Page 120 of Love in Fine Print

I grinned. “That was the plan.”

She smiled. “Really? Your plan was to make it impossible not to fall in love with you?”

“Yep. I figured that would even the playing field since I am so madly, completely, insanely in love with you.”

I pulled her into my arms and kissed her as I told her I loved her over and over again. Then I picked her up and took her upstairs andshowedher I loved her over and over again.

53

OLIVIA

Spoiled.That was exactly what I was. I’d never thought I would be that woman. In fact, I’d done everything in my powernotto be that woman. That was the type of woman I associated with my mom. But then again, I’d gotten my mom all wrong. She wasn’t the person I thought she was.

I sighed feeling relaxed and rejuvenated from the massage I’d just had as I drove home to the house I shared with my husband of one year today—the home which no longer had an office attached to it. I had been running the business for the past six months, along with Trevor, and had now outgrown the small office at the house.

Two months ago, we moved into a space across the street from the park where Ben and I met. Oddly enough, we signed the lease and got the keys exactly one year to the day that we met. Ben called it kismet. Trevor called it fate. I liked to think that my dad and Gran had something to do with it. I knew it was crazy, and I hadn’t shared my theory with anyone but Ben, but I believed that those two hummingbirds that I’d seen flying around, that made me look in his direction, were them. When Itold him that, he’d teared up, kissed my forehead, and told me that he loved me.

It was amazing to go to work every day and have a view from the exact spot where I’d first laid eyes on Ben. Trevor liked to say I was in my Lover Era. I felt like I was in my authentic self-era. I’d spent so much of my life with walls up. Some had gone up when my dad moved out when I was five, but the majority were erected after he passed away.

Sometimes, I wish I had gotten my letter earlier. I wish my mom would have given it to me when she’d received it. But then, who knows the person I’d be today.

What if knowing what I knew now would have changed my life so drastically that I wouldn’t have ended up with Ben? If there was even the slightest possibility of that happening, I was glad that she’d kept it for so long.

For someone who had always prided themselves on complete independence, I truly didn’t know what I would do without Ben now. He was my best friend. He saw me and accepted me, and loved me in a way that I didn’t even know was possible. He was the best man I knew, and I was so excited to celebrate our one-year anniversary today.

Ben had woken me up this morning and told me that he’d booked a massage for me and Trevor at my favorite spa. I’d been doing my best to keep the financial reins tight since I’d left the firm and was no longer bringing home a paycheck.

But things had been going well with the business. Not to toot our own horns, but Trevor and I were dream team matchmakers. Our success rate was in the nineties, and we had started taking on clients from out of state and out of the country. Ever After Matchmaking was going global and I couldn’t be prouder.

Ben had taken a step back and had started focusing on his first love, football. He was getting back in shape and was going to be coming out of retirement next year to play for the GoldenState Wolves. They were going to make the announcement in a few months at the end of the season. That’s where he was this morning. He was at a training session.

I pulled up into the driveway and saw my mom’s SUV next door. Ben and I decided to purchase Miss B’s home, and my mom moved in next door to us. She had made some big changes in her life. For one, she was single. She had started going to school and was seeing a psychiatrist and therapist. She also worked part-time at Ever After.

Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but it was nice to get to know her as an adult. We were getting a second chance at a relationship and for that I would be forever grateful. I still had some guilt for how I’d hated her, how much I’d misjudged her, when shehadloved my father. Truly loved him. She did have mental health issues, she wasn’t the most caring or nurturing mom, butnoneof that mattered when I looked through the lens of her actually loving my father. She hadn’t left him, he left her. And now I saw that all the men, all the renovations on the house, all of that was just her attempt to get his attention.

About a week after she’d dropped off the letter, I’d asked her to meet me for coffee. During what turned into a four-hour lunch, we had a very open, honest conversation. She’d explained that all the men she’d dated and married had just been to try and fill the hole that my dad had left in her life. She hadn’t known he was sick either. He kept that from both of us. She confirmed what Uncle Mort had told me, that he was still, to this day, the only man she’d ever truly loved.

Maybe that shouldn’t make a difference to me. Maybe I should just have accepted her for who I thought she was. But, it did. It meant everything to me.

I grinned as I walked up the porch steps, thinking about how happy our relationship would make my dad. I knew he was smiling down on us. When I walked in the front door, Iwas greeted by Dolly, who jumped up on me excitedly. It didn’t matter if I’d been gone ten minutes or ten hours, she always met me with the same enthusiasm. We’d been trying to work on her training since she came to Ever After every day with me, her behavior had to be acceptable in a professional environment.

“Down,” I instructed.

As soon as her paws hit the floor, I kissed her on the top of her head and rubbed behind her ears. “Good girl, Dolly. You are the best girl!”

She whined and ran upstairs.

I felt like I was Timmy and she was Lassie as I followed her and asked, “What is it, girl?”

Ben’s truck wasn’t here, so I knew he wasn’t home. I wondered if maybe he’d left me a surprise in the bedroom when she ran to the door and nudged it with her nose. I opened it, expecting to see flowers, not my best friend Bailey standing next to a dress that was hanging on the doorframe of the en suite bathroom. And not just any dress. It wastheLugazzo gown. It was my dream wedding dress.

“What is this?” I asked as I crossed the room.

Bailey was grinning from ear to ear as she handed me a note.

I looked down and read it.

One year ago today, you made my dreams come true when you said, “I do.” Today, it’s my turn to make your dreams come true. Put this on and meet me at our park at two.

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