Never Say Never (Lakeview Contemporary Romance Book 3) (24 page)

A
t the weekend
, Olivia met Leah in the city for some shopping.

Leah had decided that after weeks of ignoring her appearance, her image needed serious sprucing up, and to Olivia’s amazement had taken a rare day off from the shop. Olivia, herself, eager to put more effort into her appearance now that she was seeing Matt, was only too happy to accompany her. For once, she had the time too, as Ellie was visiting her grandparents in Galway.

Peter’s parents Teresa and Jack had always been great help to her where Ellie was concerned, and they did try to involve themselves in their granddaughter’s life as much as possible – trying to make up for the lack of a father, Olivia supposed. But occasionally,

Teresa could be a bit interfering, and yesterday morning was one of those times.

“Who’s this Matt person Ellie keeps chattering about?” Olivia’s mother-in-law asked her, the suspicion clearly evident in her tone. As they hadn’t seen Ellie in some time, they had travelled down to Lakeview to collect her and bring her to their house in Galway for the weekend. Teresa hadn’t been well apparently, and Olivia had noticed before that her movements were a little bit slower and more measured than usual. She supposed that Teresa was getting on a bit, in the same way they all were, really. So she was pleased for both Ellie and her grandparents that they’d get the chance to spend some time together. Despite her misgivings about his parents filling Ellie’s head with Peter, she knew nevertheless it was important to them all that Peter wouldn’t be forgotten. But when Teresa was around, there was no fear of that.

“Matt?” Olivia repeated warily to her mother-in-law.

“Yes – Matt. It’s all Matt this and Matt that, and Adam this and Adam that. I gather that Adam must be a young friend of hers, but who is Matt?”

“He’s Adam’s father.” Despite herself, Olivia reddened. It had been years, but still she felt guilty at Peter’s mother knowing that she was seeing someone else. She knew that Teresa would no doubt see it as a betrayal. She was right.

“And does Ellie see much of this Matt?” Teresa sniffed disapprovingly. “Do
you
see much of this Matt?”

Olivia struggled to hold her tongue. She had a good mind to tell Teresa to butt out and mind her own business, that she would see as much of Matt as she liked, but yet she hadn’t the heart to. Maybe Teresa was right to be concerned. Ellie had spent all her life without a father – she was bound to be affected by her mother’s relationships.

“He’s a neighbour, Teresa, and he’s a very nice man and a good friend, that’s all.”

Teresa sighed. “Look, Olivia, far be it from me to stick my nose in your business, but just be careful, won’t you? You have to consider Ellie’s welfare, and it wouldn’t be good for her to have these come-a-day go-a-day men in her life.”

Olivia gaped. How dare she? As if Olivia was seeing other men left, right and centre! Matt was the first man, the only man she’d even
thought
about seeing seriously since Peter – how dare Teresa suggest that her personal life could badly affect Ellie? And it wasn’t as though Olivia hadn’t considered that – of course she had – but she and Matt had so much in common, and the children did get on so well … most of the time.

Again, she bit her tongue. There was no point in arguing with Teresa over this. The woman had made her point and, as Ellie’s grandmother, she did have every right to make it. But she had a bloody cheek all the same, considering.

This weekend though, she was just going to enjoy her bit of free time, and not be worrying about Teresa or indeed Catherine, which, she admited, was another aspect of this new relationship with Matt Sheridan that was a bit of worry. What had she let herself in for?

“I just didn’t know what to do or say,” Leah’s confused tones brought Olivia back to the present. She was explaining Kate’s behaviour on the night of their planned night out. In the meantime apparently Kate had rung and apologised for letting Leah down.

“She said we’d definitely arrange it again soon, but, to be honest, I don’t want to be the one to do the arranging, as I seem to pick my moments.” Leah told Olivia. “But she says Dylan seems fine now, which is great.”

“Well, your birthday will be coming up soon,” Olivia reminded her. “And we’ll all be getting together for that. Are you planning on having a bash for the big thirty?”

Leah shook her head. “I don’t think so. With all that’s been happening lately, I don’t think I’d have the energy to organise something. And then of course, it’s not all that long since the launch party. I think I might just have a quiet dinner somewhere, just a few of us, that kind of thing.”

“Are you sure? It seems a bit dull compared to all that fuss you made for mine – and for Kate’s.”

Knowing how much Olivia loved Italy and all things Italian, Leah had arranged a special themed party night and booked a full floor at her favourite Italian restaurant. All the guests were invited to dress up as either Roman gladiators or Renaissance artists. Olivia had been totally bowled over upon entering the place, and they all had a wonderful time. For Kate, who wasn’t a big party person, and who they all suspected would not appreciate a surprise bash, Leah had arranged a balloon ride for her and Michael over the Wicklow mountains. She was right again. Kate, having got over her initial misgivings about the balloon’s safety, had had a fantastic time.

