I’m not asking for much. Just a little more time.
All things considered, I’m almost doing Chase a favor. He needs to realize he shouldn’t lock himself away on this property. I’ve vowed to help him. I can’t leave before that job is done, can I?
My heart twists with the idea that I’ll never see Chase in person again. And that’s what will happen once I leave.
I walk over to the closet and pull out a few cute and comfortable options for tonight.
I’m just going to take this fire report and put a pin in it, as Nanna liked to say.
At least until we’ve gone on this date. Even if he is just doing me a favor. Even if he has been giving me mixed signals. Just for tonight, I’m not going to worry about right or wrong.
We’ll just take this one last risk together, and then I’ll tell him the truth.
CHAPTER 29
Chase
I’m palms-sweating, heart-pounding, stomach-twisting nervous, like a teenager about to get laid for the first time.
But this is Olivia, and this is our first and only date, even if I haven’t admitted to her that it’s real, and not just for the sake of her list. Either way, I don’t want to fuck it up.
We arranged to meet at the front of the mansion. I stand next to my car in jeans and a black sweater and try to tell myself to chill the fuck out.
But when she opens the door and descends the stairs, I realize that all my internal pep talks about staying calm were bullshit. There’s nothing calm or settled about the way I feel about her. She slays me with each step closer.
“Damn,” I mutter when she finally stands next to me, letting my gaze roam where it wants, which is everywhere on her.
“What? What’s wrong?” she asks with a laugh. One hand goes to her hair, and the other smooths her dress. She looks down as if checking to see if something is out of place, which it’s not.
I shake my head to clear it. “You. That dress,” I say. “You’re perfect.”
And she is. By now, I know many of her strengths and weaknesses. I know she can’t run for shit. I know when she gets nervous, she babbles. She prefers books to movies. Classics to modern. She’s terrible at technology but feels most comfortable behind a screen. She says she was born in the wrong century, but I’m not sure if she could give up the innovation of cozy sweatshirts. She is clumsy and shy around strangers. But she’s also loyal and funny and achingly sweet, and she’s perfect—for me.
At my words, her smile lights up the early evening.
“Oh, this old thing?” she says cheekily. “One of Emma’s purchases. Like Daisy, she has a fairy godmother complex.”
The dress is ice blue, making her glacial eyes more blue than gray tonight; it shows off her creamy shoulders, a generous expanse of cleavage, then drapes down the curves of her hips, ending just above the knees.
I hold the door and usher her into the car. She slides in, and I walk around to the other side.
She looks at me, surprised. “You’re driving.”
I shoot her a wry glance. “I do drive.”
“No. I mean, I know. I guess I always just imagine you with a driver. And a bodyguard.”
The engine starts with a satisfying purr, and I pull out of the driveway, one hand on the wheel, the other on the stick shift. It feels good to be in control of all that power beneath me. I love the freedom of a fast car and a winding road.
“It’s a nice car,” she remarks. “What is it?”
“A Maserati. I bought it with my first big paycheck from The Wanderers. Whenever everything got too much, I’d find a way to get the paps off my trail and escape. It would make me feel like I could breathe again.”
We reach the gates of the neighborhood, and I sense her nerves.
“Don’t worry,” I say as we pass through the safety of the gated community and pull out onto the road. “The windows have a special tint. No one can see in. And I don’t drive this car often anymore, so they won’t automatically know it’s mine.”
“But where are the photographers?” she asks, looking down the road. Normally, there are at least a few camped out in front of the guard house.
I smirk. “They’re all chasing Sebastian.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s doing me a favor to create a distraction so we can leave undetected. He just kissed Emma in front of the photographers on their way out. They all know she’s his longtime assistant, and a lot of people have speculated they are more. No photographer would wait around after that.”
“They kissed? Emma and Sebastian?”
I shrug. “It was Sebastian’s idea. I only wanted them to hug or something less definitive. But Sebastian said a kiss was the only thing that would work, and Emma went along with it.”
“Wow,” I say and shake my head. “Just wow.”
He slants a look at me. “It probably isn’t that big of a deal. Sebastian is a manwhore. I mean, who hasn’t he kissed? Plus, it’s just part of the job for actors.”
“Like you and Cassidy?” she asks, her expression tight now.
I flex my jaw and concentrate on the road, unsure how to answer her.
The silence in the car lengthens. Finally, she lets out a gusty sigh. My concentration is on the winding road, but I can sense her attention on me.
“I’m just going to come out and say this. Chase, you gave me the impression that you and Cassidy are dating, but she told me earlier today that you aren’t.”
Damn, well, that was quick. She didn’t waste any time calling me on my shit. I can’t put this off any longer.
“I know,” I admit. “She called me after she talked to you. Cassidy is a friend. I care about her, just not in that way.”
Inside the car, we’re sealed in our own bubble, with lights and buildings and trees flying by. Like the car, our conversation is also hurtling us into new territory. I don’t know the direction we’re moving toward, but it feels closer and closer to the point of no return, the place from which there’s no going back.
I dare a quick glance at her. She’s looking out the window now, ostensibly watching the scenery.
“So, why did you make me think you two were an item?” Her voice is hushed, threaded through with vulnerability. “It’s not just my imagination, is it? You deliberately gave me that impression.”
She sounds hurt. I made her feel that way. Again.
We come to a stop sign, and I take my eyes off the road to find her looking straight ahead, her hands in tight fists in her lap, worrying the beads on her little purse.
What I say next will matter. Matter deeply to her and to me.
But fuck if I can find the right words. I don’t know if there’s enough time in eternity to find the right words.
“Chase,” she says with increased strength. “If we’re going to be…friends…you need to really talk to me. Be straight with me. I deserve that.”
A car horn honks behind me. I start driving again.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a ragged breath. “You do. When we get to where we’re going, we’ll talk properly. I promise. There is an explanation.”
I can’t resist reaching over with one hand and brushing the curve of her cheek. Her face briefly leans into my palm. The things she does to me with a simple touch.
“Deal?” I ask, my eyes sweeping over her.
“Deal,” she says after a long minute. But her eyes are still hesitant.
No photographers follow, so we drive along the coast until the city lights are beyond us, with the music blaring, and the wind flowing through the open windows of the car that we’d rolled down once we were clear of town.
All I want is to keep driving until we’re as far away as we can get from the pressures of life.
As I drive, I wonder, What if I do what Olivia has been doing? A risk at a time. Tonight can be my first.
But it isn’t me I fear hurting.
I’d risk my heart every moment of every day for her.
But it’s her heart, her life, I’m playing with. Not just mine.
CHAPTER 30
Olivia
“We’re going to this house?” I ask when we drive down a long, winding road that leads to a small home perched above the sea.