“This is not an answer.”
Olivia yawned. “Because you went away.”
He made a scoffing sound. “And so you substituted my brother for me?”
“No.” She forced herself to turn and look at him. “I substituted me for you. I thought he would be lonely. I thought he would find the days impossibly long to pass without your visits. And so I started to fill your shoes.”
Of all the possibilities Zamir had considered, that had not been one of them. His chest was tight, as though a band were wrapped around it. It spoke of kindness and compassion. He knew Olivia had both of those qualities in spades. But was it really her motivation? “You did not know my brother. Why would you care?”
Her smile was so sad that it touched even his heart of ice. “Because I thought I loved you. And that meant I cared for your family, too.” She turned away from him again. “I didn’t really think it through. I just felt like I had to be here.”
Zamir gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles glowed white.
“So you love me, and your relationship with my brother is simply platonic,” he clarified, when he trusted himself to speak.
“No,” the word was wrapped around her yawn.
“No?” Fear plunged through him.
“I thought I loved you. Past tense. But that was stupid. It’s probably perfectly natural to feel that way when you’ve just … slept with someone for the first time. Especially someone like you. I thought I loved you, but I know now that was just a stupid, childish response. By the time I worked that out, I’d become friends with Ra’if. I really care about him. And I like spending time with him. Why I come to visit him now has nothing to do with you, Zamir.”
Zamir swallowed. “My brother is in recovery from a serious and prolonged drug addiction. Did it not occur to you that you might be playing with his emotions at a time when he is vulnerable?”
“No,” she said simply. “Ra’if and I are friends. That’s all.”
Zamir didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Her words and her intoxicating fragrance and her presence beside him were combining to swamp his senses.
They drove in silence for several miles, then Zamir chanced a look in her direction. Her face was angled away from him. Her body was folded against the door, as though she wanted to get away from him within the confines of the car.
His eyes drifted lower, to her legs that were pressed together at the knees. Legs that had wrapped around him and held him to her heart. He groaned softly.
“You look frail.” He muttered, turning his focus back to the road.
Olivia didn’t reply.
She was asleep.
He was torn between letting her sleep and shaking her awake. Only the slight worry that she might have seriously injured her head caused him to reach across and tap her thigh.
“Don’t,” she batted his fingers away, instantly jolted into wakefulness.
He removed his hand; his mouth was a slash in his face. “You have hurt your head. You may have a concussion.”
“I don’t have a concussion,” she muttered. “I’m tired. And I don’t want to talk to you.”
She closed her eyes again and slipped almost immediately back into a solid slumber.
Which was perfect for Zamir, for it gave him a chance to put into motion a plan that would resolve the issue of Olivia Henderson once and for all.
CHAPTER TEN
The car was bumping. Olivia shifted in the seat, keeping her eyes resolutely shut. Fragments of what had happened punctuated her dreamy fog, but she wilfully pushed them away.
Or tried to, at least.
Zamir’s eyes, hauntingly bright like a tiger’s, were boring into her mind from within her thoughts. She shifted again.
More bumping, only it didn’t feel like potholes in the road. This was more like turbulence on board an aeroplane.