Page 31 of Wife By Accident

And what had he meant by clothes in the living room?

She set her apple on the counter and went into the living room. Her jaw dropped. Somehow, between her going to sleep last night and waking up this morning, someone had moved three clothing racks into the room. They stood beside the couch and in front of the window, illuminated by the morning sunshine as though they were on display in a fancy store.

Olivia approached the first rack. It held a huge variety of styles, all close to her size, from ripped jeans to slacks, sweatpants, and leggings, and from flowy skirts to pencil skirts. On a table beside them were unopened packages of underwear, socks, and bras. The next rack held tops in the same wide range of styles. Olivia ran her fingers across one top, which was made of silk so fine she was sure it could have passed through the eye of a needle. The third rack boasted everything from pajamas to lacy dresses to workout clothes.

Olivia held up one dress and twirled, laughing, feeling like a princess preparing for a ball. She had half a mind to forget about breakfast entirely and just try everything on, one at a time, maybe taking pictures to show Rachel later. Olivia had never been much into shopping, but this was a completely different experience. Was this how rich people shopped — by having clothes delivered to their homes? If so, Olivia wanted to be rich. Stat.

She hung the dress up again and spotted a note on the side table from Leo’s assistant, Julian. It explained that the clothes were from local boutiques, that Olivia could pick out whatever she wanted and either keep or return the rest, and that Leo had insisted on paying for everything.

At the last line, Olivia’s stomach fell. Of course, all this had a price. She should have thought of that. And while she could never have afforded clothes like this herself, she didn’t like the idea of Leo paying for her either. She didn’t want to feel like a charity case.

As a young girl, when her family had struggled to make ends meet, Olivia had gotten most of her clothes from secondhand shops. She’d never minded — it had been normal for her. Then one day, in third grade, she’d arrived at school in a new-to-her pink jumpsuit that she’d thought was the most sophisticated outfit ever.

Then another girl had spotted the jumpsuit. She’d laughed. I just gave that away, she’d said. See? It’s got a big stain on the sleeve. Well, anyway, I’m glad the less fortunate could have it.

Everyone had laughed.

It was the first time Olivia had really noticed that her family was low-income. After that, she’d been ashamed when her parents had picked up cans from the food pantry or gotten a ratty secondhand couch, or told her she could go on the overnight field trip after all because a classmate had covered her costs. It wasn’t her parents’ fault, or Olivia’s, but she’d vowed that when she grew up, she’d never be a charity case again.

Yet here she was, staying in a billionaire’s penthouse while he delivered clothes to her. She was a charity case now.

Olivia turned her back on the racks of clothes and went back into the kitchen, where she drank her coffee and ate the rest of her apple and her toast. She really needed to talk to Leo when he got back. He needed to know that she didn’t expect anything from him — not fancy clothes, not money, not a penny in the divorce. She needed to be clear that, while she appreciated his generosity, she wouldn’t accept anything else from him.

With Leo still not home, it was clearly time to get out of the house for a little while. Olivia needed time on her own to come to terms with everything that had happened. She put on her shoes, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door. She was tempted to take her camera, too, which she’d packed to take pictures of her niece’s party. Surely there were some beautiful scenes of urban nature just outside the door in Central Park. But she hesitated, still not in the right headspace to take pictures.

Olivia rode the elevator down and crossed the gleaming lobby, nodding to the receptionist and the doorman. On the sidewalk, she breathed in deeply. New York smelled like cooking food and exhaust and a kind of universal city smell, maybe asphalt. On impulse, she turned left and started walking. She’d see where she ended up.

One block later, the first drop of rain fell directly onto her head.

As she was crossing the street to the next block, smiling at a distinct yellow taxi and a woman with seven identical fluffy white dogs on leashes, the single drop turned into a deluge. Olivia was soaked through in an instant. Water ran into her eyes and into her shoes as the smell of rain overtook the city scents. Hot-dog vendors huddled under their umbrellas as pedestrians opened black umbrellas or ducked into bodegas to stay dry. The fluffy dogs began howling in protest as their owner tried to pull them back in the direction they’d come.

Olivia didn’t have an umbrella, and her dress was already soaked through. The rain had flattened her curls to her head and seeped into her shoes. Sadly, she turned and ran back to Leo’s apartment. When she crossed the lobby again, she dripped on the marble floor and apologized to the receptionist, who just smiled as if this kind of thing happened all the time.

Olivia was back in Leo’s apartment only ten minutes after she’d left, much the worse for wear.

Back in the guest suite, she looked through her bag for something else to wear. Her current dress was dripping wet. The dress she’d worn when she met Leo smelled like champagne and was very wrinkled. The outfit from the conference wasn’t in much better shape. Even the casual clothes she’d thrown on last night smelled like Indian food and were creased.

“Oh, no,” Olivia whispered under her breath. The only clothes left were the ones Leo had had his assistant send. It was either that or try to do laundry in the sink — or find Leo’s washing machine.

Olivia stripped off her wet clothes, hung them in the bathroom, and tiptoed back into the living room in just her bra and underwear. Part of her worried that Leo might suddenly show up in the doorway, back early from work, his blue eyes sweeping across her. Then he might cross to her, rest his palms against her bare hips, and pull her in for a kiss… Her imagination was really out of control.

Leo didn’t come back while Olivia put together a simple outfit of leggings and a top, or while she fixed her hair, or while she swept the rest of her clothes into her arms and went looking for a washing machine (which she eventually found in a separate room, along with a large sink and other cleaning equipment).

Eventually, Olivia found herself back in the living room with her laptop. She applied for a few more jobs, then, on impulse, opened her portfolio. She hadn’t updated it in too long, but she still clicked through the images taken during her teenage years, through college, and into the first few years of work.

There was an image of a wave crashing into a Washington shore tidal pool, droplets of water flying into the air above a perfectly-framed sea anemone. Another showed a calico cat’s paw beside a human footprint in the mud. One was a sweeping landscape of treetops in full fall colors, taken from the top of a hill.

The last image Olivia had taken and uploaded to the portfolio showed a single cherry blossom, bruised, lying in the dirt. That was how she felt about her photography career lately. And about her life. As if she had been a blossom, full of hope, that now lay on the ground, crumpled.

But maybe this could be a chance to start over. Leo clearly didn’t mind paying for clothes or letting her stay here — he was the one who’d insisted over and over on having her come. He was the one who’d ordered the clothes — she hadn’t asked for them. Maybe he didn’t view her as a charity case. Maybe he really did want to get to know her — and maybe he really did think she was doing him a favor by staying in New York, not the other way around.

Leo had told her to use this time to consider her career and what she wanted to do next. Maybe she should.

She clicked further to an image of a sunrise across a field of corn, taken back home in Idaho. She remembered taking that picture the day before she left for Seattle. She’d been so full of hope about her future, and the sunrise had felt like the perfect metaphor for the day breaking on her wonderful new life.

Olivia bit her lip. Maybe it was okay to take a week to focus on herself, on her unexpected husband, and on her future. She hadn’t done that since — ever. Leo had insisted that he was okay with it, so maybe she could be, too. Maybe she shouldn’t insist on rushing back to Seattle on her own dime.

Olivia took a deep breath. It was time to be brave. It was time to take another chance.