Olivia smiled to herself. Despite her reticence, Leah’s birthday might turn out to be a much bigger cause for celebration than she’d expected.

She’d had a conversation with Josh recently, a rather unexpected one, one night at Leah’s a little while after the launch party, which led her to suspect that he might be working up to a proposal. Normally jocular, he had been strangely serious, asking questions about Peter and their break-up back in college.

Normally, she wasn’t happy to be drawn into conversations about her husband, as it was all still very painful. Yet, being asked about him that night by Josh, who she suspected had his own motives, Olivia didn’t mind.

“You loved one another deeply, didn’t you? You and Peter, I mean?” he asked her, when Leah was in the kitchen and out of earshot.

“Of course,” Olivia said, a little taken aback at his directness.

“But yet, Leah said that you had some problems, back before you two got engaged.”

Olivia shifted in her seat. What was he getting at?

“Do you mind if I ask you what changed your mind?”

“My mind?”

Josh scratched his head, equally uncomfortable about raising what was sure to be a difficult subject for her. “About marrying Peter, spending the rest of your life with him – wanting to be with him, no matter what.”

Olivia immediately deduced that he was trying to place his feelings about Leah in context. Some men were like that. For years, they could just go along in a relationship, never really questioning their feelings, never really wondering where the relationship was going.

“You mean, why did I change my mind about breaking up with him?”

Josh nodded.

“I just had a case of cold feet,” she said shrugging. “The two of us had been together all throughout college, and as far as everyone else, including Peter, was concerned, we would be together for the long term. It’s difficult to explain now, but I just felt a bit trapped, I suppose. It seemed as though I was just being swept along, not really thinking about what I really wanted. So, I panicked, and one day I told Peter that I wasn’t sure about us any more, that I wanted some time alone to get my head together.”

“But it wasn’t that simple.” Josh stated.

Olivia smiled, remembering. “No, not quite. I had hurt him deeply, more than I realised. I remember him telling me afterwards that he spent those few weeks in a total daze, a fog.” It was a feeling Olivia knew well, having had those very same feelings for months after losing Peter, and indeed throughout much of the early days of Ellie’s life. The grief had been crippling.

“So, you decided to you wanted to spend the rest of your life with him, no matter what,” Josh supplied.

She shrugged again. “If you love someone as much as I loved Peter, then the answer had to be yes.” She knew then that he was trying to understand why Leah had been so accepting of his not wanting children. He must have been wondering whether she might feel differently at some later stage, despite the fact she insisted she wouldn’t. Olivia was glad that he seemed to appreciate the sacrifice his girlfriend had made for him.

Josh sighed. “I hope you don’t mind my being so forward like this, Olivia, and I’m sorry to bring up these painful reminders …”

“It’s fine Josh,” she waved him away, “but I suspect you have your own reasons for asking me about this.” She smiled knowingly, and Josh reddened a little.

Then Leah came into the kitchen and the conversation ended.

It was so obvious that he was going to propose – and very likely for her birthday – but Olivia wasn’t about to tell Leah that. She was so pleased for her. The two of them were a great couple, and it would be wonderful to see things work out for them.

“Wow, Olivia, you have it bad,” Leah said, grinning at her and bringing her sharply back to the present.

“What?”

“What?” Leah mimicked. “It’s so obvious you might as well have a banner on your forehead proclaiming ‘
I am madly in love’
. When are we all going to meet Matt properly by the way? That first time, I barely had a chance to talk to him before you bundled him off. Nervous I might work my charms on him, were you?”

Olivia laughed. Of course she wanted the others to meet him properly, but despite how well they seemed to be getting on lately, she still wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted to admit to herself – let alone the others – that she might have a future with him. She couldn’t remember the last time she enjoyed herself so much, the last time she had laughed so much with any man other than Peter, the last time she had felt so happy. But, with the strange and definitely disconcerting situation with his friend Catherine, she thought grimly, it was difficult to know at this early stage if she and Matt had any future.

Maybe her mother-in-law was right to be concerned.

“Sometime soon,” she said, and then added wickedly, “if Mammy Catherine allows it.”

Leah laughed. “Don’t mind that one. She might be a good friend, but Matt is a big boy now, and well able to make his own decisions.”

“It’s weird though, Leah. I’d swear the woman is spying on me. The other day, I called a plumber out to fix my washing machine, and later that evening Matt came over and oh-so-casually asked me if I’d had a visitor. I couldn’t believe it. Catherine had obviously told her that some man had been around, and must have been trying to suggest I was having it off with the plumber.”

It
had
been really strange and rather worrying to think that Catherine was watching her every move. The tables were being well and truly turned, she thought with a grin, remembering her own curtain-twitching.

