The Opportunist (Love Me with Lies, #1)(71)

When he stood up, I looked away.

“I’m sorry, Olivia, for hurting you,” he said hoarsely and my heart heaved in my chest. Why was his voice so gentle? Why wasn’t he screaming at me? I was the one who did the hurting. It was me. My fault. My sin. My mess.

“You will never see me again after today.” He paused and his next words struck me so deeply I would never recover from them. “I will love again, Olivia, you will hurt forever. What you’ve done is…You are worthless because you make yourself that way. You will remember me every day for the rest of your life because I was the one and you threw me away.” And then he left.





Chapter Nineteen





Noah was waiting for me outside of the restaurant when my cab pulled up. Before I could reach for my purse, he pulled a bill from his wallet and handed it to the cabbie, motioning for him to keep the change.

It was a hundred euro.



“You look ravishing,” he says, kissing me on the cheek.



“Thank you,” I take the arm that he offers me and we float into the most charming restaurant I have ever seen.



I am in Italy.

“So, how do you like Rome so far?” he says.

Driving here in the cab, I had seen a city both old and new. Crumbling buildings defiantly stood where they were placed thousands of years before, right in the midst of brand new architecture. It seemed like magic every time you turned your head and get a glimpse of forever ago, like the past was rising up out of the ashes and reminding you she was still there. And then there were the motorbikes and the scooters and the teeny tiny cars that careened and swerved and honked hysterically at everything in their path. The laundry that fluttered merrily on almost every balcony and the way as people walked down the street you heard music drifting out from here and there, providing Italian life with a continuous soundtrack.

“I wish I never had to leave,” I admit. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Noah nods and waits for me to be seated before he seats himself.

“The first time I was here, I thought the whole place looked like a ghetto. It took a couple of days for me to fall in love, but ever since then, I find myself craving this place when I’m home in America. I do everything I can to come as often as possible.”

I could see that happening to myself. No wonder Leah wanted to make her baby here. She must have visited before. All rich girls made a pilgrimage to Rome at some point in their lavish lives, for shopping of course.

When we both had a glass of wine in front of us and the waiter was walking away with our order in his head. Noah turned to me with a concerned look on his face.

“Did you see him? Your Caleb?”

“From a distance,” I laugh because he was so far from “my Caleb” it was ridiculous. “I was five floors below, spying on their hotel window.”

“Do you know what plan of action you are going to take yet?”



I shook my head.



“Not a clue, but I have to do it. I’ll figure it out…I have a couple of hours to come up with something.”



“An honest something?” he teases, cocking his head in a way that made his hair fall attractively into his eyes.



“Yes,” I laugh. It was so nice to laugh.



“You know, Olivia. What you’re doing. It’s the right thing.”



“What? Being honest?” I take a nervous sip of my wine. There was nothing more uncomfortable than discussing my integrity, or lack thereof.

“No.”

I look up surprised.

“Going after what you love. Despite everything you’ve done, and I won’t sugarcoat, you’ve done some pretty lousy things, but you did it all because you love this single human being so much you couldn’t help yourself. There is an honesty in that,”

“Ha! There is no honesty in me, I assure you.”



“You’re wrong.”



I cock my skeptical head. No one in their right mind would call me honest, especially if they’d heard my story.



“I’ve never met someone who’s quite as honest about their bad deeds and who speaks with so much candor about their feelings. Are you a bad person, Olivia?”

“Yes,” I say easily.



“See. Your behavior is the problem. You allow yourself to act on every feeling rather than taking the time to be virtuous.”



“Virtue,” I repeat the foreign word, trying my hardest to concentrate on its meaning.



“It’s funny how your life keeps bumping into his,” he says, changing the direction of the conversation. “I mean what are the chances of his getting amnesia and then running into you twice in twenty-four hours?”

I shrug.



“—only to strike up a conversation with you, both times, and then ask you out to coffee?” he continues.



“I know,” I sigh, “I bought a subscription to irony the day I met him.”



“There’s something more there, that you’re not seeing.”



“What? Like a fate thing?” I hated fate. He was a bored little brat who couldn’t let people heal in peace.