The dream was always the same: I sat there on my flight to Africa, watching out the window as the New York City skyline retreated behind me. We rose high up in the air above the water. There were never very many details; it was just this flash of watching the city disappear that stuck with me night after night. All I could think of, every morning upon waking, was how flying dreams were supposed to be such a good thing, but instead, every time I woke up from them, I just couldn’t help thinking about everything that I’d left behind.

I couldn’t help but remember the vulnerability in Oliver’s voice on that last morning in New York, when he’d asked me to stay. And I still left . . .

To come here . . .

I sighed and sat up, disentangling myself from the mosquito net and climbing out of bed. We were off in the backwoods of Central Africa, working on a project of building houses and wells for a small community that had suffered at the hands of one of the neighboring tribes. I knew that the work we were doing was meaningful, but I just couldn’t seem to relate to any of the people in the village—not least of which because only one of them had a very limited grasp of English. The rest couldn’t communicate with us at all beyond hand gestures.

It wasn’t just my lack of connection with the project that was getting to me, though. In fact, I had a feeling there were other factors in my life that contributed to my inability to make this project mean something to me.

Things between Javier and I had started out great. But over the course of the month that we’d spent together, I had started to realize that I just wasn’t interested in him, for all that I thought I should be. He was . . . dull, to be honest. Predictable. He cared about helping people, but that was really all that he had to talk about. He didn’t have any other interests or passions; he didn’t have time for hobbies. He went to work and worked all day. When work was done, he might go for a beer. Then he would go back to his tent and go to sleep, and the next morning, he would wake up and do the same thing all over again.

When you weren’t part of the project that he was working on, I was sure what he had to say was interesting. I had enjoyed hearing about his projects in Central Asia, after all. But now I felt as though I’d heard all the stories a dozen times, and I didn’t need to hear them again.

I swallowed hard and pulled my hair up into a messy ponytail, getting myself ready for the day.

“What’s on the agenda for today?” I asked Javier as we moved through the breakfast line.

Javier pursed his lips, looking unhappy. “Same as yesterday, for you and I. But apparently our new benefactor has decided to come here to check up on our progress.”

I blinked at him in surprise. “Our new benefactor?” I asked. This was the first I was hearing about that.

“You know, the guy from the company that bought mine,” Javier said impatiently. “Their CEO or whoever. Apparently itemized lists of what we’re buying and what projects we’re completing aren’t enough for him; he has to come down here and see things for himself.”

“What’s so bad about that?” I asked, still not understanding what Javier was upset about. “I mean, the guy is pouring quite a bit of money into these projects, isn’t he? And maybe he’s really interested in what we’re doing. Maybe he’ll even want to pitch in a little.”

Javier scoffed. “Pitch in?” he asked incredulously. “You can’t really believe that some rich guy would want to do that. I mean, he might pretend to pitch in, pose for a couple photos and shake some hands. But any guy with millions of dollars to throw around isn’t going to get his hands dirty building houses with us.”

I had to assume that Javier was probably right.

“He probably isn’t even coming here to just inspect the work,” Javier said, lowering his voice. “He’s probably got some high-brow ideas of how we should be doing things. He’ll put us weeks behind schedule with his stupid ideas that he read about in some book, mark my words.”

I had to hide a smile as we sat down at one of the communal tables to eat.

To make the situation worse, I still couldn’t stop thinking about Oliver. He was the one constant, relentless, subject of my thoughts, and I couldn’t shake him off. I wondered how he was doing, if he was with some new girl now. I wondered if he sent flowers to her at her office, and if they had been on their second or third date yet.

I compared the two of them incessantly: Javier and Oliver. Javier was a hard worker, and I still could never imagine Oliver working on a project like this. But Javier was predictable, even when he’d finally made a move on me. Oliver had always kept me guessing, had always kept me interested. I had lied to myself, that final morning when I’d gotten up at dawn to go pick up my suitcases and go to the airport: I’d told myself that all Oliver and I had was physical chemistry—that it was nothing else.

Still, I knew that old saying, that opposites attract. It had certainly been that way for my parents. I had started to think that maybe it was a good thing that Oliver and I butted heads the way that we did. Maybe that was why I couldn’t seem to get interested in Javier: because we were just too alike.

