Chapter 2

Oliver and I were college classmates. We broke up five years ago.

To everyone else, I always said the same thing: he talked too little and did too much in bed. I couldn't keep up.

Honestly, that wasn't even a lie.

Oliver was efficient in every possible sense of the word.

He barely spoke, and he always buttoned his shirts all the way to the top, conservative enough to look like he belonged in another century.

At first, I fell for that cold, untouchable image of his.

I pursued him for an entire year.

During sophomore year, our law school held a debate competition, and Oliver led the opposing team. He dismantled our side so thoroughly that we barely had room to breathe.

Something about his calm, deliberate tone and his gold-rimmed glasses completely did me in.

After the match, my teammate glared at me in disgust. "Unbelievable. You saw a handsome guy and lost all critical thinking skills."

I barely heard him.

I was already hovering beside Oliver, asking for his number. After a painfully long silence, he turned me down.

But I was a modern woman. If I wanted something, I went after it.

So I started wooing him shamelessly, cornering him whenever I could and testing his limits at every opportunity.

Oliver was both easy and impossible to pursue.

He had the looks, the family background, the grades, everything. And yet, his entire brain seemed permanently occupied by studying.

To win him over, I practically moved into the library with him.

After one full year of relentless persistence, on the 306th time I sat directly across from him with terrifying accuracy...

He finally looked up and asked, "Do you really like me that much?"

I nodded immediately, swallowing hard while staring at the chest muscles visible beneath his collar.

"I really do."

The good news was that I got him.

And my taste was exactly as excellent as I thought it would be. Oliver looked lean in clothes and unfairly good without them.

The bad news was that once Oliver finally got a taste of sex, he made up for lost time fast.

By the third month of dating, he had already lured me back to his place.

After that, we lived in complete shameless bliss.

I thought we would end up like one of those inspirational stories about genius couples conquering the world together.

Instead, things crashed and burned like some messy soap opera.

On graduation day, Oliver's parents came to see me with a contract in hand. One played the villain, the other played the reasonable one. They took turns wearing me down.

By the end of it, my pride had been ground straight into the dirt.

The next day, I gave them exactly what they wanted and broke up with him.

Oliver stood there in silence for a long time, his jaw tight, his eyes so dark that they felt deep enough to drown in.

Then, he turned and walked away.

I had always been the type who knew when to let go.

That same day, I blocked Oliver on every platform and disappeared to another city.