Greed (Seven Vices Series Book 1) Read online

  “Oliver?” I asked in surprise.

  Oliver turned to face me, his expression guarded.

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, it’s the wonder-boy, Oliver Lewin. Sophia, you didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who was interested in gossip.”

  I blinked at her and burst out laughing, realizing she must think I was just another of his fangirls. I shook my head. “Oliver and I know one another from back home,” I told her. “He donated a decent amount of money to Le Monde Ensemble, money that we were able to put to good use in Argentina.”

  “Oh,” Jenna said, looking vaguely embarrassed at having jumped to conclusions.

  I shook my head, still wondering if I was dreaming or something. But even in my dreams, I don’t think I could have imagined Oliver arriving in Africa. “Oliver, what are you doing here?” I asked.

  Oliver gave me a mild look. “I came to inspect how my investments were being utilized,” he said coolly, his tone not even hinting at the fact that we’d known one another before.

  I frowned. “Your investments?” I asked. “You’re the one who bought Javier’s company?”

  Oliver just shrugged and turned back to Jenna, as though our conversation was over.

  “A helicopter?” I couldn’t resist asking. “Was that really necessary?”

  Oliver turned back to me, staring for a long moment. For a second, I thought I saw the hint of a smile on his face. “My jet was in the shop,” he said. Then all the humor drained from his face, and he turned away again.

  I couldn’t stop staring at him, unable to believe my eyes. I couldn’t think of the first thing to say to him—and I had to remind myself that we were still in a very public space. A public working space. Same thing as back in New York, I couldn’t let my relationship with him—whatever it might be—interfere with my work. I couldn’t make a scene here.

  But I was curious. Javier had mentioned that his company had been bought way back when we were in Argentina. Had Oliver somehow been scoping out the competition from afar? Was he still doing all of these crazy things, pretended that he was interested in what I was doing, just to get my attention? Did he really think that was the way to win my heart?

  Instead, I just found him . . . distracting, to be honest. For the rest of the day—after Jenna gave me a meaningful look and led Oliver off for the rest of his tour—all I could think about was how distracting Oliver was.

  “Sophia!” Javier snapped for what must have been the fifth time that day.

  I jolted, and looked down at my hands, realizing that the amount of gravel I’d dumped out was way more than we needed. I flushed, feeling my ears burn. “Sorry,” I mumbled, setting the bag down on the ground and starting to scoop gravel back into it.

  “Where has your head been today?” Javier asked, shaking his own. “You’re acting totally scatterbrained. It’s not like you.”

  I shrugged, but my guilty eyes looked over at Oliver, who was jotting something down on a clipboard as he watched a few men working on the framework of what would become the village school.

  “Him?” Javier asked incredulously. He tossed his shovel to the side for a moment, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s been pretty obvious that there was someone else in the picture this whole time, but is Oliver Lewin really the guy that you’re pining after?”

  “I’m not pining after him,” I said irritably, swearing as I scraped my knuckles on the gravel.

  “Sure,” Javier said, sounding unconvinced. “How long has this been going on for?”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I said petulantly.

  “It sure doesn’t look like nothing,” Javier said, scowling at me. “Now, you really don’t seem like the kind of woman who is just so awestruck by Wonder Boy of the Year, so I assume it’s more than you just knowing him from back in New York?”

  “Like I said to Jenna, he just donated a lot of money to Le Monde,” I said, shrugging and evading his eyes.

  Javier was silent for a long moment, and I fought the urge to squirm.

  After a moment, I threw my hands in the air. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Javier. I don’t think it’s any of your business anyway.”

  “You don’t think it’s any of my business?” Javier shook his head. “So this is how you treat your guys, is it?” He ran a hand back through his hair. “I should never have brought you down here.”

  “You didn’t bring me down here,” I snapped, incensed. “Javier, you may be the one who told me about the project, but I came down here on my own. We may have agreed that we wanted to . . . explore what we had, but you know that things aren’t working out between us. We’ve talked about this. I’m sorry, but I’m just not interested. I like working with you, but that’s it.”

  “I just can’t believe that someone with your intelligence and skills would go out with a guy like that,” Javier said scornfully. “Why is he here, anyway? It can’t be because he suddenly cares about the plight of all these people.”

  “He cares more about other people than you think! He donated a lot of money to Le Monde Ensemble,” I told Javier, even though I was surprised to find myself defending Oliver. “And to the relief effort in Argentina, separately. He may not have ever volunteered for a project like this before, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn't care. Anyway, you’re the person who said that you only really care about the people that you’re helping because you know their stories firsthand. Maybe the same is true for Oliver.”

  “Except he doesn’t know their stories firsthand,” Javier snapped. “Even the people that he’s talked to, he doesn’t really know their stories. He can’t. At a certain level, he just can’t relate to them.” He sneered. “He flew in here on a private helicopter, remember?”

  I couldn’t argue with that, as much as I might want to. I glanced over towards Oliver, only to find that he had vanished. I frowned, wondering where he had gone.

