Meeting Oliver

Blaine next saw Ariel at Mrs Inuoe’s funeral the next evening. 

Ophelia had the decency not to show up, because to the public, she had caused the woman distress in the last weeks of her life.

And to the people who mattered, they knew her family had a hand in the woman’s poisoning, although they did not have any proof.

He glanced at Ariel now, sitting quietly in a severe-looking black suit beside Sullivan, and wondered if this would have been her in that casket if he had foolishly ignored her call that day, because he was still pissed at the wrong impression he had of her.

It was almost an hour later when the sun had completely fallen when she looked at him from across the room, and then she turned to the front and cocked her head to the side.

Sullivan was oblivious beside her. 

Blaine blinked, not understanding what she meant, but he stood up anyway and walked out. 

He walked through the garden, nodding at the guards and a few guests who were outside. 

“Please don’t turn.” He heard behind him, and although his spine stiffened, he continued walking. “There’s a swing beside the green house.”

He looked up, his eyes finding the glass outdoor house with several varieties of beautiful flowers that stood not very far away.

He walked at a moderate pace, and they finally arrived at the greenhouse, bent the corner and the swing was before them. 

They took a seat on both swings, their bodies facing opposite ways.

“I let Summer go to the restroom, so I could come here.” 

“I am not scared of Sullivan,” Blaine said, and he turned when he felt her watching him. 

She looked away again, and he saw her shoulders sag as she brought her hands forward and held them together in her lap.

He recognized her nervous gesture, blinking. 

She still did this? The spitfire who had returned weeks ago did not strike him as the woman who still did this. 

She had not changed at all, maybe only a little.

“I have bad news.” She said quietly. 

His thoughts halted, and his heart stopped, and then picked up again, beating more rapidly.

“Kan added Oliver to the Sullivan registry two days ago.”

“What?”

“So far he had only signed the birth certificate, but it was not recorded anywhere that he was our child. That certificate might as well not have existed since we wiped all records of it except for the copy we owned.”

Blaine wanted to scream and yell and throw blame at her. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t even speak. 

He had pushed her to this.

His inability to know what was good for him. 

Besides, it looked like she trusted him now if she was coming to him with all this.

This was what he had wanted for the longest, so it would be stupid to alienate her again.

“Did you find the proof that he ordered the hit on I and Olivia?” He asked, and she turned to him to nod. 

Her eyes were glassy and soft, and she looked young again. He had the urge to wrap her in his arms, so he looked away quickly.

“I was too stupid to make a copy of it though,” She said quietly.

“It’s alright,” he assured her quickly.

“I never believed he could.” She stopped, and he turned to her to see she'd suddenly closed up. 

“You were saying something,” he said, and she looked away, still staring at her knotted hand turned upward on her thigh. 

“I should not be gossiping about my husband.” She said quietly with a pained grimace, and Blaine felt a punch to his gut.

She still considered him a stranger. 

He decided not to dwell on it. It would be foolish to expect everything to go back to normal so quickly. 

As if he had not acted like the possibility of marrying her was the worst possible fate he could have been dealt.

As if she had not watched her mother die and lose their baby all in one night, all because he was too blind to realize he had a crazy fiancé.

“With the shares..” He began to say, when she cut him off.

“They are for Oliver. And the fifteen percent is all mine.” She said quietly, and for the first time since she showed up into their lives weeks ago, he felt like he could breathe again.

“Did you sign a prenup, Ariel?” He asked the question he had wondered about again and again over the past few days, but he was worried about the answer.

“Yes,” she said simply. 

Blaine turned to look at her. She was actually as smart as he had given her credit for.

“How did Sullivan allow that if his major motivation for marrying you was those shares?” he said, expecting her to ask him how dare he assume, and that she and Sullivan had perhaps married for love.

But she said nothing, and after seconds had passed, he realized she was not going to say anything, so he blurted out, “Ophelia and I are getting a divorce.”

It was her turn to be shocked now. 

She turned to him and the surprised squint in her eyes shocked him. 

She did not really think he and Ophelia’s marriage was perfect all this time.

Most importantly, did she think he would stay married to the woman after all that he knew?

She nodded finally, and looked away. “That would only make her angrier and draw her attention to me completely.”

“That would be illogical. She and I had a thousand reasons to get a divorce even though I never found out what she did to you,” he said, as his hand reached down to pat his thigh in discomfort. 

He could imagine what was going on in her mind. 

This was the woman he had sacrificed her to be with. Did she think he deserved what was happening to him now?

He finally looked up to see she was watching him, as they swung lightly on the swing. “I’ll have you meet Oliver tomorrow morning if you want.”

“What?”

“I don’t want the first time you meet him to be through a picture on the internet.”