Chapter 99: Date With Olivia I
When it settled against her collarbone he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her back gently.
She looked down at it, then up at him.
"You were beautiful on stage tonight," he said. "I wanted to give you something special. You worked so hard for this day, and I think you deserve something to remember it by."
Olivia’s eyes were doing what they’d done the morning after the hotel, that careful effort at composure that wasn’t quite winning. "You’re going to make me cry and I just fixed my makeup."
"Don’t cry then," said Sean. "Save it for after dinner."
She laughed despite herself, short and real, and took his hand, and they walked toward the restaurant together while James held the car door open, smiling quietly to himself in the way people smiled when they’d been part of something they were glad to have been part of.
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The Restaurant
James pulled the Rolls Royce up outside Meridian at nine fifteen, the restaurant’s entrance marked by nothing more than a single brass nameplate and a doorman who opened the car door before Sean had even reached for the handle.
Olivia stepped out and looked at the building. "This looks expensive," she said.
"It is," said Sean.
"How expensive," said Olivia.
"The good kind," said Sean.
She gave him a look that suggested she wasn’t entirely convinced those two things were the same, but took his arm anyway.
Inside, the maître d’ led them to their table immediately, a corner placement near the window, white linen, candles already lit, the kind of quiet that expensive restaurants cultivated deliberately. The room was about half full, the other guests moving and speaking in the particular unhurried way of people who hadn’t looked at a price in years.
The menus arrived. Leather bound. Heavy. The kind that announced themselves before you even opened them.
Olivia opened hers.
She looked at it for a long moment.
Then she looked at Sean over the top of it.
"Sean," she said.
"Yes."
"The cheapest thing on this menu is three thousand dollars."
"Yes," said Sean.
"For an appetizer," said Olivia.
"It’s a very good appetizer," said Sean.
Olivia set the menu down carefully, like it had personally offended her and she needed a moment before deciding what to do about that. "We should go somewhere else," she said. "There’s probably a good place two blocks down. Nice food, reasonable prices. We don’t need to—"
"Olivia," said Sean, gently.
"I’m being serious," she said. "This is too much. You don’t have to do this."
"I know I don’t have to," said Sean. "I want to. There’s a difference."
"Sean, three thousand dollars for one appetizer is—"
"Tonight is your night," Sean said. "I’ve been looking forward to this dinner ever since we agreed to go on this date. Let me handle it. Please."
Olivia looked at him for a long moment, the specific expression of someone weighing their pride against the unmistakable sincerity of the person across from them.
Then she picked the menu back up.
"Fine," she said. "But I’m ordering exactly what I want."
"That’s the entire point," said Sean.
She studied the menu seriously now, brow slightly furrowed, moving through it with the focused attention she brought to formation counts and setlists, and after a moment she pointed at something near the middle.
"What is this. Wagyu something with truffle something and a foam that costs more than my first paycheck from the agency."
"It’s excellent," said Sean.
"You’ve been here before?" said Olivia.
"I researched it," said Sean.
"You researched this place," she said, when the sommelier had gone.
"A little," said Sean.
"How much is a little," said Olivia.
"A few hours this afternoon," said Sean.
Olivia looked at him for a moment. "You spent a few hours researching a restaurant this afternoon."
"Yes," said Sean.
"Today," said Olivia. "Of all days. With everything you apparently had going on."
"The restaurant research was the priority," said Sean.
Olivia stared at him. "You’re telling me that finding the right restaurant was more important to you today than whatever enormous thing you’ve been dealing with for twelve days."
"Tonight was more important," said Sean simply.
She looked at him for a long moment, something shifting in her expression from teasing into something genuinely warmer underneath it.
"That’s either the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me or the most alarming," she said quietly.
"Why alarming," said Sean.
"Because it means you actually meant the twelve days," said Olivia. "Every single day of it."
"I told you," said Sean. "I don’t back out of things."
She looked at him for a long moment, something warm moving through her expression. Then she went back to the menu, more settled now, tracing her finger down the pages with genuine curiosity rather than the anxious price-checking of before.
"I’ll have the wagyu," she said finally. "And the scallop starter." She paused. "And possibly that dessert with the gold on it, which I am choosing entirely on the basis that I want to eat gold leaf at least once in my life."
"All of it," said Sean, to the waiter.
"And wine," said Olivia.
Sean ordered without looking at the wine list. Olivia noticed.
"You researched the wine too," she said.
"I was thorough," said Sean.
"You’re ridiculous," said Olivia, but she was smiling when she said it.
The sommelier departed. The restaurant settled around them, warm and quiet, and Olivia leaned her chin in her hand and looked at him the way she sometimes looked at him when she’d run out of reasons to look somewhere else.
"Tell me something I don’t know about you," she said. "Not the money, not the investments, not the things that make you seem impressive. Something real."
Sean considered the question seriously, which she seemed to appreciate.
"I can’t cook anything," he said. "Not a single thing. I’ve tried twice. Both times the smoke alarm went off. James no longer asks if I need groceries."
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Author Notes
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