26. Olivia
Olivia
The SUV turned into the driveway, and Olivia's heart jumped.
Mark's silver Porsche sat in its usual spot, angled carelessly, the familiar hood catching the morning sun. Her stomach clenched. She pressed her back against the seat and breathed.
Jim and Dan were here. The movers were here. She was not alone.
The moving van came up the street a few minutes later, its brakes hissing as it slowed. It was bigger than she'd expected. Dan moved the SUV to the curb to give it access to the front door.
He looked back at her. "Ready?"
Olivia swallowed. "Yes."
She stepped out. The air tasted different here—thick with memory, with five years of a life she was finally walking away from. She moved to the front door with Jim and Dan beside her and reached for the bell with a hand that wasn't entirely steady.
The door opened.
Mark stood in the entryway, looking exhausted. His hair was messy, his eyes bloodshot, and yesterday's hangover still lingered. He wore a wrinkled T-shirt and gripped a coffee cup in one hand, as if it helped him stay steady.
He looked at her. Then, there were the two men behind her.
"I guess you're going through with this," he said.
She met his eyes. Something sharp and unexpected rose up through the fear—not anger, just clarity. "You made my decision easy."
His jaw tightened. He looked ready to say something ugly, the way he always did. Then his eyes moved to Jim and Dan again, and whatever he'd been about to say stayed where it was.
For the first time in this house, she felt like she had control.
The next three hours moved quickly. The movers were careful—more careful than she'd expected, handling everything with a quiet efficiency that she wasn't used to. They packed her clothes in garment bags, making sure every blouse and dress came out unwrinkled on the other end.
Olivia handled the personal things herself. Her undergarments, her private items, were tucked into small suitcases by her own hands. She didn't want Mark's eyes on any of it.
She was in the bedroom when Mark appeared in the doorway. He didn't come in. He just stood there, holding something—a small stack of framed photographs.
"I thought you might want some of these," he said. His voice was flat, not cruel. Just tired. "I don't need them."
Olivia looked at the frames. Their wedding photo was on top. Below it, a few others—vacations, dinners, a life that had looked better in photographs than it ever had from the inside.
She took the stack and went through them slowly.
The wedding photo she set aside without a word.
The others she sorted carefully—keeping the ones where she stood alone against somewhere beautiful, a coastline or a city street, the kind of shot where the background told the real story.
She wasn't going to crop herself out of her own life just because the marriage hadn't survived it.
She handed the rest back.
"Thank you," she said. She meant it, even if it cost her something to say it.
He took them and left without another word.
When the truck finally pulled away from the curb, Olivia stood on the driveway and watched it go.
Grief came first, a quick, sharp ache for the dream she brought into this house five years ago, for the woman she was when she still believed things would get better.
Then relief followed, vast and dizzying, washing everything else away.
She was free.
The drive across town was quiet. When the SUV pulled up to her new building, Nicholas was already there—leaning against his car in the morning sun, calm and steady, exactly where he said he'd be.
She got out, and the last of the tension left her body in one breath.
"How did it go?" he asked.
She smiled, a genuine smile that reached her eyes for the first time all day. "Perfect. I'll tell you all about it later."
The move-in went smoothly. The building had a large elevator, and the movers were just as efficient unloading as they had been before.
Olivia directed them, telling them what belonged in the bedroom and what should go against the far wall, and they followed her instructions without question.
They even hung her clothes in the closets.
By 2:30, the last box was down. The lead mover turned to her. "Do you need anything else?"
"No. Thank you. I've never seen movers be as careful and efficient as you were today."
She reached for her purse. Nicholas's hand covered hers before she'd opened it.
"I've got this," he said.
"No, Nicholas—"
He held her hand, his thumb moving across her knuckles. "Olivia. Go arrange things. I'll be back in a few minutes."
She looked at him for a moment, then relented and went to the bedroom.
Through the window, she watched him standing by the moving truck, reaching into his pocket, pressing what looked like thick folds of bills into each mover's hand.
She'd planned on fifty dollars each. What Nicholas gave them looked like five hundred each.
