She hadn’t thought of that. “I— Maybe. Maybe, but—”
It was true that Anh had seemed happy. Maybe she had already invited Jeremy to accompany her to that movie festival—possibly right after telling him about Olive and Carlsen, damn her. But this was exactly what Olive had wanted.
“Are you going to tell her the truth?”
She let out a panicked sound. “I can’t. Not now.” God, why did Olive ever agree to date Jeremy? She wasn’t even into him. Yes, the Irish accent and the ginger hair were cute, but not worth any of this. “Maybe we can tell people that I broke up with you?”
“That’s very flattering,” Dr. Carlsen deadpanned. She couldn’t quite figure out if he was joking.
“Fine. We can say that you broke up with me.”
“Because that sounds credible,” he said drily, almost below his breath. She was not sure she’d heard him correctly and had no idea what he might mean, but she was starting to feel very upset. Fine, she had been the one to kiss him first—God, she’d kissed Adam Carlsen; this was her life; these were her choices—but his actions in the break room the day before surely hadn’t helped matters. He could at least display some concern. There was no way he was okay with everyone believing that he was attracted to some random girl with one point five publications—yes, that paper she had revised and resubmitted three weeks ago counted as half.
“What if we tell people that it was a mutual breakup?”
He nodded. “Sounds good.”
Olive perked up. “Really? Great, then! We’ll—”
“We could ask Cherie to add it to the departmental newsletter.”
“What?”
“Or do you think a public announcement before seminar would be better?”
“No. No, it’s—”
“Maybe we should ask IT to put it on the Stanford home page. That way people would know—”
“Okay, okay, fine! I get it.”
He looked at her evenly for a moment, and when he spoke, his tone was reasonable in a way she would never have expected of Adam “Ass” Carlsen. “If what bothers you is that people are talking about you dating a professor, the damage is done, I’m afraid. Telling everyone that we broke up is not going to undo the fact that they think we dated.”
Olive’s shoulders slumped. She hated that he was right. “Okay, then. If you have any ideas on how to fix this mess, by all means I am open to—”
“You could let them go on thinking it.”
For a moment, she thought she hadn’t heard him correctly. “W-What?”
“You can let people go on thinking that we’re dating. It solves your problem with your friend and what’s-his-face, and you don’t have much to lose, since it sounds like from a . . . reputation standpoint”—he said the word “reputation” rolling his eyes a little, as if the concept of caring about what others thought were the dumbest thing since homeopathic antibiotics—“things cannot get any worse for you.”
This was . . . Out of everything . . . In her life, Olive had never, she had never . . .
“What?” she asked again, feebly.
He shrugged. “Seems like a win-win to me.”
It so did not, to Olive. It seemed like a lose-lose, and then lose again, and then lose some more, type of situation. It seemed insane.
“You mean . . . forever?” She thought her voice came out whiny, but it was possible that it was just an effect of the blood pounding in her head.
“That sounds excessive. Maybe until your friends are not dating anymore? Or until they’re more settled? I don’t know. Whatever works best, I guess.” He was serious about this. He was not joking.
“Are you not . . .” Olive had no idea how to even ask it. “Married, or something?” He must have been in his early thirties. He had a fantastic job; he was tall with thick, wavy black hair, clearly smart, even attractive looking; he was built. Yeah, he was a moody dick, but some women wouldn’t mind it. Some women might even like it.
He shrugged. “My wife and the twins won’t mind.”
Oh, shit.
Olive felt a wave of heat wash over her. She blushed crimson and then almost died of shame, because— God, she had forced a married man, a father, to kiss her. Now people thought that he was having an affair. His wife was probably crying into her pillow. His kids would grow up with horrible daddy issues and become serial killers.
“I . . . Oh my God, I didn’t— I am so sorry—”
“Just kidding.”
“I really had no idea that you—”
“Olive. I was joking. I’m not married. No kids.”
A wave of relief crashed into her. Followed by just as much anger. “Dr. Carlsen, this is not something you should joke—”
“You really need to start calling me Adam. Since we’ve reportedly been dating for a while.”
Olive exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Why would you even— What would you even get out of this?”
“Out of what?”
“Pretending to date me. Why do you care? What’s in it for you?”
Dr. Carlsen—Adam—opened his mouth, and for a moment Olive had the impression that he was going to say something important. But then he averted his gaze, and all that came out was “It would help you out.” He hesitated for a moment. “And I have my own reasons.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What reasons?”
“Reasons.”
“If it’s criminal, I’d rather not be involved.”
He smiled a bit. “It’s not.”
“If you don’t tell me, I have no choice but to assume that it entails kidnapping. Or arson. Or embezzlement.”
He seemed preoccupied for a moment, fingertips drumming against a large biceps. It considerably strained his shirt. “If I tell you, it cannot leave this room.”
“I think we can both agree that nothing that has happened in this room should ever leave it.”
“Good point,” he conceded. He paused. Sighed. Chewed on the inside of his cheek for a second. Sighed again.
“Okay,” he finally said, sounding like a man who knew that he was going to regret speaking the second he opened his mouth. “I’m considered a flight risk.”
“Flight risk?” God, he was a felon on parole. A jury of his peers had convicted him for crimes against grad students. He’d probably whacked someone on the head with a microscope for mislabeling peptide samples. “So it is something criminal.”