She sniffed and covered her face and slipped down narrow Magpie Lane. She took out her phone to record if the guy followed, and lunged through the darkness, breathing hard. She broke out into Merton Street, alone in the dusk, and bent over to catch her breath and swipe at tears.
That desperate, short marriage was going to follow her the rest of her life. One big mistake that would overshadow the woman who had her whole heart and the love of her family. It was grotesque.
There wasn’t the language to describe Olivia and everything she meant in a single term, and that felt inadequate.
Sometimes there were no terms for the people who meant the most – dismissed as friends, acquaintances, colleagues, when they were integral to your life and happiness, and whose support you couldn’t survive without.
“Please no,” she gasped into the quiet of the ancient street.
Natalie would forever be her wife. And that made her feel sick. Then her stomach turned over again at another realisation.
What if Olivia had avoided saying this? What if clever Olivia, often two steps ahead of clients and friends and Kate, had already realised that ‘Kate’s wife’ would forever mean Natalie?
And tears flooded her eyes and chilled in the cold evening air.
Chapter 7
So, plan number two.
Olivia thrived on preparation, not winging it, shudder. She sat in her high-ceilinged office in Beaumont Street, her lawyer perspective firmly engaged to consider all the outcomes, rather than worrying about just one.
That was part of her job as a conscientious solicitor. And personally, it comforted her to know the worst-case scenario. It felt less out of control knowing the boundaries, as long as she didn’t hyperfocus on the worst, but still... Most of the time it worked.
Now to plan for the best-case scenario.
She wanted to marry Kate. There was no hiding that. And although Kate was level-headed and loving, with her feet on the ground, her family and past were complicated.
So, two things to consider:
First, a draft prenuptial agreement, a starting point to hand over to another lawyer, that considered Kate’s two children and their child together. She worked on that until dusk when she packed her briefcase and slipped into neat black trainers and a smart woollen coat and tied her scarf in a perfect knot.
And second...
Olivia smiled, softening as she padded down the stairs away from her office. That she wanted to give Kate a ring.
She slowed her pace as she stepped into lamp-lit Beaumont Street.
The enormous Christmas tree beside the columned entrance of the Ashmolean Museum scattered icy white light over the building as if covered in frost. Warmer lamps glowed from inside the Randolph Hotel on the opposite side of thestreet. The awning entrance to the grand hotel was threaded in wreaths, baubles and fairy lights and people laughed inside the cosy, low-lit restaurant and bar, sitting at tables beneath sparkling candelabras.
One week to Christmas and the whole city had a magic about it.
Sometimes she wondered if she was becoming as sentimental as her mother. This is what having young children and babies did to you. Not even an entire day as a detached and calculating lawyer seemed to erase it.
Going soft, Millie had accused her. And she’d cast Millie a withering glance, which received a laugh and a, “That’s the Olivia I know and love,” which earned another.
She had time to spare before picking up Zoe, and she turned right into the town centre, cutting past the Oxford Union building towards the high arcade entrance of the large shopping centre.
Oh god.
She hesitated. Bright and busy and noisy with Christmas shoppers with just a week to go. Rammed with them. Carollers too.
This was the trouble with Christmas. People.
She remained very much herself regarding this matter.
There was a lot to be said for buying a pile of books, late November, and not coming out again until January. She’d overheard a retired woman planning this at the counter of Blackwells, while handing over a beautiful stack to the bookseller. And everyone in the shop had looked toward her with a kind of longing.
With Kate’s kids as big readers, she could imagine all four of them and Zoe hibernating with books.
