Page 295 - The Love Hypothesis

It broke her heart a little.

“I’m fine.” She attempted a smile. “I . . . I’m sorry to interrupt this. I
know it’s important, that you want to move to Boston, and—this is
inappropriate. But it’s now or never, and I wasn’t sure if I’d have the

courage to . . .” She was rambling. So she took a deep breath and started
again. “I need to tell you something. Something that happened. With—”

“Hey, Olive.”
Tom. But of course. “Hi, Tom.” Olive held Adam’s gaze and didn’t look

at him. He did not deserve to be looked at. “Can you give us a minute of
privacy?”

She could see his oily, fake smile with the corner of her eye. “Olive, I
know you’re young and don’t know how these things work, but Adam’s
here to interview for a very important position, and he can’t just—”

“Leave,” Adam ordered, voice low and cold.
Olive closed her eyes and nodded, taking a step back. Fine. It was fine.

It was Adam’s right not to talk to her. “Okay. I’m sorry, I—”
“Not you. Tom, leave us.”

Oh. Oh. Well, then.
“Dude,” Tom said, sounding amused, “you can’t just get up from the

table in the middle of an interview dinner and—”
“Leave,” Adam repeated.
Tom laughed, brazen. “No. Not unless you’re coming with me. We’re

collaborators, and if you act like an asshole during a dinner with my
department because of some student you’re screwing, it will reflect poorly

on me. You need to come back to the table and—”
“A pretty girl like you should know the score by now. Don’t lie to me and

say you didn’t pick out a dress that short for my benefit. Nice legs, by the
way. I can see why Adam’s wasting his time with you.”

Neither Adam nor Tom had seen Olive take out her phone, or press Play.
They both struggled for a second, confused—they’d clearly heard the words
but were unsure where they came from. Until the recording restarted.

“Olive. You don’t think I accepted you into my lab because you are
good, do you? A girl like you. Who figured out so early in her academic