  Javier laughed meanly. “I guess he really didn’t want to get into the middle of this,” he said. “Maybe he isn’t down here for you at all. Or maybe he’s just down here to remind you of what you can’t ever have.”

  I tried not to let the hurt show in my face. I knew that someone like Oliver couldn’t possibly be interested in me—he was after some dumb, sexy bimbo with no personality and big tits. I didn’t know why that mattered so much to me, anyway. But I remembered what it had felt like to be out on a date with Oliver. What it felt like to have all of his attention on me. I’d felt . . . special.

  I kind of hated that I had felt that way, but there it was.

  Javier’s words cut a little too close to home, but there was something else in what he said that was more important. “Javier, there is no ‘this,’” I told him bluntly. “I’m not interested in you. Now, outside of work, please leave me alone.”

  Javier stared at me for a long moment and then nodded curtly. “Fine,” he said, turning away from me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I looked up as Javier put his dinner tray down across from mine. He just couldn’t seem to take a hint.

  “Javier, I’m exhausted, and I’m in no mood to say what I’ve already told you a dozen times,” I snapped.

  Javier didn’t say a word as he dropped into the seat across from me, defiantly beginning to eat. He turned to Amy, who was sitting next to me, and started asking about her day. Amy gave me a look, clearly uncomfortable at getting caught in the crossfire.

  This wasn’t the first time it had happened in the three days since I’d told Javier that I wasn’t interested in him. I couldn’t tell if he thought that he could somehow get me interested in him again, or if he somehow didn’t realize how awkward he was making this whole project for me—and for everyone around us.

  I stood up abruptly, my appetite gone. I grabbed my tray and brought it over to the cleaning station, roughly scraping what I hadn’t eaten into the trash. I hated to do that—this village knew poverty all too well, and it felt like such a blatant display of wealth to be able to throw a
way the food I didn’t want. Still . . .

  I looked back towards the table where Javier was animatedly chatting with Amy, his eyes on me the whole time. There was no way I could spend another second there in the cafeteria.

  Things were strained between Javier and I, but at least—after explaining the situation to Jenna—we were no longer working together.

  What I couldn’t puzzle out was what was going on in Oliver’s head. He had remained distant, almost cold, over the past few days. It was like he had no recollection of that last night that we’d spent together . . . I wondered if he was mad at me about leaving. Or maybe he just wanted to keep his distance, since we were both there for work reasons . . . But he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would care about that.

  And what was he doing here, if not trying to impress me?

  Speak of the devil, as I walked out of the cafeteria, I saw Oliver coming toward me. He froze, staring at me for a moment, and then deliberately turned like he was going to go to the bathroom instead.

  “Oliver, wait!” I called, jogging down the path toward him. The village was quiet at this time of night. A lot of the volunteers had headed over to the next town to get beers—I’d actually thought Javier was with them or I would have finished my dinner a little quicker. And the villagers were gathered in their communal hall for their evening social event.

  Oliver paused reluctantly. “Ms. Boutelle,” he said formally. “Is there something I can help you with? Maybe you had an idea for a project that we can do here in the village?”

  I stared at him for a long moment, mouth slightly agape. It was one thing for him to ignore me when we were surrounded by my coworkers, who I guess were technically his staff. It was another thing entirely for him to continue to act like he didn’t know me when no one was around.

  I grabbed his arm and dragged him along with me to my tent, yanking him inside before he could protest. Then, I whirled on him, hands on my hips.

  “All right, what’s this about?” I asked him. “You came all the way down to Central Africa to ignore me? Are you just trying to drive me crazy or is this some weird way of showing that you’re over me?”

  “I needed to come down here to check on my project,” Oliver said, folding his arms across his chest. “You know that. My company is the reason this project even exists; I want to make sure everything is being carried out the way that we had planned ahead of time.” He paused. “Lucky for you, I should be out of your hair in the next day or two.”

  “Lucky for me?” I echoed, confused. What had happened to the Oliver that I had known in New York City? The one who had sent me all the flowers and taken me out on dates?

  “Well, I imagine I make your position with your boyfriend very uncomfortable,” Oliver said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

  “Javier isn’t my boyfriend,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Sure,” Oliver said. “Well, either way, your personal life is none of my business.”

  “But you care, don’t you?” I asked. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me all week? Because you came down here as some grand gesture to show me that you love me, only then you thought I was with Javier?”

  “I didn’t come down here as some grand gesture to show you that I love you,” Oliver said peevishly.

  “You could have fooled me,” I retorted. “Why else did you just happen to end up in the same place as me, at the same project site?”

  Oliver tapped his finger on his chin like he was considering. “Hmm, maybe because the aid world is relatively small?” he suggested sarcastically. “I bought the company that is nominally doing the hiring for this project ages ago. Actually, I signed the paperwork the same night of your dinner party. You know, the one where you threw me out at the end for being a selfish asshole?”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you really expect me to believe that?” I asked skeptically. “You didn’t care about those disaster victims at all when we saw the news about Argentina.”

