Lucy: That doesn’t sound too ominous. I’m sure he’ll be back.

Me: Well, it is. He’s been acting weird from the moment I got into his car. No eye contact, no nothing.

I leaned forward a little to see if I could spot him. Sure enough, he was standing next to a group of ten or twelve people who were having dinner. A beautiful blonde woman joined the group and instead of sitting down, she came to stand next to Jason when she saw him. She touched his arm, leaned in to whisper something into his ear, and said something funny enough to make Jason throw back his head and laugh. Then his hand sneaked around her waist…and I sat my ass back down.

Perfect.

Remembering I wasn’t out with Jason but with Jason Thorn didn’t ease my worries. I’d take the other guy any day.

Me: I don’t think I’m feeling well. I want to come home, Lucy.

Lucy: Hey, it’ll be okay. You are a cat. A purring, content one. I’m sure he wanted to talk to you about the movie. Didn’t you say so yourself? If he upsets you, I’ll kick his ass, don’t worry.

There was no way that cat crap would work this time.

Before I could text back, Jason returned to the table, muttered an apology, gave me a strange look, and reached for his drink again.

Feeling deflated, I played with the edge of the table and kept sipping my drink as I tried to focus on the beautiful view.

At some point, he asked a few questions about how my new novel was coming along, and I answered all of his questions with unnecessarily long answers. Eventually though, I gave up trying to engage him in conversation when he started texting with his agent.

Our food came—we had both ordered salmon—and—surprise, surprise—we ate in silence.

If picking at the poor fish counted as eating, that is.

My phone vibrated twice, but I didn’t check to see who it was. No matter how many times she texted, I was no cat—especially not a purring one. Halfway into our awkward and very disappointing dinner, I gave up on the food too and just leaned back in my seat to gaze at the city skyline. I hated sulking in general, but sitting across from Jason and sulking…well, it was all kinds of wrong. Even so, there was no way I could act like I was having the time of my life at that moment either.

“Olive?”

So lost in my own head, I flinched when I heard Jason’s thick voice.

“Yes?”

He tilted his head and furrowed his brows. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. Are you?” I asked back.

He scratched at his stubble. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve barely said a word to me ever since we sat down, Jason. Not that you were a chatterbox in the car, but you literally spoke maybe twenty words to me. Since you were the one who invited me out, I have no idea what’s happening, but I’m going to wait until you finish your dinner so you can take me home. Better yet, if you can tell someone to call me a cab…do they even do that here? Anyway, if they do, I can get myself home.”

A few tables to our left, a group of people roared with laughter, drawing my attention away from Jason. Why couldn’t we be laughing with joy like that? Jason was going to take me to a movie set, the movie set that was being set up for the world I’d created. I was going to see Isaac’s room, touch the bed where he woke Evie up in the middle of the night just because he couldn’t wait to kiss her for the first time. I should’ve been the one laughing my ass off with joy, not sulking in front of a sex god.

He wasn’t my sex god, but I was in his vicinity, and God had given me eyes for such occasions after all.

I glanced back at Jason and saw his troubled expression.

“Fuck me,” he muttered almost to himself.

I would happily fuck you if that’s your problem.

Reaching for his second glass of whiskey, he drank the last bit in one big gulp, pushed his chair back with a loud noise, and came to my side.

I had to crane my neck to look up at him.

He offered me his hand. “Come on. I can’t do this here with all these people around. Let’s go.”

“Go where?” I asked, my eyes suspiciously jumping between his hand and eyes.

Clearly done with waiting for me to decide, he pulled back my chair while I was still sitting in it and took my hand himself.

Grabbing the small clutch I had borrowed from Char, I let him pull me away from our sad table and tried to ignore the warmth that was travelling all over my body from feeling his warm skin on mine again.

Even holding hands with him could count as accomplishing childhood dreams, right? And it had already happened more than once. I should’ve counted the night as a success. Only I had no idea what was coming next.

Talk about childhood dreams…

Chapter Sixteen Olive

Instead of driving me home, he drove us back to Bel Air, to the heaven that was his home.

“Do you want something to drink?” he asked as soon as we were inside.

“I’m good. Thank you.”

“I’ll get something for myself then.”

He poured himself…I didn’t even care what it was at that point. I just stood in the middle of his living room, hugging myself and generally feeling like crap.

“Maybe you should’ve dropped me at home, Jason,” I said when he kept his back turned to me. “I don’t think this night out was a good idea. If this is about you taking me to the set, or, hell, I don’t know, to tell me that you think my book is crap…or maybe it’s about the photos, that would make more sense, bu—”

“Stop, Olive. Just stop,” he interrupted me.

He finally left the bottle of alcohol alone and walked to my side. Cupping my cheeks, he looked into my eyes. “Your book was amazing. You’re amazing. Stop thinking badly about yourself. I have to…no, I need to tell you something, or ask you something. Hell…” He let my face go and turned his back to me, again. “I’m already making a mess of this. I just don’t know how to say it…where to start.”

“Well.” I dropped the clutch onto the comfy looking armchair. “I’m half convinced you’re trying to tell me you have to kill me, so it can’t be worse than that. Just tell me and get over it with already.”

He raked his hand through his already sexily messed up hair and let out a deep breath. “You’re right. Okay. You liked sitting outside last time, so let’s go out.” Grabbing my hand, he walked us outside.

“You have chaise lounges,” I said when we stepped outside. There were six of them and they looked gorgeous next to the pool. There were also more than a few giant cushions, the ones that you can curl up and comfortably sleep on. “You didn’t have them the last time I was here.”

“Yeah, I asked Alvin to find something comfortable to sit on for when I had guests who wanted to sit close to the pool instead of at the table.”

He had gotten them because of me?

I was unable to hold back my smile.

We arranged the cushions closer to the pool and sat down facing each other.

“I’ve danced around it enough, so here we go,” he started. I sat up straighter, ready for whatever he was about to throw my way.

“My publicist wants me to get married, Olive.”

Wait. What? I wasn’t ready for that!

“Come again?”

“I lost a few jobs after the alley video scandal; apparently they don’t think I’m serious enough about my work, and no major studio wants to deal with that. They didn’t want the negative press around me to affect their movie, so they ended my contracts. Tom thinks that’ll only be the start if things don’t change.”

Wait. What?

I was barely hearing a word of what he was saying. He was getting married?

Was I cursed? Because there was no way this was fair. I’d long ago given up on my childhood crush, but now after seeing him again, spending time with him again…now he was getting married to someone?

“Wait a second.” I shook my head. “I don’t understand. What does that have to do with you getting married?”