Page 19 of Inked Nights

No, those feelings came later.

She swallowed hard. She couldn’t love him. Not now, not later. She didn’t know him, not enough for those feelings to make sense. At least that’s what she kept reminding herself.

“Olivia. Are you okay?”

She pulled herself out of her thoughts and tried to make it look as if she weren’t going in a thousand different directions inside herself.

“It’s not a new dress.”

He frowned. “Oh. I guess I don’t know all of your dresses. I’ve seen a few.” He paused. “Touched a few, but I guess I don’t know them all.”

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath through her nose. “Sorry. I’m being weird.”

“No, you aren’t. I called you Olivia. I didn’t even bother with O or trying to do what we normally do and act as if we don’t know each other. It’s different. And it should be. This isn’t like the last time or any of the other times before that. And maybe that’s okay. Hell, after all this time, it feels new because it’s already different. And, yeah, I don’t know every dress you’ve ever owned, and you don’t know everything about me either, but we can see if we want to try.”

Olivia looked down and played with the rim of her martini glass, not sure what she was going to say because her heart was in her throat at that moment. He wanted more? Or at least wanted to see if they had more? Though he’d alluded to something like that before when he was in her home, she hadn’t really put any weight to it. And since she felt as if she were about to black out whenever he was near her, she didn’t really remember anything he’d said.

“We should talk,” she said softly, trying to make herself sound as if she weren’t panicking inside. From the way he looked at her, she wasn’t sure she’d succeeded.

He tilted his head, studied her, then reached out to brush her hair back from her shoulders. She hadn’t bothered with the pins today since it would have been a temptation for her that she had wanted to try to resist. She’d thought about it once she looked in the mirror and imagined his hands in her hair like he’d done so many times over the years. So she’d left it down, leaving the temptation behind. Only when he moved her hair, his fingertips brushed the skin of her shoulder over the straps of her dress, and she sucked in a breath. His eyes darkened, and she knew he felt it, too—that need, that yearning.

And she hated herself just a little bit for it because she was going to change everything.

She had to.

“We should. Do you want to talk down here? Or up in the room?”

Anywhere but the room.

She didn’t say that, of course, since the only answer was the room, but it didn’t make her words come out any easier.

“I don’t really want to talk down here,” she answered finally and slid off the stool.

“Do you want to finish your drink?” he asked, then raised a brow. “Or maybe start it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I can drink anything right now, and I only got it so I wasn’t sitting at the bar without holding something. You know?”

“I do. Though I wish I’d gotten here earlier so you weren’t here alone in that case.”

She shrugged and picked up her bag. “I’m always early to everything. I can’t help it.”

“Good to know. See? We’re already learning new things.”

Oh, if he only knew.

He took her hand, and she did her best not to pull away, not because she didn’t want his touch, but because she wanted it too much. And just like the previous times he’d led her to the elevator, she wondered what people thought as they looked at the two of them. Did they think they were lovers? A couple? Or were they having an illicit affair?

As none of those were the truth, she couldn’t help but wonder what those who had noticed them over time would think when Olivia and Derek didn’t show up again.

Would they worry?

Would they think it was over?

Or would their absence go unnoticed, a bare blip of a memory that didn’t mean anything to the casual observer?

She didn’t want to be a memory long faded, but as she only had the memories of what had once been swirling in her mind, she wasn’t sure she could be anything else and remain sane.

“Why do you look so scared?” Derek asked as he pressed the button for the seventh floor on the elevator.