She didn’t need to think.
Olivia:11
Meera:This is serious. You never break rules, even on rating scales. Are you bringing him back in your suitcase?
She hesitated for just a moment. Long enough to realize she wouldn’t be coming out of this totally unscathed.
Olivia:No.
Meera:Why not!?
Too young.No, that was glib. She no longer noticed their age difference.
Olivia:Too different to me. Plus too distracting. I’m going to be CIO, remember.
Meera:You’re a modern woman. You can have it all.
Olivia was tempted to replyYou don’tbut stopped herself. It had been Meera’s choice to step back. But fact was that since she had, since she’d put family before her job, Meera had seen men less able than her overtake her on the career ladder.
Olivia:I don’t want it all. Just want CIO.
Meera messaged back with a thumbs-up, and moments later, Ashley texted.
Not had an update for two days. Sexual exhaustion or have you run off with him?
Olivia smiled. These past few days had disappeared in a blur of sex, laughter, and stuff she’d never in a million years have thought she’d be doing.
Olivia:Sorry, too busy skinny-dipping, Jet Skiing, parasailing, and driving round Nantucket on back of quad bike.
She got an immediate reply.
Ashley:Whoever you are, plz give phone back to my sister.
Olivia:Funny.
Suddenly Ashley’s face appeared on her phone. Rolling her eyes, Olivia accepted the video call.
“You need to keep seeing him, Liv. You know that, right? Where does he live? Has to be near Chiswick because that’s where he said he worked.”
She could lie by omission to Meera but not to her sister. “Hello to you too. And he lives in Ealing, but that’s irrelevant because it’s a holiday fling only. We agreed.”
Easy to say, yet when she’d told Connor she didn’t want to see him back in England, he’d looked hurt. She’d not wanted that, not wanted to disappoint yet another guy. But Connor was a young, ridiculously sexy man who charmed women as easily as he breathed. He wouldn’t pine for long.
She felt a burn in her gut—jealousy? If it was, she had no right to feel it. They had no future together. If they continued their fling back home, it would inevitably devolve into ever diminishing trysts of snatched sex, tarnishing what they’d had. She liked him too much to want that for either of them.
“Shame. He was good for you,” Ashley said, breaking through her thoughts. “You became a different person when he was around.”
Ouch. “You don’t like the usual me?”
Ashley laughed. “Duh, I love you. But the chilled you, the woman we left last Sunday, the one Jess talked to a few days ago—she’s way more fun than work-obsessed you.”
Olivia startled at the light tap on her door. “I’m going to have to argue about that another time. Connor’s here.”
“Ooh, sexy young man knocking on your door late at night. Lucky you. Enjoy!”
“I’m too old for a booty call,” Olivia grumbled after she ended the call.
With a huff, she jumped off the bed, walked to the door, and peered through the peephole to check if it was him. Head down, one hand propped against the wall as if it were the only thing holding him up, he looked shattered.
