‘Sissi’s right,’ Astrid agreed gently if a little reluctantly.
‘Yeah.’ Paige nodded. ‘I know. The last thing I want is to compromise you both.’
‘Okay. So, you’ll tell her?’ Clearly, Sienna wasn’t going to let Paige off the hook.
She sighed. ‘Yes. Sometime today. After she’s finished work.’ Paige was aware today was Redemption Day for Chase. And for Bella. It would be adding insult to injury for Paige to drop her bombshell before the event. ‘My night.’
‘Good.’ Sienna nodded approvingly. ‘It’s going to work out, Paige.’
Astrid narrowed her eyes a little. ‘Are you going to be okay? Do you need us in on the call?’
Oh,hellzno. Absolutely bloody not. It was going to be hard enough to do without an audience but she knew Astrid’s query was only born out of concern. ‘No. All good.’ At the far end of the beach, Oliver turned and headed back. ‘I’d better go. Rehearse what to say.’
‘You got this,’ Sienna said, mouth turning up in a sympathetic half-smile.
Tears threatened again. ‘Thank you so much for being so amazing about this. I don’t know what I did to have two women like you in my life but I am so eternally grateful. Your support has been gobsmacking.’
‘Of course, any time,’ Astrid said, waving it away as if Paige had committed some trivial faux pas instead of sleeping with her friend’s ex who shewassupposed to be fucking with, but not like that!
Astrid was being super understanding which made Paige wonder again if things weren’t going according to plan with Aiden.
‘Okay, well… I’ll let you know how it goes.’ Paige waved at the screen. ‘Bye for now.’
‘Bye,’ Astrid and Sienna parroted together.
Paige laughed at their manic waving, feeling cheered just by their presence. As they hung up, their faces disappeared from the screen until it was just her looking at herself and she quickly hung up too. She didn’t know how long it would be until she could look at herself again but it certainly wasn’t now.
* * *
Paige was at her usual spot when Oliver got in from the beach half an hour later. She was working on the urgent files her client had sent and frankly grateful for the distraction of it. Not that there wasn’t plenty of work to catch up on after her thirty-six-hour time out. But a deadline always helped focus the mind.
Mostly anyway. She was excruciatingly aware of the opening of the media room door and his footsteps as he ascended the stairs. The hairs on her nape stood to attention as he entered the open-plan living area and her fingers faltered on her keyboard as he said, ‘Hey,’ somewhere behind her.
Taking a deep steadying breath, she resumed typing as she repeated his greeting. ‘Hey.’ And then. ‘Still kinda wild out there?’
‘Ooh yeah,’ he confirmed. ‘You want another coffee?’
‘Yes please.’
She tapped away, trying to ignore his presence as he moved around the kitchen but it was impossible to do when he delivered her mug then pulled a chair out at the end of the table and sat. Her gaze was drawn to him and even with hat hair, chapped lips and pink, wind-burned cheeks, her heart flipped.
‘I have some more words to send.’
‘Oh, excellent.’ She nodded, relieved that his opening salvo wasn’tabout last night.
‘Yeah.’ He blew on his coffee. ‘I reckon I’m about halfway now.’
‘That’s so good,’ she enthused. ‘You’ll be done before you know it. When you’re finished you should get some people close to you, who also knew your dad, to beta read it. People who were privy to your relationship but who can be objective, too. Point out inconsistencies or where you might have pulled your punches. Stuff like that is invaluable.’
He nodded. ‘Great idea.’
‘Your mother would probably be a good one.’
Laughing, Oliver shook his head. ‘Ah, no. I don’t think so. I love my mother but she’s not the best person if you want objectivity. There’s still a lot of complicated emotions causing her to excuse and defend him even though his behaviour ruined their marriage and almost ruined her.’
Paige felt sorry for Oliver’s mother. It can’t have been easy sharing her husband with the world. Being invisible. Even to him. Paige had never been in love – Harvey had ruined any chance of that happening – but maybe given its power to break a person, that wasn’t such a bad thing?
Look how it had wrecked Bella, Astrid and Sienna.
