“And who’s this?” he asked curiously. His eyes were a very piercing blue.

“This is Olive,” Adam said. There was a beat after her name, in which he should have probably specified how he knew Olive. He did not, and she really couldn’t blame him for not wanting to feed their fake-dating crap to someone who was clearly a good friend. She just kept her smile in place and let Adam continue. “Olive, this is my collaborator—”

“Dude.” The man pretended to bristle. “Introduce me as your friend.”

Adam rolled his eyes, clearly amused. “Olive, this is my friend and collaborator. Dr. Tom Benton.”

Chapter Five

HYPOTHESIS: The more I need my brain to be on top of its game, the higher the probability that it will freeze on me.

“Wait a minute.” Dr. Benton tilted his head. His smile was still in place, but his gaze became a little sharper, his focus on Olive less superficial. “Do you happen to be . . .” Olive froze.

Her mind was never calm, or orderly—more like a garbled mess of thoughts, really. And yet, standing there in front of Tom Benton, the inside of her head went uncharacteristically quiet, and several considerations stacked themselves neatly into place.

The first was that she was comically luckless. The chances that the person she depended on to finish her beloved research project would be acquainted—no, friends with the person she depended on to ensure her beloved Anh’s romantic happiness were laughably low. And yet. Then again, Olive’s special brand of luck was no news, so she moved on to the next consideration.

She needed to admit who she was to Tom Benton. They were scheduled to meet at 3:00 p.m., and pretending not to recognize him now would mean the kiss of death to her plans to infiltrate herself into his lab. Academics had huge egos, after all.

Last consideration: if she phrased this right, she could probably avoid Dr. Benton hearing about the whole fake-dating mess. Adam hadn’t mentioned it, which probably meant that he wasn’t planning to. Olive just needed to follow his lead.

Yes. Excellent plan. She had this in the bag.

Olive smiled, held on to her pumpkin spice latte, and answered, “Yes, I’m Olive Smith, the—”

“Girlfriend I’ve heard so much about?”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She swallowed. “Um, actually I—” “Heard from whom?” Adam asked, frowning.

Dr. Benton shrugged. “Everyone.”

“Everyone,” Adam repeated. He was scowling now. “In Boston?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are people at Harvard talking about my girlfriend?”

“Because you’re you.”

“Because I’m me?” Adam looked perplexed.

“There have been tears. Some hair-pulling. A few broken hearts. Don’t worry, they’ll get over it.”

Adam rolled his eyes, and Dr. Benton returned his attention to Olive. He smiled at her, offering his hand. “It’s very nice to meet you. I had written off the whole girlfriend thing as rumors, but I’m glad you . . . exist. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name—I’m terrible at names.”

“I’m Olive.” She shook his hand. He had a nice grip, not too tight and not too soft.

“Which department do you teach, Olive?”

Oh, crap. “Actually, I don’t. Teach, that is.”

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to assume.” He smiled, apologetic and selfeffacing. There was a smooth charm to him. He was young to be a professor, though not as young as Adam. And he was tall, though not as tall as Adam. And he was handsome, though . . . yeah. Not as handsome as Adam.

“What do you do, then? Are you a research fellow?”

“Um, I actually—”

“She’s a student,” Adam said.

Dr. Benton’s eyes widened.

“A graduate student,” Adam clarified. There was a hint of warning in his tone, like he really wanted Dr. Benton to drop the subject.

Dr. Benton, naturally, did not. “Your graduate student?”

Adam frowned. “No, of course she’s not my—”

This was the perfect opening. “Actually, Dr. Benton, I work with Dr.

Aslan.” Maybe this meeting was still salvageable. “You probably don’t recognize my name, but we’ve corresponded. We’re supposed to meet today.

I’m the student who’s working on the pancreatic cancer biomarkers. The one who asked to come work in your lab for a year.”

Dr. Benton’s eyes widened even more, and he muttered something that sounded a lot like “What the hell? ” Then his face stretched into a wide, openmouthed grin. “Adam, you absolute ass. You didn’t even tell me.” “I didn’t know,” Adam muttered. His gaze was fixed on Olive.

“How could you not know that your girlfriend—”

“I didn’t tell Adam, because I didn’t know you two were friends,” Olive interjected. And then she thought that maybe it wasn’t quite believable. If

Olive really were Adam’s girlfriend, he’d have told her about his friends.

Since, in a shocking plot twist, he did appear to have at least one.

“That is, I, um . . . never put two and two together, and didn’t know that you were the Tom he always talked about.” There, better. Kind of. “I’m sorry, Dr. Benton. I didn’t mean to—”

“Tom,” he said, grin still in place. His shock seemed to be settling into pleasant surprise. “Please, call me Tom.” His eyes darted between Adam and Olive for a few seconds. Then he said, “Hey, are you free?” He pointed at the coffee shop. “Why don’t we go inside and chat about your project now? No point in waiting until this afternoon.”

She took a sip of her latte to temporize. Was she free? Technically, yes.

She would have loved to run to the edge of campus and scream into the void until modern civilization collapsed, but that wasn’t exactly a pressing matter.

And she wanted to look as accommodating as possible to Dr. Benton —Tom.

Beggars and choosers and all that.

“I’m free.”

“Great. You, Adam?”