Chapter Thirty-Two

Olivia dropped her forehead onto the door and pushed it open as she staggered into her apartment. The darkness greeting her was almost as depressing as the silence cloaking the empty lounge and even emptier bedroom. She didn’t bother turning on the lights. What was the point? She wasn’t bumping into anyone, and the only place she was headed was her bed before she got up and did it all over again.

She dumped her laptop bag on her Frisbee-size dining table, kicked off her gorgeous, if completely ridiculous, blood-red pumps, and yanked the ID tag off the way-too-expensive and equally impractical silk blouse she’d spent a fair chunk of her first paycheck on. The shoes, the top, and the satin bra she wrestled off beneath her blouse and hurled onto the sofa had been stagnating on her wish list for nearly a year. In a mad fit of retail therapy, she’d not only emptied her wish list and then some, she’d also bought enough organic food to turn her once barren fridge and pantry into a Whole Foods. The only problem was her normally waist-stretching appetite had disappeared, and the only man she wanted to tempt with her sexy new wardrobe was probably sitting alone in his office on the other side of the Pacific.

A fresh dose of guilt joined the fatigue and loneliness knotting her belly as she stared at her fridge. If she was as mature as she pretended to be, she should’ve hoped he was enjoying life and living the dream. The truth was far less noble. A part of her far larger than she wanted to acknowledge desperately hoped he missed her as much as she missed him. Four months. Four endless months and her need for him only grew more desperate.

With her appetite deteriorating almost as quickly as her pride, she cursed her weakness and turned to the tiny dining table that served as her home office. Home. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she scanned her desolate apartment. Thanks to her newfound wealth and pity-fueled late-night online shopping binges, she’d transformed her apartment from practical and homely to vibrant and funky, and she still felt like a stranger.

She allowed herself a few deep breaths and few more muttered grumbles before straightening her shoulders, sticking out her gloriously unrestrained boobs, and spinning back to her laptop bag. She’d just returned from an unforgettable vacation with an unforgettable family in an unforgettable land while having an even more unforgettable man turn her inside out and upside down. She’d also started a fancy new job she absolutely loved. Instead of sulking like a spoiled reality star, she needed to suck it up, sit her ass down, and transfer the mountain of work she hadn’t done today onto tomorrow’s already crowded to-do list.

The workload wasn’t a surprise. She’d known what she was marching into and accepted that with the prestige and possibilities came sacrifices. If anything, she should’ve been grateful for having something to focus on to get her head back in the game. The real game taking place in her real life. Not the fairy tale haunting her dreams.

She unclenched her fists, sucked in another fortifying breath, and opened her laptop, only to groan and slam it shut the instant she peeked at her inbox. She could hop in the shower and try to wash some life back into herself before taking Gail, Serena, and Mark up on their offer of drinks and some long overdue dancing. But she liked her new partners in crime way too much to ruin their evening with her sulking. It’d been hard enough to maintain her happy face during work hours. The last thing she needed was breaking down and sobbing into her Cosmo in front of her team about how perfect her life was. “First-world fucking problems.”

Her curse echoed through the silence as she almost ripped her blouse to shreds scratching twelve hours’ worth of itches while glaring between her empty bedroom and empty kitchen. Her last meal had been an egg-and-lettuce sandwich eight hours ago. And like everything she’d forced herself to eat lately, it’d tasted like cardboard. She turned and glared at her fridge again. If she wasn’t working, or going out, she should at least cook herself a proper dinner before crawling into bed.

Raucous laughter, merciless teasing, the heavenly aromas of mountains of home-cooked food prepared with love and devoured with even more. The memories and sensations swamped her as her gaze trailed over her kitchen’s sterile countertops and unused cooktop and settled on her pathetic excuse of a dining table.

The nights were always the worst. It probably explained why she worked until she was too exhausted to think and, more importantly, feel. But the nagging ache she’d hoped would fade with time only intensified.

The edge of her phone poked out of her bag and called to her like a siren summoning her to her demise. With each passing day, the temptation to break the very same contract she’d forced Jarrah to swear to grew until she could no longer look at her phone without losing herself in his eyes. The warmth and security she craved lay just one call away. And then what?

From what she’d weaseled out of Abi and Ryder, her cowboy would probably be buried under mountains of contracts or stuck in a boardroom somewhere. And what if he wasn’t? What if that huge lawyer brain had realized what they’d shared had been as good as it got and it was time to move on to less complicated and more local pursuits?

AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” shocked her out of her nightmare. Yanking out her phone, she stared at the going-away present her big sister had covertly saved onto her phone. Eight beaming faces. Three black, four white, one brown; three men, five women. One incredible family smiling into the camera from beneath eight bedraggled Akubras while flipping her the bird. Smiling despite the tightness in her chest, she hit answer and brought the phone to her ear.

“So, Dr. Olivia Williams, Cedars-Sinai’s team leader of neurocritical research, you ready to give up that fancy high-paying job of yours and come home where you belong?”

Christ, Olivia still had to check her business card to make sure she didn’t screw up her title before every meeting, yet Abi spat it all out without even taking a breath. It was probably due to the fact her sister used the same damned greeting every time she called, which averaged out to every second day and twice on weekends.

Olivia couldn’t help smiling as Abi repeated the same offer Naya had made the day before. The scheming old girl had tried to tempt her back into the Outback under the pretense of checking if she was eating enough.

“As I told that evil mother-in-law of yours, there’s no way in hell I’m ever coming back to that dusty, fly-infested oven you call home.”

“You’ll be back. Only a matter of time. How was your week?”

Olivia lowered her phone and glanced at the date only to realize it was Friday, and another week had passed. Her surprise slowly surrendered to the sad truth of her life. The last four months had blended into one never-ending cycle of tossing and turning through the night and working through the day. “Same as last week. Only busier.”

“Busy good, or busy bad?”

And wasn’t that the million-dollar question. With each fourteen-hour day, Dr. Williams had fallen more and more in love with the challenges and opportunities of standing at the forefront of treatments that could save thousands of lives while plain-old Olivia Williams, the chick slowly shriveling away, had no freaking idea what she felt.

“The research we’re doing is even more game-changing than I thought. The more I learn, the more I’m blown away. And it’s only the tip of the iceberg. It’s amazing, Abs, truly amazing. I’m so lucky.”

“You trying to convince me or yourself?”

The long pause before her sister had spoken confirmed Abi hadn’t bought Olivia Williams’s reassurances, but Dr. Williams’s enthusiasm had been genuine. If her sister lived in L.A. and a certain cowboy hadn’t stolen her damned heart, Olivia would’ve been the happiest woman working eighty-hour weeks. “I’m not trying to convince anyone. The job’s kicking my butt, but it’s fantastic. I still can’t believe they hired me. I’m so busy most days and so exhausted most nights I hardly have the time to think about…”

“Hardly have the time to think about what?”

Think about what my mind-reading sister and her sweet man are doing. Think about what the Harpers are having for dinner. Think about how Wingarra and the muster are going. And dream about the man I left behind.

Olivia clamped her eyelids shut and shook the visions from her mind. Forcing herself to relax, she opened her eyes and unclenched her jaw only to have a sigh dribble from her mouth.

Olivia expected another curse-filled pep talk from her big sister. Instead of trying to convince her to be patient, or that things would get easier once she settled into her new job, made new friends, and started her new life, Abi simply sighed right along with her.

“You going to be okay?”

Abi’s whispered words dragged Olivia out of the darkness she’d tumbled into. Of course she was going to be freaking okay. Work would drop back down to manageable-crazy as soon as she got her head around everything. “My job will settle down once I get into the swing of things.”

“I’m not talking about work.”

Olivia tore her gaze from where it had settled on the sand-colored Akubra taking pride of place on her coat stand. In time, her memories of the Harpers and Wingarra would put a smile on her face instead of twisting her insides. And in a few months, she’d look forward to her next visit instead of constantly looking back.

“I’m missing the roast dinners and cakes. But that damned dust is finally starting to wash out of my clothes.”

“I’m not talking about Wingarra.”

Deep down, Olivia had known where Abi was headed, yet she’d been too exhausted to distract her sister from the elephant in the room. The same elephant she’d been driving herself crazy trying to ignore the past four months. And the very same elephant that had been slowly crushing the life out of her.

“Is he—” She licked her dry lips and prayed her voice held. “Okay?”

Olivia felt rather than heard her sister’s sigh. “He’s fucking miserable. And so he should be for breaking my kid sister’s heart. But he’s Ryder’s problem. I’m more worried about you. Are you okay?”

With each day, the distance between her and the man she couldn’t stop thinking about grew until it threatened to tear her apart. Running a trembling hand through her hair, she forced calm into her voice and lied to her sister.

“I will be.”