The quiet ease with which he did it—no ceremony, no performance—stopped her breath for a moment.
She'd never been loved like this. She wasn't sure that's what this was yet. But it felt like something along those lines.
When he came back, he looked around. "How's it going? What can I do?"
"Nothing," she said, still thinking about the window. "You've done more than enough."
He studied her for a moment. "Why don't I give you some time alone to settle in? Arrange things the way you want them. Then I'll pick you up at seven for dinner."
She looked at him, noticing the warmth and understanding in his eyes, and the way he always seemed to know what she needed before she even said it.
"That would be wonderful," she whispered.
"Lilac or casual?" he asked. "Sushi? Pizza?"
"Casual again," she said. "Either works."
"Sushi it is." He kissed her gently and steadily, then touched her face. "Dan will be downstairs if you need anything."
She shook her head, her throat tight. "How can I ever—"
He put a finger to her lips. "You can't. There's no need to. Relax. I'll see you at seven."
Then he was gone, and the apartment was quiet.
Olivia sank onto the couch and let the exhaustion wash over her for a moment. The stress had lifted—not all of it, since some still belonged to lawyers, divorces, and Devon Brennan's unpredictability—but enough. She could breathe here. She could finally hear herself think.
She got up eventually and moved through the rooms, making them her own.
She placed a lamp here, a pillow there. She put the photographs she kept from Mark on the small dresser in the bedroom.
Even though the pictures were only of her, she didn’t display them in a prominent place.
They were part of her story too, and she was done pretending otherwise.
She looked out the window at the Tampa skyline as the afternoon light shifted.
No more cruel words timed to land where she was softest. No more managing his moods like the weather. No more lying awake in the dark beside someone who saw her as a possession.
But then the other thought arrived, quiet and cold on the heels of the warm ones.
Nicholas was leaving tomorrow.
She'd known it was coming. His life was in Miami—the business, the Sunday dinners at his grandfather's, the family he'd described with such easy affection. He was only here because of her. Because of Little Frankie and a gun in a diner and his own particular brand of stubborn protectiveness.
What happened when that reason was resolved?
She showered and dressed and stood at the door watching the clock move toward seven, wondering if she'd only traded one kind of heartbreak for another.
The doorbell rang.
She pressed the button, and a minute later Nicholas walked in. The room felt different, smaller in the best way, like rooms do when they finally hold the right people.
He stopped and looked at her with that slow, appreciative heat that still managed to surprise her every time.
"God, you're so sexy," he said, his voice low. "Casual or formal—you're just stunning."
A flush rose up her neck. She crossed the room in her heels, their sound on the hardwood like a heartbeat, and wrapped her arms around his neck, breathing him in—his expensive cologne and something warmer beneath it that was just him.
"Why do you always make me feel so special?" she asked.
He pulled her flush against him. "That's easy. Because you are."
He kissed her carefully, mindful of her lipstick, which only made her want him more.
The Japanese restaurant was dim and warm, with dark wood, soft music, and amber candlelight reflecting off the wine glasses. The sushi hadn't arrived yet. The silence between them felt heavy with the one question she had been building toward all evening.
She took a sip of wine. "Nicholas. When are you going back to Miami?"
The light in his eyes shifted. He set his glass down. "Tomorrow. Late morning."
Her heart dropped, as if a stone had sunk to the bottom of something deep inside her. She tried to be the woman she was supposed to be now: composed, independent, and looking ahead.
She wasn't quite there yet.
"I'm going to miss you so much," she said, the words coming out before she could stop them. "As bad as everything has been this week, being with you has felt like a dream."
He reached across the table and laced his fingers through hers.
"For me too." He paused, choosing his words carefully.
"Waking up in the morning and feeling you next to me has affected me more than I want to admit.
" He held her gaze. "But I have to go back, Olivia.
It's not just Sunday dinners. My business is there, with projects all over the state.
And I need to go to Dallas. I'm looking at something new there.
" He paused again. "Maybe you'll come with me.
It could be a mini-vacation, though I'll be busy during the day. "
The offer landed like a lifeline. She felt its pull immediately.