Yes, Olivia was prepared to help Chase because she understood too well all the emotions that battered the actress.

If only she had had a plan years ago when Marley had suffered through addiction. But she hadn’t. Olivia had been in college, only a junior when Marley had started casually smoking weed and drinking too much. Olivia had chalked it up to being a young adult, but Marley had moved on to other drugs—pills and heroin.

Olivia had started college thinking she’d follow in her father’s footsteps, molding young minds in the classroom, but decided after Marley’s first near overdose that she could be better used helping others examine their lives, acknowledge their pasts, and then build, change, and grow. Marley had set her on the path she was on, and yeah, she had her own issues she liked to avoid. Her career had become the center of her life, taking precedence over her personal life. Her mistakes defined her like any other person, and likewise, she avoided the things that hurt, the people who reminded her of what she could have changed.

Here lately Olivia flirted with . . . not really depression, but bouts of discontent. She wondered if she’d let her own ugly wounds go unattended for too long. Maybe that’s why she’d pulled away from Cedar Point with Chase next to her.

She shielded her eyes and scanned the beach for Chase, wishing she’d grabbed her sunglasses.

“Hey,” said a voice behind her.

She’d heard that voice in her dreams, but it had been so long since she’d heard it in reality.

Olivia couldn’t recall how long it had been since she’d seen Conrad, but turning to see him standing there in the flesh caused her stomach to wobble and her pulse to speed up. She would rather have had time to prepare herself for seeing him again.

“Con,” she said, stilling her nerves and giving him a soft smile. “You startled me.”

Conrad flashed those almost too white teeth. “Sorry. The waves are noisy.”

An awkward pause hung between them, the only sound the crashing waves and the occasional screech of a seagull. Olivia felt an itch between her shoulders, that old familiar guilt, longing, sadness that had sat between them for too long.

“What brings you all the way out here?” she asked, suppressing the urge to smooth her hair and lick her lips. Conrad hadn’t always made her nervous, but the man standing in front of her didn’t look like the boy she’d hung out with in high school.

That Conrad Santos had also exuded energy, as evident in his constant motion, but he’d been unpolished and so rough around the edges one would likely get a splinter. Their teachers used to say it was fidgeting, but Olivia knew it was the result of his synapses constantly firing with absolute brilliance. The guy had too many genius ideas, too much to learn and do, too much of the world to conquer. All that drive had to have an outlet, so even when still, Conrad always tapped, ran his hands through his inky hair, his gaze fixed on the distance with a study of determination on his handsome face.