Safe With Me by Amy Hatvany Read Free Book Online Page B

house they picked out together. Years of watching L.A. Law with her mother primed Olivia for the idea of becoming a lawyer—she fantasized that she and her husband might work at the same firm, defending clients together. She tried to believe that she didn’t have to share her mother’s fate.
    Later, after high school, the few men she dated before James were just boys, wanting to split the check and wait for Olivia to call them instead of picking up the phone themselves. They wanted to “hook up” and “hang out,” vague relationship descriptors that left Olivia wondering if her mother was right—if any man was capable of true commitment. But James was different. James opened doors for her and pulled out her chair; he sent her long-stemmed red roses and helped her with her coat. He made her feel valuable and special. She glowed beneath the pleasure of his attentions.
    “You’re lucky he’s rich,” her mother observed, after meeting James for the first time. “He can take care of you.”
    “I don’t care about his money,” Olivia said, feeling her face grow hot. It was clear her mother didn’t believe her, but Olivia spoke the truth. The fact that James had money seemed beside the point. What mattered to Olivia was that he wanted a happy, loving marriage as much as she did. “I’m ready to settle down,” he told her after just a few weeks of dating. “I want to have the family my parents never gave me.”
    It surprised her, at first, that James pursued her so fervently, since it was obvious with his money and level of success, he could have any woman he wanted. “I’m not sure what you see in me,” she said, feeling a little shy. She knew she was pretty,but she was far from the polished women with whom she knew James worked and socialized.
    “I see your determination,” he answered. “I see how kind you are and what an amazing mother you’ll make. I see that you might teach me to be a better person.”
    His words pleased Olivia; she loved that for all his sophistication, he felt as though she had something to teach him, too. Just a few months later, she agreed to marry him in a quick civil ceremony at the Tampa courthouse. “Who needs all the fuss of a big wedding?” James asked, and while a part of Olivia would have loved that kind of fuss—it was, after all, the only wedding she ever planned to have—it seemed that after everything he’d already done for her, asking for him to pay for an event like that would seem greedy. He took her to Paris for their honeymoon, and they took moonlit walks along the Seine, sipped wine and ate buttery croissants in their enormous hotel bed, made love two or three times a day. Afterward, James would rest his head on Olivia’s chest and she would run her fingers through his thick hair until his breaths slowed and deepened and he fell asleep. Olivia had never felt so content.
    One evening, after just such a moment, Olivia tried to slip out from under the weight of him in order to use the bathroom, but James held on to her tightly. “No,” he said. “I won’t let you go.”
    She softened her body and gave him a little squeeze. “Just for a minute, love. I’ll be right back.” In her experience, most men were afraid of their emotions; she loved how vulnerable he was with her, how willing he was to express how he felt.
    He looked up at her with so much love in his eyes, she wasalmost startled by its intensity. “I need you, Liv. I need you so much.”
    “I need you, too,” she said, feeling as though she was the luckiest girl in the world.
    A week later, they arrived in Seattle, and James smiled at her in the back of the limousine as the heavy gate closed behind them. “What do you think?” he asked as they traveled up the driveway to the house.
    Olivia couldn’t respond, still staring at the red-brick palace before them. It was three stories high with several turrets, a circular driveway, and a detached five-car garage. Towering maples flanked each