This was the worst. The absolute worst.

“Everyone knows,” she blurted out as soon as the door closed behind her.

He studied her for a moment, looking puzzled. “Are you okay?”

“Everyone knows. About us.”

He cocked his head, crossing his arms over his chest. It had been barely a day since they’d last talked, but apparently long enough for Olive to have forgotten his . . . his presence. Or whatever it was that made her feel like she was small and delicate whenever he was around. “Us?”

“Us.”

He seemed confused, so Olive elaborated.

“Us, dating—not that we’re dating, but Anh clearly thought so, and she told . . .” She realized that the words were tumbling out and forced herself to slow down. “Jeremy. And he told everyone, and now everyone knows. Or they think they know, even though there’s absolutely nothing to know. As you and I know.”

He took it in for a moment and then nodded slowly. “And when you say everyone . . . ?”

“I mean everyone.” She pointed in the direction of his lab. “Those people? They know. The other grads? They know. Cherie, the department secretary? She totally knows. Gossip in this department is the worst. And they all think that I am dating a professor.”

“I see,” he said, seeming strangely unbothered by this clusterfuck. It should have calmed Olive down, but it only had the effect of driving her panic up a notch.

“I am sorry this happened. So sorry. This is all my fault.” She wiped a hand down her face. “But I didn’t think that . . . I understand why Anh would tell Jeremy—I mean, getting those two together was the whole point of this charade—but . . . Why would Jeremy tell anyone?”

Carlsen shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he?”

She looked up. “What do you mean?”

“A grad student dating a faculty member seems like an interesting piece of information to share.”

Olive shook her head. “It’s not that interesting. Why would people be interested?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “Someone once told me that ‘Gossip in this department is the wor—’ ”

“Okay, okay. Point taken.” She took a deep breath and started pacing, trying to ignore the way Carlsen was studying her, how relaxed he looked, arms across his chest while leaning against the conference table. He was not supposed to be calm. He was supposed to be incensed. He was a known dick with a reputation for arrogance—the idea of people thinking that he was dating a nobody should be mortifying to him. The burden of freaking out should not be falling on Olive alone.

“This is— We need to do something, of course. We need to tell people that this is not true and that we made it all up. Except that they’ll think that I’m crazy, and maybe that you are, too, so we have to come up with some other story. Yes, okay, we need to tell people we’re not together anymore—”

“And what will Anh and what’s-his-face do?”

Olive stopped pacing. “Uh?”

“Won’t your friends feel bad about dating if they think we’re not together? Or that you lied to them?”

She hadn’t thought of that. “I— Maybe. Maybe, but—”

It was true that Anh had seemed happy. Maybe she had already invited Jeremy to accompany her to that movie festival—possibly right after telling him about Olive and Carlsen, damn her. But this was exactly what Olive had wanted.

“Are you going to tell her the truth?”

She let out a panicked sound. “I can’t. Not now.” God, why did Olive ever agree to date Jeremy? She wasn’t even into him. Yes, the Irish accent and the ginger hair were cute, but not worth any of this. “Maybe we can tell people that I broke up with you?”

“That’s very flattering,” Dr. Carlsen deadpanned. She couldn’t quite figure out if he was joking.

“Fine. We can say that you broke up with me.”

“Because that sounds credible,” he said drily, almost below his breath. She was not sure she’d heard him correctly and had no idea what he might mean, but she was starting to feel very upset. Fine, she had been the one to kiss him first—God, she’d kissed Adam Carlsen; this was her life; these were her choices—but his actions in the break room the day before surely hadn’t helped matters. He could at least display some concern. There was no way he was okay with everyone believing that he was attracted to some random girl with one point five publications—yes, that paper she had revised and resubmitted three weeks ago counted as half.

“What if we tell people that it was a mutual breakup?”

He nodded. “Sounds good.”

Olive perked up. “Really? Great, then! We’ll—”

“We could ask Cherie to add it to the departmental newsletter.”

“What?”

“Or do you think a public announcement before seminar would be better?”

“No. No, it’s—”

“Maybe we should ask IT to put it on the Stanford home page. That way people would know—”

“Okay, okay, fine! I get it.”

He looked at her evenly for a moment, and when he spoke, his tone was reasonable in a way she would never have expected of Adam “Ass” Carlsen. “If what bothers you is that people are talking about you dating a professor, the damage is done, I’m afraid. Telling everyone that we broke up is not going to undo the fact that they think we dated.”

Olive’s shoulders slumped. She hated that he was right. “Okay, then. If you have any ideas on how to fix this mess, by all means I am open to—”

“You could let them go on thinking it.”

For a moment, she thought she hadn’t heard him correctly. “W-What?”

“You can let people go on thinking that we’re dating. It solves your problem with your friend and what’s-his-face, and you don’t have much to lose, since it sounds like from a . . . reputation standpoint”—he said the word “reputation” rolling his eyes a little, as if the concept of caring about what others thought were the dumbest thing since homeopathic antibiotics—“things cannot get any worse for you.”

This was . . . Out of everything . . . In her life, Olive had never, she had never . . .

“What?” she asked again, feebly.

He shrugged. “Seems like a win-win to me.”

It so did not, to Olive. It seemed like a lose-lose, and then lose again, and then lose some more, type of situation. It seemed insane.

“You mean . . . forever?” She thought her voice came out whiny, but it was possible that it was just an effect of the blood pounding in her head.

“That sounds excessive. Maybe until your friends are not dating anymore? Or until they’re more settled? I don’t know. Whatever works best, I guess.” He was serious about this. He was not joking.

“Are you not . . .” Olive had no idea how to even ask it. “Married, or something?” He must have been in his early thirties. He had a fantastic job; he was tall with thick, wavy black hair, clearly smart, even attractive looking; he was built. Yeah, he was a moody dick, but some women wouldn’t mind it. Some women might even like it.

He shrugged. “My wife and the twins won’t mind.”

Oh, shit.

Olive felt a wave of heat wash over her. She blushed crimson and then almost died of shame, because— God, she had forced a married man, a father, to kiss her. Now people thought that he was having an affair. His wife was probably crying into her pillow. His kids would grow up with horrible daddy issues and become serial killers.

“I . . . Oh my God, I didn’t— I am so sorry—”

“Just kidding.”

“I really had no idea that you—”

“Olive. I was joking. I’m not married. No kids.”

A wave of relief crashed into her. Followed by just as much anger. “Dr. Carlsen, this is not something you should joke—”

“You really need to start calling me Adam. Since we’ve reportedly been dating for a while.”

Olive exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Why would you even— What would you even get out of this?”

“Out of what?”

“Pretending to date me. Why do you care? What’s in it for you?”