Page 4 of The Negotiator
I believe her, and I know my job here is done. Even so, I refuse to jump on the plane and leave. I still don’t understand this magnetic draw toward her, but I get this feeling it’s not something I should ignore.
“Sometimes, Oliver, you just know. There’s no logic or sense or any explanation behind it, but your heart knows what’s right for you. Whether it’s a blessing or a tragedy, you’d have to decide for yourself.”
That’s what Mom told me when I was thirteen and we were on a vacation in Greece. It was one of the last things she said before we lost her.
I’ve known Olivia Lang for all of twenty-four hours, but leaving her and this island is the furthest thing from my mind. I will stay here and woo her if it’s the last thing I do.
I open my mouth to suggest we go down to eat when she slips on a rock and her arms pinwheel. I manage to hold her waist before she loses her balance, and she ends up sitting awkwardly on my lap.
The air between us thickens, and every other sound fades. My heart races, sweat sliding down my back. My one hand rests on her thigh, and the other just under her boob.
Instead of smacking my face or yelling for help, her mouth opens slightly, and her eyes turn glassy.
I lift a hand and graze her jaw with my finger, stopping below her bottom lip, which trembles slightly. “If you wanted to sit on me, all you had to do was ask. No need to go through all this trouble.”
2
OLIVIA
Agreeing to give him a tour was a bad idea. No, if there was an Olympic for bad ideas, this would take home the gold.
Oliver Abbot is my personal nightmare. Not because he’s part owner of the company that’s been trying to take our land, but because he’s so far from the stoic, calculating man some of my neighbors claim he is. That’s what they read on the internet, so hey, it must be a universal truth.
When I accidentally threw my panties at him yesterday, my initial fear was he’d sue me for assault. Then, he treated me like I wasn’t dirt under his shoe or acted like he was wasting his time with a nobody like me and I should be thankful he was talking to me.
He wasn’t like the others.
No, this Oliver is … polite, and he looks at me in a way that has butterflies fluttering in my belly and warmth spreading to every part of my body.
But I have to remember who he is and why he’s here. We’re not friends, and we both come from different worlds. There’s no way this physical attraction is two-way.
With my face only a few inches from his, though, all logical thoughts fly out the window, and I’m three seconds away from abandoning all pretense of anger and begging him to kiss me.
It’s so pathetic that I can’t help but hate myself. The worst thing is, I don’t have it in me to stand and put a distance between us either.
Where the hell is the strong-headed girl my dad raised? Because Oliver is a walking daydream, I’m reduced to nothing more than a girl with needs.
What makes it doubly hard is how freaking hot Oliver is. He’s tall and broad, and I still remember how wide his shoulders looked when he was in his three-piece suit. His dark brown hair is tapered on the sides, but he sports a boxed beard that unfairly suits him.
His eyes remind me of the sky on a warm, sunny day. I wonder if they change color depending on his mood.
Oh God.
It’s too late to pretend I’m not checking him out, so I tentatively reach for the small scar above his lips. “What happened to that?”
He sucks in a sharp breath when my finger brushes his skin, so I jerk my arm back. I’m way out of line. “A fight back in college.”
“Hmm. I didn’t know rich kids get scars.” I spot another on his brow. “Oh, there’s another one here” —my finger traces another along his jaw— “and here. That’s a lot of scars, Mr. Abbot.”
“I know. I was a handful when I was younger.”
It’s just then that I notice a bump on his nose, too. “Damn. Did they hurt you?”
Oliver chuckles, and it’s a sound I can get used to, a sound that makes my core clench. “You should have seen the other guys.”
How did I not notice his deep voice? How it caresses my skin? How it makes me feel things I shouldn’t feel for someone with ulterior motives? Not even ulterior because I know what he wants.
Despite all that, my body has other ideas. Before my brain registers what’s happening, my finger runs across his eyebrow, feeling the scar tissue in the middle of the arch. When I’m close enough to feel his breath on my face, my own breathing hitches.