He was silent, his gaze seeming to turn inward. Olivia stayed where she sat, waiting. Knowing none of this was easy, and Simon could hardly snap out of whatever he was feeling, no matter what he wished for.

He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the bedstead as he let out a long, low breath. “How was your mum’s appointment?” he asked after a long, silent moment.

“It was okay.” Olivia knew how much it cost him, to ask about her mum when he was hurting so much himself, and she loved him all the more for it. “We’ll get there,” she said, and Simon opened his eyes to give her a long, meaningful look.

“Yes,” he agreed. “We will. But it won’t be easy.”

“The best things in life aren’t.”

He shook his head, his expression closing up once again. “You don’t even know what you’re agreeing to, Olivia. What you’re letting yourself in for.”

“No,” Olivia agreed steadily, more sure of this than anything she’d been sure of in her life, “but then neither do you. No one does. This isn’t some social contract, Simon, weighing the pros and the cons. This is me, all in for you, and you all in for me. That’s the kind of relationship I want, not some balancing of the scales.”

He stared at her for another long moment, his eyes full of both torment and hope. “I don’t think I love you,” he finally said hoarsely. “I know I do.”

Olivia gazed down at this man who had come so suddenly and wonderfully into her life, this man who loved her. “And I know I love you,” she said, meaning it utterly.

Outside, the church bells began to ring in the new year.

Epilogue

Three months later

“Who is that?”

Olivia peered outside the window of Number Four, Willoughby Close, as a navy-blue sports convertible sped into the courtyard and parked in front of the first cottage in the close.

Simon looked up from his hand of cards. “I believe it’s my new neighbour. Tina, it’s your bid.”

Olivia watched as a slim young woman with glossy chestnut hair marched up to number one and unlocked the door with brisk efficiency, a posh-looking leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder.

“She looks very Londonish,” Olivia remarked, and Simon raised his eyebrows.

“Perhaps that’s because she comes from London. She’s Henry Trent’s executive assistant.”

“Is she! Alice never said anything about it.” But then Alice had been busy lately, managing the charitable foundation she and Henry had started. And Olivia had been busy, as well...

She turned away from the window to smile at Simon and Tina, both seated at the kitchen table for their weekly Sunday afternoon game of bridge. The consultant at the memory clinic had encouraged Tina to keep playing cards, as it helped with cognitive function, and the new medication she was on had helped a bit as well. Simon was on new medication as well, a low dosage that had kept him on more of an even keel, although he still had good and bad days...just as everyone did, in one way or another.