Page 31 of The Law of Attraction
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Yes, he’d sort of asked for it, but she’d gone too far. Surely he hadn’t wanted that much honesty?
This was exactly why she worked so hard at pretending to be nice. Because she wasn’t a very nice person when she let her real personality peek through.
Adam nodded slowly, like he was taking her words in, and Olivia braced herself for his reaction. When it came, it wasn’t at all what she expected.
“You’re right. Those are things I’ll try to work on in the future.” He said it mildly, without a trace of resentment. She might as well have told him his shoe was untied for all the emotion it seemed to have provoked.
“Seriously?” She stared at him in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s your only reaction?” He really was a robot.
The look he threw her way was utterly guileless. “Yes.”
“You’re not offended? Or hurt? Or the slightest bit upset?”
“No.” His shoulder lifted in a small shrug. “Everything you said was true—from your perspective at least. It wasn’t said with malice, so why should I be upset?”
Guilt stabbed through her. “There was maybe a little malice.”
“No there wasn’t. You’re not a malicious person.” There was that guilelessness again. She didn’t understand how he could be so abrasive one second and so utterly sincere the next.
“You don’t know me well enough to know that.”
“I know you well enough to know you’d never hurt someone on purpose.”
She shook her head at how wrong he was. He had this idea that she was some meek, sweet little thing, and she needed to disabuse him of it for both their sakes. “I thought it would hurt you when I said those things, but I did it anyway.”
“I explicitly told you it wouldn’t.”
“But I didn’t believe you. Part of me wanted to hurt you, because you’d hurt me.”
“Telling someone the truth isn’t hurting them.”
“Sometimes it is.”
“I don’t accept that,” he said with a vehemence that surprised her.
“You’ve never been hurt by the truth?”
“Not as much as I’ve been hurt by lies.” There was something in his voice when he said it—a rawness, as if she’d touched on a wound that wasn’t quite healed.
She wanted more than anything to know what had happened to leave him so sensitive on the subject of lies. Who had hurt him? But he didn’t seem like the type to open up about himself, and Olivia wasn’t enough of an asshole to prod a scar that was so obviously painful.
She kept all her questions to herself. “Sometimes it’s kinder to say nothing than to tell someone what you really think about them.”
He frowned and shook his head. “I think it’s more comfortable, but comfort isn’t necessarily kindness. If you’re withholding information that could help someone improve their life, is that really kindness? Or is it just contributing to a miserable status quo?”
“But who are you to judge whether or not someone’s miserable or their life needs improving? When some catcalling cheesedick on a street corner tells me I should smile more it makes me want to punch him into the sun, because who the fuck is he to weigh in on me or my life? Whether or not he thinks it’s true, it doesn’t give him the right to force his opinions on me.” It was possible she had strong feelings on this particular subject.
The corner of Adam’s mouth twitched in suppressed amusement. “Okay, but I’m not just some street corner cheesedick, am I? We have an established professional relationship. And you invited my opinion by asking for a reference. I’m sorry if you didn’t like what I had to say, but it’s unfair to expect me to lie just because you’ve put me on the spot.”
As much as she hated to admit it, she had to concede the point. “You’re right. I brought it on myself by asking you for a reference. But I didn’t ask for you to keep bringing it up over and over again. Because that feels like you’re throwing my failures in my face for sport.”
His forehead furrowed with deep creases, as if he were genuinely distressed she’d think that about him. “I really didn’t mean it that way. I was just trying to offer constructive criticism. I thought I was helping.”
She believed him, but she needed to make him understand that it wasn’t that simple for her. “It’s hard for me to hear constructive criticism when I’m not prepared for it. It’s too upsetting to be helpful.”
“I don’t understand that. Because you’re really smart, and you’re obviously ambitious, so I’d think you’d want to improve.”
His words sent a warm rush shooting through her, and she turned her face to the window to hide her smile. He thinks I’m smart.
