OLIVIA’S POV
The car ride home was quiet.
Not the comfortable quiet of the drive back from the Thompson event. Not the easy silence of two people who had finished a long evening and were simply resting in it.
This was different.
This quiet had something in it. Something that had walked out of that gala with us and gotten into the car and settled between us without asking permission.
I looked out the window.
The city moved past in its nighttime version. Lights and dark and the occasional flash of something bright and then gone. I watched it without really seeing it.
My mind was still in the room. Still on the handshake. Still on Jaden’s jaw and Adrian’s smile and the specific way two people could stand three feet apart and make a room feel dangerous.
Jaden had not spoken since we
