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CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
In the past few days, Olivia had learned that life was full of twists and turns. She had thought she’d one day own French Kiss, but now she was jobless. She had also thought that she’d never have a father, and now she had one. He might live on the street and have a few psychological issues, but he was living proof that when life gave you lemons, you needed to make lemonade. And it was easier if you had a great lemon squeezer to do it with. Her father sold great lemon squeezers. Which explained why he could afford to offer Olivia money to start a lingerie business.
“Two million dollars?” Olivia’s voice hit a high note as she helped him set up his sidewalk stand. “You made two million dollars selling juicers on a street corner?”
Her father glanced around. “Over, actually. And I don’t just sell them on the street. I sell them on the Internet. People seem to like a good product, and money accumulates quickly when you don’t use it.” There was a flap of wings, and Jonathan Livingston landed on his shoulder. Her father barely paid attention as he unloaded his lemons from his roller suitcase and placed them in a large Del Monte tomato can.
Olivia shook her head. “I still can’t believe that Jonathan is your pet.”
“He’s not a pet. He’s free to come and go as he pleases.”
It seemed this was very important to her father. He couldn’t have ties that bound him to a house with walls or to a person. He needed to be able to come and go as he pleased. Which meant that he would probably disappear again. As hard as it might be, Olivia needed to accept that.
“So how did you get him to hang out on my balcony?” she asked.
“Maybe he just knows good people when he sees them.” His eyes twinkled. “And maybe I tossed up a few pieces of garbage. I wanted someone to keep you company in that lonely house.”
“It’s not that lonely.”
He studied her. “So tell me about the man that came rushing to your rescue the other night. He looks a lot like Michael Beaumont.”
“You met Michael?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a long time, Livy. And while I never personally met Michael, I did some research on him at the library. Although that didn’t tell me whether or not he was a good stepfather. Was he?”
She had been giving that question a lot of thought lately. In fact, with nothing else to do, she’d spent a lot of time thinking. About Michael. Deacon. Her life. And she had come to a conclusion. Love came in all different shapes and sizes. Michael was a good example of this. He hadn’t been a verbal kind of guy, but in his own way, he had loved her.
She had finally gone through the documents the lawyers had sent over, and among them was a letter from Michael. A letter explaining why he hadn’t willed her the company. It seemed that, on his deathbed, he’d realized what was important. And it wasn’t a lingerie company. He wanted Olivia to realize this too. He wanted her to experience the world outside of French Kiss and to enjoy life to the fullest.
She looked at her father and smiled. “Yes, Michael was a good stepfather.”
Olivia stayed with her father for a few hours, watching him wow a crowd of tourists as he made lemonade. Then, catching his eye, she blew him a kiss before hopping the trolley for home. When she got there, she realized that she had left her cell phone on the counter. She had twenty messages. One was from her real estate broker, telling her that they had gotten a good offer on her house. And nineteen were from Samuel. Rather than listen to all of them, she called him.
“Where are you?” he asked. For once he didn’t sound like the calm, demure man she knew. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you since last night.”
“I was with my father. You would not believe how much money he makes—”
“Not now.” He cut her off. “Right now you’ve got to get to the airport and save the fashion show from being a complete disaster.”
“Calm down, Samuel. The fashion show is going to be amazing. I’m sure Deacon has everything under control.”
“He would if he were still here,” he said. “But he’s not.”
She froze. “He left French Kiss?”
“Yes. And his brothers left with him.”
“But they can’t leave now—not when their faces are scheduled to be plastered all over magazine covers and billboards across the country. Without them the new collections won’t mean anything.”
He released his breath in a long sigh. “Exactly. Now are you going to the airport to stop them or not?”
***
Olivia drove to the airport faster than she had ever driven in her life. Not wanting to waste time on parking, she left the Porsche at the flight departure curb and got out.
“Hey! You can’t park there.” A young security guy came jogging over.
“I know,” she said as she grabbed her purse from the front seat. “But this is an emergency.” She handed him all the cash she had in her wallet. “Please. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
