Chapter Fifty-Six
Olivia
The following Sunday, I get a table at Himeko and wait.
To be honest, I don’t know how it’s going to go.
The fact that I know the winner of the auction date with Liam makes it both easier and harder.
It’ll depend completely on how she feels about me now.
It’s been twenty years since we last hung out.
The appointment is at eleven, and I’m ten minutes early. But London isn’t known for her punctuality—
“Oh my God, it’s really you! I was absolutely stunned when you contacted me,” comes a bright voice. “Thank goodness I had to cut my vacation in Greece short. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to see you.”
Or maybe things have changed.
I smile at London Bickham, one of the girls I’d known since kindergarten.
She and I lost touch after Mom’s death. Deena thought it was snotty for me to go to a private school and switched me to a public school so I’d “know what the real world is like.” Of course, she put Brielle in my old school, claiming her little angel needed to expand her horizons.
London is still single. Now she’s a trust fund baby who’s determined to enjoy her life to the fullest and travels all around the world.
Her golden hair is all natural; the perpetually wide eyes that make her look almost doll-like are from her mother, who used to be a beauty pageant queen.
Although London has a rep for being a little dim and vapid, she’s doing better than most. At least she has loving parents, and has never lacked for affection.
She spreads her arms, and we hug.
“I thought you were busy kicking out your icky father and stepmother and cutting them off. Heard it through the grapevine.” She hums the tune as we sit down.
“All taken care of. In the end, it was easy.” I shrug.
“Awesome. But I hope you recorded it. So you can rewatch it when you’re feeling down. Or when you’re PMSing. I bet it’d work better than Advil.”
I snap my fingers. “Dang, forgot to set my camera up.” I laugh, then suddenly realize it’s actually easy to talk to her—almost like we haven’t been away from each other for so long. “How are you doing, London?”
“Fantastic! Just spent a month in Thailand, and I met this super hot Thai kickboxer. Amazing stamina, if you know what I mean. You?” She leans forward. “Never mind, why do I even bother to ask? I saw that video from Ted’s party! Who attacks a pregnant woman?”
“A special kind of asshole, obviously. Who is now in jail. No bail.”
“Good. A stalker, right?”
I laugh. “My ex-fiancé, actually.”
She gasps. “You know that it’s always the ex that hurts women? You can never be careful enough. Get a bodyguard! Want me to hire one for you? I know some really good ones.” She winks. “Nice bodies, too.”
“Thanks, but I’m okay for now. Why don’t we order a couple parfaits?”
“Oh, that’s right! I heard great things about this place, although I never got a chance to try it. What do you recommend?”
“The Deutsche,” I say. “You still a chocoholic?”
“Did King Arthur have a Lazy Susan? Does a hedge fund invest in shears? Of course!”
We laugh and order two Deutsches. The parfaits arrive quickly, and London digs in, then sighs. “Oh my God. Girl, I love you. This is delicious! I feel like I’m going to be ruined for other chocolate, though. Argh.” She laughs. “So what’s up? You said you needed a favor?”
“Yes.” I inhale deeply. “I heard that you won Liam Kingswood at a bachelor auction.”
Her eyes sparkle. “Yes. He’s so hot. Why?”
“Well… This is kind of embarrassing, but, um…he’s my husband.”
She puts down her spoon. “What?! How come I never even heard about it? We used to play together! Our families—at least our moms—were so close.” She pouts.
I smile awkwardly. I never reached out, even after college, because I was scared to bring her to Brielle’s notice. “It was, um, kind of abrupt. He didn’t even get to invite his brothers.”
Her perfectly plucked eyebrows go up. “It must’ve been very abrupt. Fine, I’ll forgive you. So…what? Are you telling me to give him up?” Her eyes twinkle teasingly.
I laugh. “I’d never do that without offering something.”
“Don’t tell me you’re offering money. That’s so plebeian.”
“You’re right. So. Name your price. If you haven’t claimed your date with him, I’d like you to transfer it to me.”
“Scared I’ll steal him from you?” She grins.
“No. But…” I sigh. “London, this is serious. He and I had…an argument, and now he’s kind of avoiding me.
And I really need to talk to him.” I lay a hand over my chest. “I just want a quiet, dignified dinner where we can talk openly. Lay everything on the table. I feel that we haven’t communicated very well. So… Will you help me?”
She nods. “Of course. I have a condition, though.”
“Name it.”
She snorts. “You really shouldn’t say that without hearing me out first.”
“At this point, I’m willing to do anything.”
“I want to be your baby’s godmother.”
I blink. “You…do?”
“Of course. I know it’s a big ask, and you might already have somebody else in mind.
But I mean it. If anything happens to you, I want to be there to protect your baby.
After what happened to your mom, I got to thinking that if you had a godmother or someone to advocate for you, maybe Hugh and Deena wouldn’t have been so disgusting toward you and isolated you from all your friends by moving you from school to school and other crap.
And I want to be that shield for your kid. ”
I stare at London. I didn’t realize she had such strong feelings about my baby.
“Don’t look at me like that.” She shifts, her cheeks flushing a little. “I never forgot the time I fell off Viola, and you came to pull me out from under her when she went wild for some reason. I could’ve been maimed. Or worse.”
“Anybody would’ve done that for you,” I say, remembering her fall from the pony.
“Not anybody. You were the only kid who did. Everyone else just stood around and watched. So what do you say? Deal?”
I smile. “Yeah. Deal.”