Oliver eyed me curiously. ‘You’re nervous,’ he commented casually.
‘What gave it away?’ My spine straightened. I did my best to add an air of nonchalance to my words, but based on the grin stretching across his face, I was failing miserably.
‘Your fingers are drumming on the table, your leg hasn’t stopped bouncing since we sat down, and you only managed to put mascara on one of your eyes.’
I sat bolt upright, glowering at him. ‘No, I didn’t.’
His infuriating smile spread wider. ‘You have.’
I grabbed my phone from the table and opened the camera, searching my image on the screen.Bollocking hell.He was right. I placed my phone face down on the table with a grumble.
‘Why didn’t you order anything?’ My head snapped up to meet his gaze.
All I ordered was a cup of coffee. Really bad, stale coffee, but at this point any caffeine was good enough for me.
‘Not hungry.’ I feigned indifference.
Oliver frowned, for some reason finding the empty space in front of me offensive.
I moved the conversation on swiftly, not wanting him to linger on things I didn’t need him to. ‘We’ll need to meet regularly. Three times a week should be good to start with-‘
Oliver held up his hand. ‘Three times a week? What the fuck are we going to talk about that often?’
I barely contained the frustrated sigh. ‘This is your life we’re talking about, so unless you think we can discuss birth through to age thirty-one in one meeting, then yes, we need to meet that often.’
His jaw ticked. He took an aggressive bite out of his burger.
‘Why’d you change your hair?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. What is your obsession with my hair? It’s blonde… so what?’ I flushed a little at my outburst, but honestly. Why was he so interested in my hair? People hated when I dyed it. So why was he getting so fixated on it?
Oliver arched a brow, as surprised at my little rant as I was.
Popping a chip into his mouth, he tilted his head to the side. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘And I’m not going to.’ I narrowed my eyes. Daring him to challenge me. After a moment, he shrugged and went back to his food.
I pulled out my phone and drew up my notes app, where all my ideas and thoughts about the book were collated.
‘Why’d you leave your last job?’ Oliver asked out of the blue. I froze in my seat. Heat rushing to my cheeks.
Oliver’s eyes glinted in fasciation. ‘Oh, wow. It’s gonna be good isn’t it? Were you fired?’
I cleared my throat, tearing my gaze from him back down to my phone.
‘Go on. Tell me.’ He leaned forward, abandoning his food and focusing all his attention on me. ‘I promise not to laugh.’
At that, my head snapped up and our eyes locked. ‘What makes you think it was something funny?’ I arched a brow.
His smile turned lethal. ‘Based on the flush staining your cheeks right now. That tells me it’s gotta be a great story.’
Lord, this was the very last thing I wanted to discuss. But I stared at him for a moment and gave a relenting sigh. ‘You’re not gonna let this go until I tell you are you?’
‘Absolutely not.’ He smirked. Lacing his fingers together, he leaned forward like I was about to tell him the most interesting story in the world.
Steeling myself for his inevitable ridicule, I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.
‘The guy I used to date was my boss’s son. We held the same position. We’d been going out for nearly a year when an opportunity for a promotion came up.’ Oliver rested hishead on his palm, listening intently. I fiddled with the coaster under my coffee mug. ‘I have a bad habit of never putting a password on my laptop. I always forget them and since I never leave it lying around, I didn’t think I needed one.’ I especially didn’t think I needed one to protect against the person I’d let into my home and my vagina. I shook away the mental image of Charlie. ‘We were both up for the promotion. I thought I was in a healthy relationship so figured that if either one of us got the job, we’d be happy for the other.’
