down his hair. “When did you read it?”
“I was twenty-two. Right before I started at Wharton.”
Twenty-two. Quietly, I wonder if the impetus was Wharton or me and the horrible thing that I did to him. It feels like I’m giving myself too much credit though; surely I didn’t have that profound of an effect on him.
Right?
“We should go,” he decides aloud, saving me the discomfort of trying to answer. “Come on. We’ll walk.”
The restaurant that Davis has chosen occupies a small stretch of space adjacent to the Keizersgracht canal. There, its dim and unassuming front hides the elegant intimacy of the place. We’re led to a table in the back, adjacent to a window that gives us a view of the Keizersgracht. As evening deepens in the city, we’re treated to the sight of sporadic couples strolling by, but for the most part, we’re alone.
The menu doesn’t have prices, which immediately triggers a fight or flight response in me. Davis, obviously, isn’t fazed by that at all. He simply asks me what I want to eat, and I admit that I’m debating between two dishes. When the waiter comes by, he orders both of them as well as a bottle of wine.
The dish I end up with is a delicious cut of wagyu. Halfway through the meal, Davis switches our plates and I finish the rest of his, which is a plate of lobster ravioli that is so good it feels like it should be illegal. He does the same thing with dessert, again letting me pick out two and ordering both of them. We finish with coffee, which is entirely necessary to counter out the bottle of wine that we finished together.
We walk home slowly, strolling alongside the canals hand in hand as Davis listens quietly while I tipsily tell him a story about Charlie trying to spend the night in the Disney Store when he was a kid. It’s a stupid story and it just exposes how ill-equipped I was to raise a kid when I was practically a kid myself, but Davis still laughs at the end.
While we walk, his thumb strokes the back of my hand, doting and subtle. It’s hard to ignore how nice this is. To feel treasured. To feel appreciated. It’s such a simple gesture, but it speaks volumes, leaving me wondering how I never held men to this standard. In my defense, I didn’t have a good role model for the expectations a woman should set for the men in her life. But I learned a long time ago that blaming my mother for the woman I am today is a fruitless exercise.
When we reach an empty bench overlooking a quieter part of the canal network, he brings me over to sit. We remain in silence. Davis’s arm weaves around my shoulder and his other hand rests on my thigh. He lets out this long sigh before he plants a soft kiss on my hair.
“This was a good night.” His tone is hesitant—borderline cautious.
“It was perfect,” I agree, almost reticent to admit it aloud.
I can feel Davis breathe out in relief. “This is how it should have gone eight years ago. None of those guys around. Just you and me, talking and enjoying each other’s company. I think I would have loved it.”
“Me too.”
He nestles me closer into his arms, making me feel so unprecedentedly cared for. He’s right; this is how it should have gone.
I don’t know if it’s his intoxicating smell or his big arms around me that make me wonder if we were made to sit together, nested like this. I’m not sure what it is, but I have to ask him, “Was it that bad?”
Distracted by the caress that he’s taken up on my thigh, his tone is nonchalant. “Was what that bad?”
“Eight years ago. I know that I betrayed you and hurt you, but how bad was it?”
When I turn to face him, I see that he’s staring at the ground. He doesn’t look like he has any intention of acknowledging my question.
“What happened to you after that?” I press. “I know it was eight years ago and that people change, but I get the sense that something happened to you that night. Something big.”
He pulls away slightly, and at first I’m concerned that he’s upset. Then I realize that he wants to look at me, and I’m caught up in the placidness of his expression. He blinks a couple of times, like he’s not quite sure how to put it into words.
“I felt so guilty,” I offer, trying to trade my candor for his. “I cried the entire plane ride home and I thought about calling you, but I didn’t know what to say. I took your money, after all. I lied to you—by omission, at least. But I thought about you for years, Davis. I never stopped thinking about you. I thought about you when I went back to school and changed my major. I thought about you when I applied to Wharton. I thought about you when I slept with other men and when other men hurt me. I kept thinking about how you were the first man to treat me like I wasn’t just this…this object to be used—and that was how I treated you.”
He swallows hard, the action making his chiseled jaw ripple. After a beat, he shakes his head. “Olivia,” he begins.
But he stops there to look out at the water for a pregnant pause before he turns back to me. “I say this with all seriousness—not to hurt you, but because I’m not going to lie to you anymore: What you did to me changed me completely.”
My heart sinks—although “sinks” is a gross understatement. Really, my heart turns into a thousand pounds and plummets to the bottom of my body.
“I stopped wanting to be nice,” he continues, still keeping his eyes on me as he speaks. “Being nice felt like a weakness. Like this soft underbelly that was so easy for you to cut through.”
When he stops talking, I struggle through an exhale. Even in this moment of pain, he looks so handsome. Sometimes, if I stare at him long enough, it’s easy for me to see that twenty-two-year-old man whose hands trembled the first time we kissed. “Do you hate me?” The question comes out soft. I don’t want the answer—not if it’s yes.