Page 117 of Betting on the Brainiac

He’s asking for a leap of faith. He’s asking me to trust the friendship we built. He’s asking me to trust the kiss that happened before my dad yelled at me and Oliver’s startup funding fell apart.

I do know friendship. I have three of the best friends anyone could ask for outside, wishing as hard as they can for my happiness. And Oliver gave me true friendship before he ever needed my money. He gave me that mind-bending kiss before he ever needed my money.

I point to the hand representing the kiss.

He smiles and slides his hands back into his pockets. “About three days after I presented you with my idea, we got our funding. Turns out two of our employees have been sitting on nest eggs, and they believe in what we’re doing so much that they decided to invest. We have what we need to get to our finish line.”

I wrinkle my forehead, trying to process that. “That means . . .”

“That means I never needed to marry you. I told Josh that before the wedding. Showed him the paperwork.”

I feel dizzy. “But . . . why marry me at all if you never needed the money?”

“Becauseyoudid, Madison. And I always want you to have what you need.”

“Enough to give up a year of your life when you didn’t have to.” I let the full weight of that sink in.

He gives a tiny shrug. “It actually screwed up the plan I’d been putting together to tell you about the mask and win you over as me. I knew I’d have to wait until the divorce because otherwise, how could either of us know what was real and what was circumstance? I thought if I could wait out the year, you might have enough time to decide you like me.”

That’s it. I’m in his arms, and he wastes no time kissing me in the sweetest welcome . . . but only for a moment. Within a single breath, heat flares between us. I slide my fingers into the back of his hair, needing him closer, and he takes the kiss deeper until . . .

My eyes fly open. “Oliver.”

“What,” he murmurs, pulling his mouth away with extreme reluctance. “I’m working on payback.” He drops kisses down the line of my jaw, but I’m still in a state of shock.

“Oliver.” I push against his chest.

He lifts his head and looks down at me, his eyes hazy with the wanting I feel all the way down to my soles. “What’s wrong?”

“My knees went weak.”

“Oh.” He gives a serious nod. “Kissing me made your knees go weak?”

“Yes.”

“That’s bad,” he says. “Do you know what it means?”

“Tell me.”

“That you’re in danger of falling for me as deeply as I’ve fallen for you.”

A thousand kittens tumble in my belly. Angelic bells ring. I have developed an incurable addiction to his kisses, and nothing about it—not one thing—scares me.

“How deep, Oliver? Show me.”

And he does.

Chapter Forty-One

Madison

“You ready for this?”I ask Oliver as we park in my parents’ driveway.

He looks through the windshield at their massive house. “Monthly dinners. Gotta follow the terms.”

“First one—and last one,” I say, and he grins at me before leaning over to steal a kiss.

A minute later, Kaitlyn answers the door, and I shake my head at her, grinning even wider. “You did not have to be here for this.”

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