‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that three out of every four start-ups fail. Are you saying seventy-five percent of all start-up owners are losers?’
‘No, it’s just—’
‘Just nothing. Sometimes the cards are just stacked for failure.’ Her expression hardens. I’m sure she’s thinking about Luke.Good.‘Failure is not final. What’s important is having the courage to continue, no matter what else.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’ Her words fall in a rush, determined to steer the conversation elsewhere.Also good.‘Tell me, where did you go to college?’
‘Oxford.’
‘Naturally,’ she deadpans. ‘And you have a law degree, Mr Fancy-pants.’
‘Jurisprudence,’ I correct, adding, ‘I’m more interested in your fancy pants. Pants meaning lingerie in my neck of the woods. I wonder, are you a lace or a silk kind of girl?’
‘Maybe I’m neither.’
‘That also works for me.’
‘What I mean to say is maybe I’m a plain cotton girl—like the tent cotton kind.’ She makes a comical charade of pulling her underwear up her torso.
‘Also not important to me. You were at UCL?’
‘Yes.’ She narrows her eyes suspiciously. ‘I see you’ve done your homework.’
‘Would you expect anything else?’
‘So,’ she adds in a forthright tone, her hands clasped on the table, ‘you went to the kind of swanky-ass school that’s so special they can’t call a law degree a law degree.’
‘The topic of underwear is so much more appealing than our schooling.’
‘I’m not sure granny panties count as lingerie,’ she mumbles quickly. ‘But yes, moving on. So Oxford, huh?’
‘I suppose some people would say Oxford sounds quite pretentious.’
‘I suppose some people were trying to be polite,’ she deadpans.
‘There’s no need to on my behalf.’
‘Ah, yeah. I forgot you can’t be insulted. My opinion is so irrelevant, as I recall, you can’t even be bothered to take offence.’ My reply? A wry smile as I watch her reach for her glass. ‘You’re not even going to defend yourself or apologise?’ she adds, piqued.
‘My, you are emotional.’
‘It’s kind of hard not to be when you’re so personal.’
‘The issue was that you were determined to take it personally. If you hadn’t been so ready to be offended, you would’ve heard what I actually said. Which is that I choose not to become emotionally invested in people’s opinions of me. Their words have no power; therefore, their opinions are insignificant. It’s a thought process.’
‘I’m pretty sure that’snotwhat you said.’
I smile again, which absolutely ruffles her feathers. ‘You should try it sometime.’ I reach for her hand as she sets the glass down. ‘A diamond doesn’t lose its value due to a lack of admiration.’ My thumb rubs over the sparkling stones I’d slipped onto her slender finger just a little while ago. ‘Value your own worth, Olivia. For it is great.’
Because, or maybe despite my honesty, I’d wager the words tumbling from her mouth are delivered without a lot of thought.
‘You mean try not to take offence when my spouse tells me they think I’m a grouchy ass?’
‘Your spouse would never cast such aspersions on your delectable arse. In fact, your spouse has some definite designs on the area in question.’ Very much so, in fact.
‘My spouse had better remove his head from his own ass. Because there isn’t enough money in the world for him to buy access to the area in question.’
‘Don’t do that.’ The bite in my tone is immediate. ‘Don’t make this out to be something it’s not. Something sordid and soiled.’
