Olive had expected to be expelled on the spot. Or at the very least, incinerated by his icy gray glare.
The hypothesis had been thoroughly disproven. She was no longer faking. She was wildly, desperately, and hopelessly in love with her fake boyfriend.
At the gala, they played their parts to perfection. They stood close. Adam kept a possessive hand on the small of her back, his thumb tracing slow, soothing circles against the fabric of her dress. They laughed, they mingled, and they convinced everyone in the room that they were madly in love. Olive had expected to be expelled on the spot
"My department is threatening to freeze my research funds because they think I'm a flight risk to another university," Adam had said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that did strange things to Olive’s pulse. "They want to see that I am building a life here. That I am committed to the community."
Olive didn't waste another second on analysis, variables, or data points. She reached up, grabbed the lapels of his shirt just like she had that first night, and pulled him down to her. She was no longer faking
At first, Olive was terrified. Adam was massive, brooding, and spoke mostly in blunt, unyielding facts.
"You're squinting at your data," Adam said one rainy Tuesday evening, leaning over her shoulder to look at her computer screen. They stood close
She had grabbed the nearest tall, broad-shouldered man standing by the water fountain, pulled him down by his lapels, and pressed her lips to his.