Chapter 5
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, plans went awry in a wonderful way.
Olivia smiled in bed, early morning, Kate curled up naked with all her softness squished against her. Yum.
Last night had been one such occasion, with very nice sex. She grinned, because it had been a lot of very nice sex. Later, when Zoe was back, they’d all fallen straight to sleep and Zoe had barely moved, clearly tired after a full evening with the grandmums.
Yes, she’d intended tentatively starting a conversation with Kate, and it had gone deliciously off track, Kate responding to her touch and murmuring to stay home in bed.
Olivia was only human. She smiled some more. And also not so rigid that she came undone when plans didn’t go perfectly.
Like at work, for example. Her carefully controlled, tranquil office hosted divorce clients, an arena where they unloaded their messy problems. Poof. Like an explosion. But within the confines of their booked slot and that room. Then Olivia tidied up their lives for them.
And she managed family life as organised chaos. Take now, for instance, later in the morning, often her time with Bea when Harry dropped off the kids. Who knew what they’d want, when they arrived home. But that was Olivia's plan – do whatever Bea wished.
Today Bea wanted to rearrange the Christmas tree in the kitchen. Because apparently it didn't look like last year’s. Bea grabbed Kate’s phone, scrolled to a picture, terrifying adept with phones already, and showed Olivia the evidence.
Last year’s did indeed look a neater, more balanced arrangement.
Kate gazed at Bea with incomprehension, then at Olivia, pleading for understanding.
Olivia shrugged and said, “That’s a perfectly reasonable request.”
And, to Kate’s obvious relief, Olivia and Bea set about carefully removing the decorations, unravelling the Christmas lights, then redecorating the entire Christmas tree. Bea was particularly good at handling the baubles and kept them organised.
They stepped back to assess their progress, a tiny frown between Bea’s blonde eyebrows. Blue eyes scanned the tree, then a small smile replaced the frown. Her hand took Olivia’s and they gazed some more at the tree.
Bea was right, this would be an altogether more pleasing arrangement. And Olivia felt that satisfying glow when things slotted together and became more harmonious.
Changes and not going to plan was a part of life, people said. True. But that's when Olivia replanned.
She had a clearer vision in mind now and would start work on it on Monday.
She held Bea’s hand and looked over her shoulder, seeking Kate and wanting to gaze at her.
Oh, Kate smiled at her, sitting at the kitchen table with Harry. She felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps because she still had this secret. But she looked back again, because she loved Kate gazing at her like that.
***
Sigh.
How beautiful was Olivia. Kate tried not to appreciate her audibly.
Harry sipped coffee around the corner of the kitchen table, part of their usual handover and notes-swap about the kids.
They watched Olivia and Bea, whose heads tilted to the same side, assessing the tree.
Harry smiled and shook his head. “I swear our Bumble Bea is more like Olivia than either of us.”
Kate sniffed out a laugh. It was true.
Cool, chic, Oxford-educated lawyers would never have been top of Kate's list if she’d been told to describe a partner who’d fit in with her complicated life and complicated kids.
But here they were. Kate hopelessly in love.
And Bea with a very understanding role model who intuitively understood her.
Kate leant on the table as she watched the pair, spinning the colourful mood ring on her little finger. How the hell did she get so lucky, after making a phenomenal mess of her personal life, to land on her feet and be happy like this?
This life was nothing like the marriages she’d had.
This life had a solid foundation. A partner she adored with full trust and without reservation.
A partner who was a human being with her own particular needs, and who Kate wanted to support forever.
She fiddled with that ring on her finger, round and round.
She felt watched.
Kate cast her eye to the side and caught Harry smirking over the edge of his coffee cup, the froth clinging to the auburn moustache he’d grown for a theatre role. His blue eyes twinkled, and she recognised mischief when she saw it.
“What?” she growled.
Eyebrows up, silly bottom lip curved down. Shrugging his broad shoulders. Full of something. Bloody actors knew how to ham these things up. She did exactly the same.
“So,” he started. “Are you going to propose?”
Shit.
“God no. What? No.” Fuck. “Why would you ask that?!”
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.
“Bugger off,” she said. And she closed the door on his stupid laugh.
Kate padded down the stairs into the kitchen and stopped at the sight of the Christmas tree, now perfect and balanced. And something else that undeniably worked – Bea holding Olivia’s hand while they checked over their work.
A feeling bloomed in her chest. A longing.
The silly thing was, now that they were together, and despite all the chaos and bad experience in the past, maybe she did want to marry Olivia.