“Are you okay, Olivia?” Emma asks. “Any important news?”
“It wasn’t arson,” I mumble to myself, looking at Emma with wide, shocked eyes.
“What did you say, hon?”
I shake my head, as if to clear it. It’s on the tip of my tongue to explain that the phone call was the fire inspector, and he just told me that the fire at my house wasn’t arson. It was caused by old, faulty wiring in the bathroom.
I think of the burned socket in the upstairs bathroom and how my blow-dryer kept blowing a fuse. How I wanted to get the house rewired but could never quite afford it. I think Nanna had been planning on doing it before she got sick, but that was years ago. Shit.
That means that the threatening letters the police found were just a coincidence. A disgruntled fan may have been upset enough to send a nasty letter, but they didn’t try to kill me.
I open my mouth to explain all that, but something stops me.
“Olivia?”
I don’t answer Emma. All I can think of is that no one tried to kill me.
Now, normally, this would be a good thing.
But it also means there’s no substantial threat.
Maybe there’s a stalker. But there’s no deadly stalker.
So, there’s no need to be in this Malibu mansion with Chase and his crew.
No need to be with Chase at all.
And that is very, very bad.
Why can’t someone want to kill me?
Just a little.
“Nothing. Just talking to myself. What is it, Emma?”
She tilts her head. I can tell from her sharp gaze that she doesn’t believe it’s nothing, but she doesn’t press me.
“Chase wants you to meet him out front at eight for your date.”
“Did he say where we’re going?” I ask. “I’m not sure what to wear.”
“Something cute and comfortable,” Emma says. Then she grins wickedly. “With nice underwear.”
I throw my pillow at her but miss. She laughs and saunters out the door with a wave of her hands.
As soon as she leaves, my mind goes back to the fire inspector’s call and his unexpected findings.
Good Olivia knows I should tell everyone about the report.
But Bad Olivia, the one who’s gotten addicted to taking risks, is asking if it’s really so wrong to wait a few days, a week, hell, a lifetime, to tell everyone that I don’t need to be here, that I’m in no need of protection after all? Because when I do, Chase might just put me on the first jet back to San Francisco, and I’m not ready for that yet.
I’m not asking for much. Just a little more time.
All things considered, I’m almost doing Chase a favor. He needs to realize he shouldn’t lock himself away on this property. I’ve vowed to help him. I can’t leave before that job is done, can I?
My heart twists with the idea that I’ll never see Chase in person again. And that’s what will happen once I leave.
I walk over to the closet and pull out a few cute and comfortable options for tonight.
I’m just going to take this fire report and put a pin in it, as Nanna liked to say.
At least until we’ve gone on this date. Even if he is just doing me a favor. Even if he has been giving me mixed signals. Just for tonight, I’m not going to worry about right or wrong.
We’ll just take this one last risk together, and then I’ll tell him the truth.
CHAPTER 29
Chase
I’m palms-sweating, heart-pounding, stomach-twisting nervous, like a teenager about to get laid for the first time.
But this is Olivia, and this is our first and only date, even if I haven’t admitted to her that it’s real, and not just for the sake of her list. Either way, I don’t want to fuck it up.
We arranged to meet at the front of the mansion. I stand next to my car in jeans and a black sweater and try to tell myself to chill the fuck out.
But when she opens the door and descends the stairs, I realize that all my internal pep talks about staying calm were bullshit. There’s nothing calm or settled about the way I feel about her. She slays me with each step closer.
“Damn,” I mutter when she finally stands next to me, letting my gaze roam where it wants, which is everywhere on her.
“What? What’s wrong?” she asks with a laugh. One hand goes to her hair, and the other smooths her dress. She looks down as if checking to see if something is out of place, which it’s not.
I shake my head to clear it. “You. That dress,” I say. “You’re perfect.”
And she is. By now, I know many of her strengths and weaknesses. I know she can’t run for shit. I know when she gets nervous, she babbles. She prefers books to movies. Classics to modern. She’s terrible at technology but feels most comfortable behind a screen. She says she was born in the wrong century, but I’m not sure if she could give up the innovation of cozy sweatshirts. She is clumsy and shy around strangers. But she’s also loyal and funny and achingly sweet, and she’s perfect—for me.