“Silly cow obviously has nothing better to be doing,” Leah tut-tutted. “Next thing you know she’ll have one of those surveillance cameras on you, probably trying to catch you and Matt doing the deed.” She shook her head. “Nosy wagon – what age is she, for goodness’ sake?”

Olivia sat up. “Speaking of cameras, I still have your camcorder. Josh left it in the boot of the car on the night of the launch party.” Olivia was designated driver that night, and had driven Josh and Leah home. “I’m sure you’re anxious to take a look at it.”

“Believe me, there’s no rush,” Leah drawled. “We might not see that until this time next year. Josh is a disaster – apparently it’s a big deal to get it transferred onto DVD, and of course, I can’t do it, so …”

“Why not just pop it into one of those adaptors? I’ve got one – I can give it to you if you like.”

“Great, I didn’t know you could do that. I’ll pop over some time and get it off you.”

“What about now? We’re finished here, aren’t we? Fancy spending the night in Lakeview? And seeing as Ellie’s off in Galway, it’ll be nice and quiet, not to mention there’s no risk of her seeing her mother stuff her face on-screen with chocolates and prawn parcels.” She groaned, remembering. “I made such a pig of myself that night.”

“It was a great night though, wasn’t it?” Leah grinned.

“I want to give you back the camcorder anyway. I’d be afraid something might happen to it – Ellie might pick it up or –”

“I don’t think it would matter too much,” Leah rolled her eyes. “If anything, it would give us an excuse to get a new one. That clunky old thing is useless – it must be one of the earliest models ever made. Yes, I like the idea of quiet night at yours.” She winked. “We can watch back the greatest night of my life in glorious technicolour.

L
ater back in Lakeview
, Leah swung her legs underneath her and got comfortable on Olivia’s couch. “This should be interesting.”

“You were buzzing on the night,” Olivia said, putting a bowl of nachos on the coffee table in front of them. “You probably don’t even remember most of the party.”

“It just seems like so long ago,” Leah groaned, fiddling with the remote. “Back then when I was so innocent and thought that the business was mine and mine alone. I hadn’t bargained for Amanda Clarke.”

Her hopes that Amanda would lose interest in the business after the launch party had been well and truly dashed and, lately, Leah had had to come to terms with the fact that Amanda was becoming a semi-permanent fixture at Elysium.

Despite all her moaning and groaning about being pregnant, Leah suspected Amanda was actually quite bored, and all the buzz at the chocolate shop was something to get her teeth into. Literally. Amanda was one of those women who decided that being pregnant was the ideal excuse to stop watching her figure, and Leah’s creations were now under a state of continuous assault.

Leah didn’t mind really – Amanda could be a bit comical in her own way, and some of her antics amused her. No, it was only when Amanda tried to interfere in her business that Leah got annoyed.

“I want to see how they do things in Paris,” Amanda had announced casually the other day, during what Leah had thought was one of her many friendly visits.

“Do what over there?” Leah replied absently, thinking that she must have come across some new Parisian waxing method, or some other beauty fad. She held a spoon out for Amanda to taste her new passionfruit sorbet centre, a recipe she had been working on for a while, and which she thought would go particularly well enrobed in dark chocolate and drizzled with a lime-coloured sugar.

Next, to choose what mould to use. Despite her time spent in Belgium, Leah had grown tired of the obligatory seashell mould so often associated with Belgian chocolate, and instead tried to use simple, uncomplicated shapes and let the delicious flavour, rather than the elaborate shapes sell the product.

“The business, of course,” Amanda exclaimed. “This store needs to really stand out, and I’m not sure that what we’re doing here is good enough.”

“Excuse me?” Leah said, more than a little taken aback. “What
we’re
doing here?
We’re
doing just fine as a matter of fact – stock is flying out the door, and I can’t replace it fast enough.” It had all come out a little bit sharper than she’d intended, and Leah had known immediately by Amanda’s expression that she’d been wounded by it.

Later that evening she got a call from Andrew.

“Is there any possibility the two of you could come to some kind of agreement?” he asked and Leah’s heart sank like a stone. So much for the business being hers and hers alone. So these days, Leah had to get used to having Amanda around to ‘help’ in the shop, at least until the baby was born.

“I’ll bet she was preening and pouting, and practically drooling at the camera all night,” Olivia said now, referring to the video.

“Well, as long as she wasn’t drooling over the cameraman I don’t mind,” Leah laughed.

“OK, here we go.” She pressed
play
on the VCR remote control, and the images of the party appeared onscreen. “Oh look, there’s Kate. Wow, I’d forgotten she was still pregnant then. Doesn’t she look great?”

It was true. Kate did look great, much more like her old, happy, smiling, carefree self. Olivia hoped that Kate would soon start to find motherhood a little easier than it was at the moment. It was disconcerting to hear from Leah that she was struggling and unable to admit to herself that she might not be managing.