Not that I was considering starting anything with Oliver. We might be opposites, but we wanted different things too.

I now had had time to analyze every conversation, every date that I had ever had with him. I was starting to realize that part of why he frustrated me was because no matter how different his worldview was to mine, I couldn’t help being interested in him, wanting to hear all about his thoughts and beliefs, wanting to find a way to mesh them with mine.

It was too late to be thinking about things like that, though. I had ruined any chance that I had had with him.

After breakfast, I walked toward the makeshift bathrooms that we’d built, intending to brush my teeth before getting started with the day. I froze in surprise, shading my eyes to stare up at the helicopter coming in for a landing in the open dirt close to the village. That’s strange, I thought. It wouldn’t be supplies coming in—those came in on trucks that rattled over the unpaved roads. The volunteers came in similar vehicles.

That meant there were two options. The first was that this was a medical evacuation helicopter. It wasn’t painted to look like one, but then again we were in the middle of nowhere. As I took a look around the village, everyone else seemed just as surprised, and there was no one bustling towards the makeshift helipad with some injured soul on a stretcher or anything. I should have heard something over the radios if there was a problem.

The only other option . . .

My mouth twisted. I thought back to Javier’s disdain for this CEO who thought they could come in and check up on our project, as though they might have any idea what they were doing. If the guy had flown in in a helicopter, he clearly was totally out of his depth.

And what a stupid, ostentatious display of wealth, I thought, shaking my head. Showing up in a helicopter to a village where people were lucky enough to have clean water.

I stayed watching for a moment longer as the pilot touched down and the chopper blades spun to a stop. As the passengers hopped out, I went to brush my teeth, subconsciously having decided to turn my back on these newcomers.

“ . . . and over here we have our bathroom facilities—newly built, with running taps thanks to a rainwater collection pail . . .” Jenna, our site supervisor, was telling the newcomer as I finished up my morning routine. I wondered why she was even bothering to take him on a tour of the village, but I supposed she was probably just trying to keep him happy so that money continued coming in for our project.

I rolled my eyes—but spat out my mouthwash as I heard the rich guy talk: “Sounds like there have been a lot of changes, even in the last week,” he said approvingly.

Something about that deep voice, those rounded vowels . . .

I spun around quickly, gaping at the man dressed in dark blue slacks and a business shirt, rolled up to his elbows. He looked totally out of place in this setting, but he was far too familiar to me.

“Oliver?” I asked in surprise.

Oliver turned to face me, his expression guarded.

Jenna rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, it’s the wonder-boy, Oliver Lewin. Sophia, you didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who was interested in gossip.”

I blinked at her and burst out laughing, realizing she must think I was just another of his fangirls. I shook my head. “Oliver and I know one another from back home,” I told her. “He donated a decent amount of money to Le Monde Ensemble, money that we were able to put to good use in Argentina.”

“Oh,” Jenna said, looking vaguely embarrassed at having jumped to conclusions.

I shook my head, still wondering if I was dreaming or something. But even in my dreams, I don’t think I could have imagined Oliver arriving in Africa. “Oliver, what are you doing here?” I asked.

Oliver gave me a mild look. “I came to inspect how my investments were being utilized,” he said coolly, his tone not even hinting at the fact that we’d known one another before.

I frowned. “Your investments?” I asked. “You’re the one who bought Javier’s company?”

Oliver just shrugged and turned back to Jenna, as though our conversation was over.

“A helicopter?” I couldn’t resist asking. “Was that really necessary?”

Oliver turned back to me, staring for a long moment. For a second, I thought I saw the hint of a smile on his face. “My jet was in the shop,” he said. Then all the humor drained from his face, and he turned away again.

I couldn’t stop staring at him, unable to believe my eyes. I couldn’t think of the first thing to say to him—and I had to remind myself that we were still in a very public space. A public working space. Same thing as back in New York, I couldn’t let my relationship with him—whatever it might be—interfere with my work. I couldn’t make a scene here.

