Did she mean them? Kate didn’t ever want to part from Olivia. But wasn’t that possible outcome positive too?
Kate blushed, hope coursing through her veins, and a lump blocking her throat.
“A divorce doesn't mean it was wrong to marry,” Olivia said.
A jolt through her heart.
“Some relationships run their course. People change together as well as grow apart. Doesn’t mean it was wrong to spend time with that person.”
Olivia continued in Kate’s silence.
“If I’d drifted apart from Charlotte, would that mean I should never have been friends with her. That would be silly.”
Kate nodded. Like her friend Maria, who didn’t regret being married, and still loved her ex, but was happier divorced.
“And otherwise how else would you know,” Olivia added.
“What?”
“If marriage worked long term, if you didn’t try.”
And the look on Olivia's face took her breath away. Her beauty. Her quiet understanding. The willingness to considerthe best for her clients. But most of all, the hint that perhaps she wanted to try.
It wanted to burst out of Kate's chest – What about us? Do you think about marrying me? Marry me.
All those things.
She held Olivia tighter.
“And erm...do you have clients who vow never to get married again?”
“Of course,” Olivia said matter of fact. “And, of course, they’re usually wrong, and I see them again to arrange a prenup for the next marriage.”
Kate grinned, heart bursting, and words leaping at her throat.
The temptation to stop right there, on a beautiful snowy night, and beg Olivia to marry her was huge.
Kate kept walking, legs jellying and feet numb in the cold night. She needed a ring if she was going to do this properly. No mistakes with this one. If she talked marriage, she wanted Olivia to know it wasn’t idle discussion, or to just spring it on her. And if Olivia turned to her, and wanted to get married all along, Kate would be there with conviction and solidity, and a token to seal it. No reservations.
If only she had a ring handy.
She kept walking, stealing glances at Olivia who must be cold, hand buried deep and stiff in her coat pocket.
They continued past the Gothic Natural History Museum. And a more comfortable silence settled as they fell into step and gazed at Oxford softening under snow, and turned to each other with gentle smiles and reassurance. They picked up Zoe, and the comfort between them grew another level.
They arrived home to the lights shining from the lower ground floor, Ralph already back from school, but Bea on a playdate.
Ralph stood up from the kitchen table when they came downstairs, towering above Kate. He’d grown wide rather than up more recently, shoulders broadening especially with working out.
“Can you help with my quadratics?” he said, deep voice booming around the room, and skipping anything like ‘hi, Mum’ as usual.
“Hmm?” Kate said. “Quadratics?”
Was that an exercise for a muscle group?
“Of course,” Olivia replied, stepping forward before Kate realised Ralph hadn’t addressed her anyway.
Olivia sat down next to him at the kitchen table with a spread of exercise books and laptop screen filled with numbers.