“And look, there’s bloody Amanda
again
– pretending that she doesn’t even know the camera is on her,” Leah said, eyes wide in disbelief. Then she let out a little scream. “Oh, Olivia, why didn’t you tell me that dress made me look like a heifer!”

“What? You didn’t look like a heifer, you looked gorgeous.”

“Thank you for trying to make me feel better, but there is no disguising the fact that my backside looks like the back of a bus in that.”

“Ah, it’s probably that television, I think it could be set on widescreen or something,” Olivia argued.

“Oh, I see, so widescreen only affects certain people, does it? It doesn’t affect skinnymalinks like Amanda Clarke, then?”

The two of them laughed.

“Josh’s camera work isn’t too bad actually,” Leah commented. “He can be a bit zoom-happy sometimes. Oh look, now he’s taking some shots out front – oh my goodness, I still can’t believe that’s my store – can you believe it, Olivia, my very own store!”

Olivia smiled at her friend’s almost childlike delight. She was thrilled it was all going so well for her. With all the work she’d done, not just now but throughout the years, Leah deserved every bit of her success.

Just then the camera seemed to swerve sharply downwards towards the pavement, and for a few minutes all they could see were the tips of Josh’s shoes.

“Typical – and just when I said he was doing so well …” Leah trailed off as another pair of feet came into the picture – female feet. With her pretty painted toenails and diamond and silver sandals, the woman must have been a guest at the party.

“Nice shoes,” Leah noted, and Olivia had to agree. Whoever the woman was, Josh seemed to know her, and the camera remained pointed at the ground.

“Great, while he’s having a chat, the tape was still running. No wonder it ran out so quickly. Trust bloody Josh to make a bags of the video – again. I wonder who he’s talking to?” She picked up the remote and hit the volume control.

Josh’s voice could clearly be heard. “… didn’t know you lived around here now.”

Then the girl’s voice: “Didn’t know you were a cameraman in your spare time either.”

A flirtatious giggle … a male laugh … and instantly Olivia felt Leah tense.

Right away she knew that something was wrong here. “Here, give me the remote,” she said quickly. “We should fast-forward through this, we can’t really see anything and – ”

“
Leave it.” The words sounded like bullets.

“Leah, you shouldn’t –”

“I said leave it.”

Her heart pounding, Olivia sat back and waited for what was to come. For Leah’s sake, she hoped it wasn’t anything to worry about.

Josh’s voice. “So how have you been?”

“Great and you?” Chirpily.

“OK.”

“So, what’s going on in there?”

Warily. “It’s my girlfriend’s launch night – she’s inside.”

A smile in her voice. “I see.” The feet turned and pointed towards the store, and Olivia deduced she was trying to get a peek inside. “So you two are still together then.”

“Yes, look, Sharon …”

“
Sharon
?” Leah repeated, almost to herself.

“You know her?” Olivia asked vaguely relieved. At least it was someone they both knew and not just some –

“Yes, I know her,” Leah answered flatly.

“Well – ” Olivia stopped short, as Josh’s voice again came all-too-clearly through the TV speakers.

“ … just one night. I didn’t mean for it to –”

“Oh …” Leah’s face paled, and she put a hand to her mouth.

Olivia’s gaze stayed glued to the screen, shocked.

“I know that, Josh. Don’t beat yourself up about it. I suppose it was silly of us, really – for old times’ sake and all that. Believe me I didn’t expect you to go down on one knee after it.” A coquettish laugh. “Anyway, it was fairly obvious you’d go straight back to her.”

“Oh no,” Leah said slowly, her eyes wide and sorrowful.

“Look, I’d better go back in,” came Josh’s voice. “They’re waiting for me …”

“No problem. It was nice to see you again. And look, don’t worry about it. I’m not in the habit of going around trying to wreck other people’s relationships. It was one night, no big deal.”

“You’re sure you weren’t angry that I left without saying goodbye?”

“It was fine – I’m a big girl.” Another laugh and a slight movement towards the shopfront. “The thing is … I just
adore
chocolate and this place looks really amazing. Maybe, I should pop in some time and … Josh, I’m only joking. Funny, you should see the look on your face.” She seemed to move towards him again, as if she was laying a hand on his arm or something. “Really, I’m joking.”

Josh now sounded decidedly standoffish. “Right. Look, I’d better go. See you around, Sharon.”

“Sure, maybe we might bump into one another again some night.”

“Maybe. See you.”

Then sudden movement, as the camera swerved, and Josh seemed to walk back inside. Then they heard Kate’s voice. “Hey, Josh over there – quickly. Leah’s just about to make her speech.”

Then the screen went black for a second, and soon after, another scene opened picturing Leah, beaming and smiling at Josh and his camera, and looking happier than she’d ever been in her life.