  Oliver rolled his eyes. “That’s what you assumed,” he said. “Of course I cared, I just knew that there was nothing I could do about it just then, not until things had settled down a little. Then I threw every resource I had at the aid effort.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling silly. “But how did you just happen to buy out Javier’s company?”

  Oliver shrugged. “Again, the aid world is apparently small. How did you just happen to host a benefit dinner that my sister heard about?” He paused. “Look, I’ll admit that you’ve had a profound impact on me. You’re the reason that I got involved, the reason why I bought the company Javier is working for. On our first date, I told you that I really care about the projects that my money is going towards. You reignited my passion for work, something that has sadly been missing for a long time.”

  He paused. “You and I have pretty similar pasts,” he mused suddenly. “Both orphans. Both interested in helping people. I took the money that I already had and started investing it in different projects, and you were the one who went out to do those projects.” He paused. “I like this, though. I really get to see exactly who I’m helping, and what the money is going towards. I feel like I can help more people this way than I could if I were doing what you are doing—not only do I not have the skills that I’d need, but there are other people who could just do those jobs better.”

  I frowned, trying to puzzle through his words. Trying to figure out what those words had to do with the way that he’d been avoiding me since his arrival. But Oliver apparently wasn’t through.

  “The thing is, I’m never going to be a guy like Javier—the kind of guy who goes from aid project to aid project, laying bricks and digging wells and getting his hands dirty. I want to help, but that’s not the best way for me to do it. And if that’s the kind of guy that you’re looking for, then I’m never going to be the ‘perfect’ guy for you.”

  I stared at him. “I knew that,” I finally said. “I knew you weren’t the perfect guy for me. We’re too different.”

  “See?” Oliver said, throwing his hands in the air. “You think I’ve come all the way down here to beg for your love—and you don’t even care about me. I’m sick and tired of chasing you and never being good enough, Sophia.” He shook his head. “I can be myself—a better version of myself—because of you. But I’m still always going to be me. I’m glad that you’ve found someone like Javier, someone who’s more your type. Someone who isn’t too different from you. But you have to stop expecting me to act like we’re in a relationship when that’s clearly not something that you really want. That’s not fair to me.”

  I gaped at him. “That’s not what I meant,” I said weakly, even though I didn’t know how to refute his words.

  Oliver shook his head. “Like I said, I’ll be leaving soon enough, and then you can forget all about me,” he said. “Now, I think I should probably tell you good night.” He strode briskly from the tent.

  I stared after him, not sure what I was feeling. I wasn’t quite numb, but that was close. I just felt . . . shell-shocked, almost. I wondered if maybe I had been too hard on Oliver all this time. I’d spent so much time wanting him to be like Javier that I didn’t appreciate the man that he really was.

  He had always been kind to me, and I should have known that it went further than that. But I’d let myself be swayed by the things that Jeri and the media had to say about him. I didn’t appreciate that he could show selflessness in a way that was consistent with who he really was.

  And what’s more . . . It came as a shock to hear him say all those things about the effect that I’d had on him. How could I have never realized?

  I ran a hand through my hair. It’s because I never even gave him a chance to show me who he really was, I realized suddenly.

  I sank slowly down on the edge of my cot, thinking about that. I’d been so busy blaming Oliver and our differences this whole time that maybe I hadn’t realized that I was the one who was really sabotaging the relationship from the start.r />
  I’d talk to him the next day, I resolved. Tell him about my feelings for him, ask if we could try again.

  But no, that’s silly, I realized. He said he’s only going to be here for one more day; you can’t try a relationship with him, even if you wanted to.

  I swallowed hard, realizing that I had no doubt lost my chance. Still, I should at least apologize.

  With that thought in mind, I lay down and let sleep claim me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In my dream, Oliver and I stood out on the balcony of the one bar in town, sipping beers and looking out over the quiet streets below. “I’ve missed you,” Oliver said quietly, smiling over at me.

  I felt a fluttering in my chest, and I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. Oliver groaned and turned towards me, wrapping his arm around my waist. The kiss was tender and gentle, not the frantic kiss borne out of weeks of frustration and chastity that I might have expected. Oliver’s hand gently rubbed at my lower back but made no move to slide up under my shirt—which was probably for the best given our current location.

  After a long moment, he pulled away and nuzzled against my cheek. For a moment, I stayed close to him, drinking in his masculine scent. His warm touch, that spicy aftershave, it was the same no matter where I met him, whether we were in New York or Africa. It made it feel as though time had stopped, as though I could just stay here in this moment—or there in the moments that we’d had before—for as long as I wanted. Forever, if it suited me.

  My eyes slowly drifted open, and I shifted uncomfortably, embarrassed by the dream even though no one knew about it but me.

  Oliver was gone. He had vanished just as suddenly as he had arrived, carried away in his helicopter. The only sign that he’d even been there, really, was the flattened grass where the chopper had come down.

  I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to him, to apologize.