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She dared to glance at his face. “But doesn’t it seem weird… me, here… in the apartment you shared with….” She couldn’t quite say her name.
“Yeah, it does seem a tad weird, but… it’s a weird I’m prepared to accept if the alternative is you not being here.”
She planted a kiss on the side of his neck, her heart flooding with warmth, then snuggled back down. She opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it. She’d been about to ask him what had gone wrong with him and Leonie.
And that had to be the most monumentally stupid idea ever.
Felicity forced the words back down her throat.
* * *
Oliver staredout the window of his study towards the busy beach strip, and smiled to himself.
Three weeks and two days had passed, and Felicity was still here. He’d stayed every night with her in the guest room, only going to his own room to get clothes. And when she’d asked him if she could make the place feel a bit more “lived in”, he’d happily agreed. They’d gone to markets together and bought Indian cushions and a lava lamp and a really kitsch painting of a girl playing a guitar and a reproduction Miro among others, and they’d propped them along the walls, because she said that was really a trendy thing to do these days and anyway, if he was going to be selling, he didn’t want to put marks on his lovely space-age white walls.
All this whimsical stuff made his pristine apartment look kind of quirky. He stared at an emu made out of string and sticks, thinking he’d probably have to move it when they took the photos for the sale.
Which reminded him, with a jab to the gut, that he hadn’t done anything about that yet.
There had been more messages from Leonie, and he’d behaved very uncharacteristically and buried his head in the sand. Rather like Mr Stick Emu over there. He’d get onto the real estate guy next week, he told himself. He’d sent back a noncommittal text to Leonie saying that he was onto it, which elicited a flurry of one- and two-word messages.
He’d deleted them, mostly without looking.
But the good news was hehadbeen writing. The words were flowing freely, the book over half written. And he had a stack of speaking engagements organised. Two seminars in Melbourne and several in Sydney and Queensland. The latter for after Felicity had gone back to England.
Gone.
He winced, not wanting to think of that. He wanted to make love to her every night and every morning and quite often in the middle of the day. Take her by surprise when she flew in excited with her flea market purchases, or after a lunch together, or a day trip to the Blue Mountains, lifting up her pretty skirt, delighting in the way she opened her legs with a wicked smile on her lips, watching her hands splay on the bed as he kissed her, his fingers locating that beautiful magic spot until she spasmed and arched and cried his name as he unzipped himself and thrust into her.
God, he was getting hard just thinking about it.
He was doing his best to live by Felicity’s theory. Be in the moment. Treat life as an adventure. Not think ahead and plan his every move like Napoleon preparing for his Waterloo.
He’d even hinted to Aaron that he had a thing happening with Felicity.Thing—that was so inadequate, but when you weren’t thinking or planning, it was hard to come up with the right word. Fling? No, more than that. Relationship? Probably less than that.
“I’m going to trust you know what you’re doing,” Aaron had said rather paternalistically, which made Oliver stifle a laugh. How the tables had turned!
“I’m not sure I do,” he remarked shakily. “But I’m letting myself trust in the process.”
“Interesting concept for you.”
Oliver laughed, and Aaron added, “Just don’t hurt her, okay?”
“I don’t intend to.”
Somehow, he had to believe it would work itself out.
He glanced over at his paperclips. Felicity had bought him a multi-coloured pack and thrown them all in together. He was getting used to it—in fact, he sneakily rather liked it.
Grinning now, he went and made himself a coffee and returned to his desk.
He was engrossed in writing when there was a light knock on the door. “Come in.”
Felicity’s head poked around the door, wearing her pink hat, and he beckoned her in. She came and sat on his lap, slipped her hat off and put it on the desk, and he adjusted her carefully so as not to jar her leg.
“How’s your writing going?”
“Fine, though it is a challenge explaining complex issues in kid’s language.”
