me to have thought that note meant...meant...’ Oh, help me, tears are stinging at my throat and I will not cry in front of him. ‘Forget it.’ I storm past him, but it’s an imitation of my earlier anger. All the fight has left me suddenly.
He grabs my elbow as I pass and his eyes are probing me, searching me, trying to finish the sentence I have left unspoken.
‘What do you want?’ he asks softly, and it’s a softness that renders me weak against the incursion of tears. I can’t stop them from filling my eyes but I glare at him as though he is to blame. And he is. I just need him to know that.
‘I want to go home, now.’
‘Wait.’ He shakes his head, his hand gliding down my arm, his thumb rubbing over my inner wrist. ‘You’re angry that this wasn’t a date. Does that mean you want that? You want us to, what? Go out?’
‘No.’ I shake my head, confusion at my own desires making my argument erratic. It sounds so juvenile. I’m reminded of our age gap and I feel squeamishly young and ill-prepared for this conversation. So I roll my eyes and feign a jadedness that doesn’t resonate within my soul. ‘Don’t overthink it. It’s just that I presumed it was going to be the two of us and instead I felt...ambushed...’
‘It was intended to be a surprise.’
I sweep my eyes shut and nod. ‘It was an insult.’ I pierce him with my frustration when I blink up at him. ‘You think I can’t make it without your help?’
He is stonily silent.
‘You think you owe me that? You laugh at the very idea of dating, like that’s more than I should expect from you after weeks of sharing your bed, but what? Now you’re my recruiter? No.’ I jerk away from him and move down the hallway. He follows, I feel it, but I don’t look back. I yank the door in and only then do I turn. Outside the privacy of his penthouse, I whisper, ‘The fact we’ve had sex has nothing to do with the rest of my life. My grades, my career, anything. I’m yours in bed—nowhere else.’
And I walk down the stairs, my temper broken like an eggshell in my fist—my heart not in much better shape.
* * *
It’s my turn to host the faculty poker game. Ten of the school’s professors are in my lounge and all I see is Olivia as she was last night. Her beautiful body in that dress that practically gave me a stroke at the bar, the way her hair was wild and untamed around her equally untamed and wild rage, the face that rocked me with accusations when her words weaved their indignation into me, hardening me and weakening me all at once.
‘Only two weeks left of term, then you’ll be back to the real world, eh?’
I smile at Simon Farrington and return my attention to the cards. ‘Yes.’ There’s a sharp twisting in my abdomen at this fact—that I will leave. I ignore it. My time in London is temporary. A reprieve from my normal life—a moment out of time.
‘Have you enjoyed your stint as a lowly law professor?’ Clive Amner chips in from my left.
Have I enjoyed myself? Far more than I should have. Flashes of memories slip through my mind, all of them starring Olivia, all of them sending my blood pressure skyrocketing.
She didn’t answer my calls today. I tried once in the morning, and again about an hour before these guys arrived, and both times the phone rang out. Both times I let it play her full voicemail message just because it makes me smile to hear her voice.
I get that she’s pissed. And I get why. I realised, around lunchtime today, that I didn’t even apologise to her for what she described as an ambush. It’s partly why I called—the second time. I am sorry, and anyone who knows me would know that it’s not often I admit to my faults.
This is one of those occasions when I have no choice but to do so.
She’d told me not to intercede with the Crown Prosecution Service on her behalf. But Dash and I are tight. We go way back. How could I not? And, despite what Olivia might think, calling Dash and setting up the meeting had nothing to do with the fact I think Olivia is sexier than sin. Her passion for the law, for prosecution, is a remarkable thing. How could I not bring her together with the only person I know who shares that same blinkered determination to ‘get the bad guys’?
She’s right about the fact that she has a life beyond this—what we are. That our very temporary, very secret affair can’t be allowed to ricochet through the rest of her existence. She’s right that I have no business meddling in her career.
I did ambush her. A cold trickle of recognition rushes down my spine.
I set up a meeting with Dash and I didn’t let her prepare for it, and she wore a dress that was pure seduction, and she felt...exposed.
I groan inwardly. She’s right. That was an asshole move.
I put everything she wants in jeopardy just because I wanted to be the guy who could give her the world. I wanted to lay her dreams out before her and the worst part of that is it’s not even just for her. It’s a selfish kind of gift. I want to give her the world not because I want her to have it but because I need to be the one who hands it to her. I made her dream about me.
Olivia is destined for greatness in law and I want to be part of that. I had my chance and I chose to defend low-life scum. So what? I think I can have two bites of the cherry? That I can somehow push my way into her career? Become a part of her dreams and hopes and future?
It’s just not possible.
Soon I’ll be back in Dublin, back at my desk, in my office, with my scum clients and Michael Brophy and this will all seem like a strange, distant dream.
She’ll go on to live her life, without me in it. And her life will be fucking amazing.
ANGER IS A funny beast. Anger at Connor lingers within me, unbroken, for days. It taunts me and follows me and any moment I have when I might be close to forgetting, fresh anger surges and my fight is renewed.
It is worse because I need it to be. Because anger allows me refuge from analysing anything else I’m feeling. Anger lets me forget that I’ve done something really, spectacularly stupid and fallen in love with someone like Connor. Someone like Connor? There is no one like Connor.
Anger stalks me. But early on Sunday morning I go for a run. I run hard and fast, grateful for the way the air explodes through my body, torturing lungs that crave kisses from Connor.
I run along the Thames, all the way to Barnes, over the bridge, and then I loop my way back, hard and fast, crossing the Common, barely noticing the way autumn has begun to take hold of the ancient trees that populate its banks. Grand and stately, and gradually being denuded of their summer finery, their greenery slowly shaking loose and tumbling away, into the river and out to sea.
He tried to call me yesterday. And Friday. Twice each day. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I want to hear his voice. I want to go back to what we were before Senior Crown Prosecutor Alexander, but something’s shifted. I understand what I feel now, but not what I want. There is nothing simple about this—desire, lust and love have to be weighed