But I was curious. Javier had mentioned that his company had been bought way back when we were in Argentina. Had Oliver somehow been scoping out the competition from afar? Was he still doing all of these crazy things, pretended that he was interested in what I was doing, just to get my attention? Did he really think that was the way to win my heart?

Instead, I just found him . . . distracting, to be honest. For the rest of the day—after Jenna gave me a meaningful look and led Oliver off for the rest of his tour—all I could think about was how distracting Oliver was.

“Sophia!” Javier snapped for what must have been the fifth time that day.

I jolted, and looked down at my hands, realizing that the amount of gravel I’d dumped out was way more than we needed. I flushed, feeling my ears burn. “Sorry,” I mumbled, setting the bag down on the ground and starting to scoop gravel back into it.

“Where has your head been today?” Javier asked, shaking his own. “You’re acting totally scatterbrained. It’s not like you.”

I shrugged, but my guilty eyes looked over at Oliver, who was jotting something down on a clipboard as he watched a few men working on the framework of what would become the village school.

“Him?” Javier asked incredulously. He tossed his shovel to the side for a moment, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s been pretty obvious that there was someone else in the picture this whole time, but is Oliver Lewin really the guy that you’re pining after?”

“I’m not pining after him,” I said irritably, swearing as I scraped my knuckles on the gravel.

“Sure,” Javier said, sounding unconvinced. “How long has this been going on for?”

“Nothing’s going on,” I said petulantly.

“It sure doesn’t look like nothing,” Javier said, scowling at me. “Now, you really don’t seem like the kind of woman who is just so awestruck by Wonder Boy of the Year, so I assume it’s more than you just knowing him from back in New York?”

“Like I said to Jenna, he just donated a lot of money to Le Monde,” I said, shrugging and evading his eyes.

Javier was silent for a long moment, and I fought the urge to squirm.

After a moment, I threw my hands in the air. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Javier. I don’t think it’s any of your business anyway.”

“You don’t think it’s any of my business?” Javier shook his head. “So this is how you treat your guys, is it?” He ran a hand back through his hair. “I should never have brought you down here.”

“You didn’t bring me down here,” I snapped, incensed. “Javier, you may be the one who told me about the project, but I came down here on my own. We may have agreed that we wanted to . . . explore what we had, but you know that things aren’t working out between us. We’ve talked about this. I’m sorry, but I’m just not interested. I like working with you, but that’s it.”

“I just can’t believe that someone with your intelligence and skills would go out with a guy like that,” Javier said scornfully. “Why is he here, anyway? It can’t be because he suddenly cares about the plight of all these people.”

“He cares more about other people than you think! He donated a lot of money to Le Monde Ensemble,” I told Javier, even though I was surprised to find myself defending Oliver. “And to the relief effort in Argentina, separately. He may not have ever volunteered for a project like this before, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn't care. Anyway, you’re the person who said that you only really care about the people that you’re helping because you know their stories firsthand. Maybe the same is true for Oliver.”

“Except he doesn’t know their stories firsthand,” Javier snapped. “Even the people that he’s talked to, he doesn’t really know their stories. He can’t. At a certain level, he just can’t relate to them.” He sneered. “He flew in here on a private helicopter, remember?”

I couldn’t argue with that, as much as I might want to. I glanced over towards Oliver, only to find that he had vanished. I frowned, wondering where he had gone.

Javier laughed meanly. “I guess he really didn’t want to get into the middle of this,” he said. “Maybe he isn’t down here for you at all. Or maybe he’s just down here to remind you of what you can’t ever have.”

I tried not to let the hurt show in my face. I knew that someone like Oliver couldn’t possibly be interested in me—he was after some dumb, sexy bimbo with no personality and big tits. I didn’t know why that mattered so much to me, anyway. But I remembered what it had felt like to be out on a date with Oliver. What it felt like to have all of his attention on me. I’d felt . . . special.

I kind of hated that I had felt that way, but there it was.

Javier’s words cut a little too close to home, but there was something else in what he said that was more important. “Javier, there is no ‘this,’” I told him bluntly. “I’m not interested in you. Now, outside of work, please leave me alone.”

Javier stared at me for a long moment and then nodded curtly. “Fine,” he said, turning away from me.