But was she subconsciously mulling it over? Twirling her pinky ring and thinking of one for another finger. Damn him for spotting it.
She wanted Olivia to be the first to know if she ever considered it.
Harry sat up straighter and raised an eyebrow – remarkably like his impression of Olivia.
She kicked him under the table.
“What?!” he cried out. “The one person you should marry, you don't?!”
“Harry!” she whispered harshly.
But a glance down the long kitchen confirmed his words hadn’t carried and Olivia and Bea were hanging baubles with precision.
He crossed his arms and grinned. “Why though?”
“I’ve just got out of a terrible marriage, with Olivia representing me, which ended in the most catastrophic mess. It could have ended her career, and I could have lost the chance to be with the love of my life.”
Harry’s eyebrows shot high.
“She's the love of your life, you say?” reinforcing his point.
“Oh, shut up.” She nudged his shoulder.
She had good reasons. And Olivia would know that too. Marriage was so obviously off the cards, it went unsaid. Except now that Kate explicitly rejected it out loud...
“Look,” Kate said, deflecting her own thoughts. “Olivia sees the arse end of marriage every day at work with divorce cases. It’s not exactly conducive to wanting your own.”
“Does she say that?”
No. But...
“You should hear the stories and mess people get into. That’s the last thing she’d want for herself.”
He crossed his arms and considered her, without mocking this time.
“And yet, here she is, with you.”
That made Kate pause.
Because Olivia, knowing everything about Kate’s history, seeing it firsthand in the divorce case, had agreed to this messy, real life with Kate.
“Come on,” she said curtly, and stood up, uncomfortable at the conversation. “Shoo. Be gone.”
Harry laughed.
He got to his feet and strode over to give Bea a hug goodbye.
“Olivia.” Harry beamed, damn him.
“Mr Shaw,” Olivia responded in her precise RP, together with a neat nod.
Harry opened his mouth and cast a naughty look back at Kate. He better not play with titles and surnames in a riposte, because Kate saw the wheels turning in his head.
She dragged him away and tugged him up the stairs. He outright laughed by the time she showed him the front door.
“Seriously though,” he said, turning back to her at the bottom of the front steps. “I always said she’s perfect for you.”
He had, damn him. He saw right through Kate when it came to Olivia.
