Page 46 - The Love Hypothesis

He took it in for a moment and then nodded slowly. “And when you say

everyone . . . ?”
“I mean everyone.” She pointed in the direction of his lab. “Those
people? They know. The other grads? They know. Cherie, the department

secretary? She totally knows. Gossip in this department is the worst. And
they all think that I am dating a professor.”

“I see,” he said, seeming strangely unbothered by this clusterfuck. It
should have calmed Olive down, but it only had the effect of driving her

panic up a notch.
“I am sorry this happened. So sorry. This is all my fault.” She wiped a

hand down her face. “But I didn’t think that . . . I understand why Anh
would tell Jeremy—I mean, getting those two together was the whole point
of this charade—but . . . Why would Jeremy tell anyone?”

Carlsen shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he?”
She looked up. “What do you mean?”

“A grad student dating a faculty member seems like an interesting piece
of information to share.”

Olive shook her head. “It’s not that interesting. Why would people be
interested?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “Someone once told me that ‘Gossip in this
department is the wor—’ ”
“Okay, okay. Point taken.” She took a deep breath and started pacing,

trying to ignore the way Carlsen was studying her, how relaxed he looked,
arms across his chest while leaning against the conference table. He was not

supposed to be calm. He was supposed to be incensed. He was a known
dick with a reputation for arrogance—the idea of people thinking that he

was dating a nobody should be mortifying to him. The burden of freaking
out should not be falling on Olive alone.

“This is— We need to do something, of course. We need to tell people
that this is not true and that we made it all up. Except that they’ll think that
I’m crazy, and maybe that you are, too, so we have to come up with some

other story. Yes, okay, we need to tell people we’re not together anymore
—”