“I wasn’t the one who walked away,” she protested. “I enjoyed our arrangement.”
“Let me guess—the bastard wanted more than phone calls interspersed with the occasional booty call.” Ashley looked at Jessica, who nodded.
“I bet he had the gall to want a relationship. You know, that scary thing where you actually make time to see each other. Go out in public together.” Jessica looked down at Tabby and then over at Olivia. “I bet he even wanted you to spend time with his daughter.”
“This isn’t funny,” Olivia muttered, awash with guilt and shame. “I’m not proud of what I did, how I hurt him. But I warned him I was terrible at this. I... I can’t be the woman he needs.” Damn, she felt the sting of tears.
“Are you sure about that?” Jessica gave her a long, searching look. “Because the way I’ve seen him look at you, you’re exactly who hewants,Liv. The question is, are you prepared to try and make it work?”
“I don’t know.” She prided herself on being a fiercely independent woman who was not afraid of anything. Yet in this one thing, she was terrified. “I didn’t enjoy this week. I kept thinking of things I wanted to tell him, then I’d remember he wouldn’t be phoning.” Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes and she had to work hard to keep her voice even. “When I was seeing him, I cocked up a meeting because I was distracted thinking about him. This week I cocked up two meetings because I was thinking how miserable I feltnotseeing him, so I’m screwed either way.”
“You know what I think?” Ashley said carefully, looking her straight in the eye. “I think the work-distraction thing is only part of the story. You’re also scared of hurting Connor like you did the other guys you dated. But you’re forgetting that, unlike them, Connor has a life outside you. He has adaughter. He’s not going to care if you have to cancel at the last minute or if you can only see him at the weekend because he has another priority too.”
“He said he was falling in love with me.” Her voice cracked as she recalled the anguish on his face as he’d laid himself bare in front of her. “I don’t know how to cope with that. It’s crazy even thinking I could date a guy who has a daughter when I’ve never particularly wanted children. Even if that changed, he’s ten years younger, so he’s going to want to add to his family, and my ovaries are withering away as we sit here. Plus I’m far too staid, too driven, too sensible for him, and he’s too wild, impulsive, and disorganized for me. We’re all kinds of wrong for each other. We’d drive each other mad.”
“Or you’d balance each other,” her mum said quietly. “Complement each other. It’s a sound basis for a relationship.”
Olivia looked at her in surprise. “You can say that after what you had with Dad?”
Her mum looked confused at her tone but didn’t argue. She never did.
Not for the first time, Ashley filled in the silence. “I’ve never heard you sound happier than you have these past few weeks, Liv. Youdeservehappiness. Don’t focus on what can go wrong, focus on what feels right.”
“I’ll think about it.” She pushed her whirling thoughts aside and turned her attention to the little girl cooing contentedly on the floor.
It was Sunday morning. Nine days since he’d walked away from Olivia.
And his life wasn’t getting any better.
Connor knew his mood would be improved if he didn’t see her face every time he closed his eyes. Didn’t think of her every minute of every blasted day. Didn’t carry around a ton of regrets about ending it and another ton of doubts about whether he’d done the right thing. Pride. It was one of the seven deadly sins, wasn’t it? And what good was his pride when he was fucking miserable?
It would help if Ellie, his gorgeous, spirited, sunny-natured daughter, wasn’t sitting at the kitchen table wearing a giant pout.
“But you promised I could go riding today.”
“I didn’t. I said I’d see if I could arrange it.” But he hadn’t because he’d been too pathetically brokenhearted to get his act together.
She huffed. “Emily is going to be way betterer than me now, and it’s all your fault.”
With that, she grabbed the box of Rice Krispies, threw it on the floor, and stomped out of the kitchen.
He started to go after her but was swamped by a paralyzing guilt that left him rooted to the spot. Ellie didn’t throw tantrums, not as a rule. He’d known for weeks that her best friend had started lessons, but his head had been so full of Olivia he’d forgotten to organize them for Ellie. She had even reminded him last Saturday, a day when he’d been too unhinged to do anything about it, his mind on a continual loop: Olivia was ashamed to be seen with him. His parents were ashamed of him. Amy hadn’t wanted to be associated with him.
Was he really that fucking embarrassing? That much of afailure?
He dragged his mind back to now and scanned the kitchen. Cereal was scattered across the floor. Dirty breakfast bowls and mugs were on the worktop because the dishwasher hadn’t been emptied yet. A laundry basket of dirty clothes was still waiting to go into the washing machine because the last lot needed to be taken out and hung on the clothesline... because the tumble dryer had given up on them two weeks ago and he couldn’t afford to replace it. A glance through to the living room revealed a carpet strewn with plastic horses from Ellie’s show-jumping set, a sofa littered with coloring books and colored pens, and debris from last night’s pizza treat that he’d forgotten to clear up. In the hallway, Ellie’s scooter lay abandoned along with her shoes and boots.
Fuck, hewasan embarrassment. No wonder Olivia hadn’t wanted a relationship with him outside the comfort of her immaculate city apartment.
He heaved a sigh and went to fetch the dustpan and brush. As he swept up the cereal, his phone rang, the kitchen echoing with the familiar Taylor Swift song “Shake It Off” and making his chest ache. Ellie had set it up. She didn’t have a phone, but she’d learned how to do it from her friend Emily, who of course did have one. Trust his daughter to make friends with a girl whose wealthy parents showered her with gifts—foreign holidays, riding lessons for the horse she was getting next year, a mobile phone even though eight was surely too young to have one.
He snatched the phone from the worktop and caught sight of the caller ID. His heart jumped into his throat. “Livvy?”
“Hi.”
She sounded hesitant, not a word he’d ever associated with her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” A pause. “Is now a good time?”
