41. Chapter Forty-One
“You ready for this?” I ask Oliver as we park in my parents’ driveway.
He looks through the windshield at their massive house. “Monthly dinners. Gotta follow the terms.”
“First one—and last one,” I say, and he grins at me before leaning over to steal a kiss.
A minute later, Kaitlyn answers the door, and I shake my head at her, grinning even wider. “You did not have to be here for this.”
“Are you joking? I wouldn’t miss it.”
I step in and pause. “Okay.” I take a deep breath. “Katie.”
Oliver slips his hand into mine and squeezes as Katie’s smile changes to one of acknowledgment. We’re making baby steps. It’s been a couple of weeks since I invited her to the party, and she’s dropped by a few times to hang out. Next week, she’ll take home Big Stripey—renamed Daisy Buchanan by my sister who, it turns out, is funnier than I remember. Katie is under strict orders to bring Daisy for visits with her brothers, Tuxie and Little Stripey, at Mrs. Lipsky’s house, and Tabitha and Smudge, who will be removed from Oliver’s house by nuclear detonation and nothing less. He won’t let anyone else adopt them.
We follow Katie into the living room, where my parents are seated.
“I’ll get drinks,” my dad says, rising from his armchair.
“No, don’t,” I say. “I have something to tell you first, and you can decide if you still want us here or not.”
“That sounds ominous,” my mother says, her voice dry. “You needn’t be so dramatic. Introduce us to your . . . husband.”
I lead Oliver to the sofa, and we take our seats. Katie sits in an accent chair and waits.
“This is Oliver Locke. We came to tell you we’re getting a divorce.”
My father studies both of us, his poker face giving away nothing. He’s used to being the most powerful person in a room, and it’s rare to see him tip his hand. I might be the only person who can ever get him to lose it now and then.
My mother puts the back of her hand to her throat and presses it in different spots the way she does before she’s about to announce some symptoms. “Your marriage of convenience is ending in a divorce? How shocking.”
I tighten my jaw. I gave myself a thorough pep talk before setting up this dinner, but they’re already getting under my skin.
“The reason might shock you,” Oliver says, smiling. Another gentle hand squeeze. You can do it.
I can do it. Can I do it without losing it? I glance over at Katie. She gives me an encouraging nod.
“I deserve my trust,” I tell them. “It has nothing to do with my marital status. But I know the terms. Oliver and I are divorcing because it turns out that we want to be together for real. And having this marriage for money is bad for relationship health. I’m paying it all back. I’ll access it when I’m thirty.”
“You’re giving back five million dollars?” my dad says.
“And all the strings.” I don’t say it sharply, but my mom flinches.
“And until then, what?” my dad asks. “You keep working as a cocktail waitress and gifting us ironic protest art?”
“No, Dad. I worked my last shift at Gatsby’s last night. I’m moving to a full-time position with Teak Heart.”
“She’s going to business school,” Katie adds. When my dad starts to look pleased about this, she adds, “What’s the name of that program, Madi? Something about sustainability?”
“Impact entrepreneurship,” I say. “Creating a business that is driven by a clear social purpose, but revenue generating, so that it’s sustainable.”
“Kind of sounds like that do-gooder stuff Dad would hate,” she says.
“It’s exactly like that,” I say.
“How are you going to pay for all this?” he asks.
“Loans that I pay off when I’m thirty. Look,” I say, moving to the edge of the sofa so I can emphasize my next point. “You have tried to dictate and control everything about my life. It hasn’t worked. It won’t work, and I hate it. Please stop.”
“You’re here to throw your money back in our faces and show us you’ve turned your sister against us too?” my mom asks. She’s gone pale, and the words are shaky.
“Yes to the money, no on Katie.” I keep my voice even.
“You know I’ve been opposed to the way we do business long before this,” Katie says. “Don’t try to manipulate her with that.”
I give her a grateful smile before turning back to my parents. “That’s all I wanted to say. I’ll have my bank do the wire transfers next week.” I stand, and Oliver stands with me. “From now on, I will not be guilted into a visit by your hypochondria, Mom. And Dad, you can’t come to any of my spaces without notice and permission. I won’t engage. The harder y’all push, the more I’ll retreat, and if that means no contact until our lawyers connect in four years to release the trust, that’s your choice. I’ve made mine.”
I nod at Oliver, and he turns to lead us from the room. We’ve nearly crossed the threshold when my dad says, “Wait.”
I stop and turn.
“You don’t need to pay back the trust.”
I shake my head. “I definitely do. No strings. Maybe they look benevolent to you, but they’re not.”
“I do have a condition,” he says. “But only one. And if you agree, I’ll tell the lawyers to release the entire thing to you now.”
“Gordon, we can’t—”
“It’s okay, Mom,” I say. “No deal, Dad.”
Before I can turn away again, he says, “Monthly dinners. That’s it. That’s the condition.”
I study him before I answer. “Why?”
He looks down at his pant leg and brushes at nonexistent lint. “Doesn’t matter.”
Disappointing but not surprising. “No, Dad.”
Oliver stops me as I turn away, resting a hand on my shoulder. “He took a baby step,” he says quietly.
I take a deep breath, eyes closed, and tell myself to act, not react. “No mandatory dinners,” I say.
There is a long silence as my parents exchange looks. My dad gives a slight nod, and my mom sighs.
“We agree,” she says. “You get your trust, no strings.”
Why does that, in its own weird way, feel like love? I shift my gaze to my dad.
He nods. “No strings.”
“Thank you. I will not be coming to mandatory monthly dinners.” They nod, and my mom looks sad. “I’ll come to dinner because I want to.”
She straightens, and my dad meets my eyes.
“I don’t know how often that will be,” I warn them. “But I hope that will be more and more often.”
Katie is grinning again. My mom gives a barely perceptible sniffle.
My dad nods. “We accept.”
“Good. See you maybe soon,” I say, and this time Oliver and I walk out.
He seems to sense that I’m not ready to talk on the drive home. After a simple “You did good, Madi,” we drive in quiet all the way back to the Grove.
We walk to his condo, and he opens the door for me, ushering me inside before he shuts it and leans back against it.
“I read an article that says it takes men an average of eighty-eight days to fall in love. That’s a little less than three months.”
My heart starts to pound. “Fascinating.”
“We’ve known each other almost three months.”
“We have.”
He pushes away from the door to walk over and stand in front of me. “The data is wrong though.”
He’s so close I have to look up to meet his eyes.
“It truly only took me a day,” he says. “I love you, Madison Leigh. You are extraordinary.”
I reach up to cup his face and run my thumb across his cheek. It’s terrain I explore daily, and I’ll never get tired of it. “How long does it take women to fall in love?”
“Almost four-and-a-half months.”
“Hmm. Longer than men. That sounds right.”
“Unfortunately,” he says with an easy smile. He’s so very good about letting me be where I need to be.
“It’s still off-base though. It only took me one.” I slide my hands around his neck. “One month to fall, and another one to figure it out. But Oliver Octavian Locke, I love you too.”
A soft thump lands on our feet, and we both look down to see Smudge sitting on them.
Oliver laughs and crouches to scratch her head. “You too, Smudgie. You too.”
She gives a satisfied purr and darts away to play with her siblings.
Then Oliver pulls me into his arms and proves he knows exactly how to make me purr too.