The Other Olivia

Tamara M Bailey

Description

Olivia Alexander (nee Sharp) thinks her biggest problem is discovering her husband's affair.

Then a stranger accosts her on the street warning, "Don't sign anything." When Olivia reluctantly follows his advice, everything starts to fall apart. Suddenly assassins, safe houses, and ruthless global corporations are hew new reality, and she's running for her life.

In a shadow world unknown to Olivia, Livvie Sharp's partner goes missing, someone tries to kidnap her little girl, and now she too is on the run as someone hunts her. Someone using her loved ones as weapons to bring her down.

Then she meets the other Olivia.

Sujets

• Contemporary
• Fiction
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Clan Destine Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781922904003
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Other Olivia

Tamara M. Bailey


First published by Improbable Press in 2022

Improbable Press is an imprint of:
Clan Destine Press
www.clandestinepress.com.au
PO Box 121, Bittern Victoria 3918 Australia

Copyright © Tamara M Bailey 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including internet search engines and retailers, electronic or mechanical, photocopying (except under the provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-In-Publication data:

Tamara M Bailey
The Other Olivia

978-0-645316-74-2 (pb)
978-1-922904-00-3 (eb)

Cover artwork by © Willsin Rowe
Layout & Typesetting by Dimitra Stathopoulos

Improbable Press
improbablepress.com












To Chris


Prologue

" Wait, let me zoom out–"
A blur of color, and the footage clears to show a young woman standing against a bright sky. Her hair is in a tufty black ponytail and her eyes are hidden by stylish sunglasses. A tattoo peeks out from beneath her board shorts, green on her dark brown skin. She shakes loose her limbs, and there's a flash of another tattoo on her shoulder blade beneath her bikini strap.
"How high did you say this was?" says the voice behind the camera, and the footage swivels down to show the long drop into the gorge. "Fuck me, look at that."
A thin waterfall gushes nearby. The forest around them is vivid green, the river below sapphire blue.
"Mmm, I've forgotten," says the limber woman. "Eighty feet? C'mon, let's do this. Got that phone ready?"
"It's ready," says the camera voice. The footage turns back to the woman, who already has her heels on the edge of the cliff, facing away from the drop. "Oh shit, Liv, your sunnies!"
Liv cackles and tosses her sunglasses to the ground. "That would've been disastrous."
"You know it doesn't count unless you do a flip, ay."
"Yeah, yeah," says Liv, who bounces a few times on the balls of her feet. "We gonna live forever, Kass?"
"We gonna live forever, Livvie."
And then, without a moment of fear or breath of hesitation, Olivia Sharp somersaults backwards off the cliff, plummeting to the waiting river below.









Outside
Chapter One

The mannequins looked like birdcages. They were made from golden wire, no limbs, no head – just shoulders and breasts and tapered waists. Olivia hardly noticed the delicate lingerie they sported. All she saw were the prisons.
"Not a lot of range for a fancy shmancy shop, ay?" Kass said, her thongs slapping on expensive tiles.
Olivia tore her exhausted gaze from the mannequins. "These are only a few samples. You're supposed to choose your own design. That's the point of 'custom-made.'"
"Just get your shit from Kmart like everyone else."
"I wanted something special."
"You didn't ask me here to help you choose undies, did you?" Kass said, scrunching up her nose. "No offense, but I have better things to do with my Saturday than picture you and Matt getting hot and heavy."
"No…no, I have to talk to you about something. Something important."
"You're not preggers?"
"No, I–"
Clarice, the designer, stuck her head around the curtain from the sewing room. "Just finishing up here, Mrs Alexan – oh." Her gaze fell on Kass, taking in the cut-off denim shorts, the tattoos against her suntanned skin, the skull-and-crossbones kerchief around her copper ponytail.
"This is my friend Kassandra," Olivia said.
"Sup," Kass said.
"Welcome, Kassandra." To Olivia, Clarice said, "I'll be a few more minutes."
"Thank you."
Clarice bustled behind the curtain again. She had handled Kass' appearance better than most people in Olivia's world. Olivia, at least, kept her tattoos hidden.
"So? News. Spill." Kass seemed crabby.
Olivia thumbed her wedding band and looked around the hushed shop, frightened to say the words out loud. Saying them would make them real, and she didn't want reality. Reality hurt.
The bell above the door tinkled as another woman walked in. "Sorry, babe, it took forever to find a park."
Kass' bad mood disappeared as she wrapped an arm around the woman's waist. Both of them were about the same height – as in, regular-sized. Olivia towered a head above them.
"Liv, you remember Bri?"
Olivia tried to smile. She vaguely recalled a mutual friend's wedding four months ago, where Kass and Briony had locked eyes over the cake and decided they were going home together. She hadn't realized they were still seeing each other.
Briony was in an olive-green pantsuit, vibrant against her pale complexion. She might've looked professional if not for the row of studs lining her ears and the tattoos peeking out beneath the collar. Her blonde hair was growing out from a pixie cut and had roots of dark brown.
"You all right?" she said in her lilting Yorkshire accent. She peered at Olivia, concerned. "You look a little peaky."
"Um, actually, I was hoping to speak to Kass in private for a second. If you don't mind."
"It's all good," Kass said. "Bri's my soulmate. Whatever you say to me will automatically filter to her anyway."
The pair grinned at each other. But when Kass turned back to Olivia, she pursed her lips, like a warning. What was going on with her today?
Olivia tried again. "It's sort of personal."
"Say no more." Briony held up her hands. "I'll wait outside."
"Don't bother." To Olivia, Kass said, "Selfish, much?
"I'm sorry?"
"I'm not going to come running at your beck and call just so you can shun my girlfriend."
"Er…" Briony said, at the same time Olivia said, "What? "
"You know the last time you texted me, Livvie?" Kass said. "Before Ginger's wedding. That was June. June! You can't be bothered with me unless it has something to do with you . "
"That's not true."
"It sure is. I gave up on you a long time ago, and you didn't even notice. You cut me out of your life after you married Matt, ay. I barely recognize you anymore. Your hair, your outfit."
Olivia's clothes were chosen by a personal stylist, her hair a freshly-colored double shot espresso with a foam melt. It sat in gentle curls around her face and tumbled down her back. She had never been prouder of it.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to cut you out. I've been busy–"
"Doing what? You don't even have a job."
Olivia flushed. "Matt said after the accident I didn't need to–"
"The accident was years ago. You're fine, get over it. Go talk to Starfish Steve and get your skydiving gig back. Take another trip to Machu Picchu. Hack off that fuckin' hair. As long as you do something to make you you again."
"Just because I've changed, doesn't mean it's not me."
"Maybe," Kass said. "But the Liv standing in front of me isn't my friend. And I don't want to deal with her shit anymore. Come on, Bri."
Olivia dug her manicured nails into her palms as Kass pulled Briony towards the door. It occurred to her that if Kass left, there would be no one else to tell. She could call her mum, but she didn't want to go down that road. Kass was – and always had been – the one Olivia confided in. The one she’d traveled half the world with, the one who cleaned up her vomit when she'd drunk half a bottle of tequila, the one who burnt her first boyfriend's love poems after he dumped her for being too independent.
She hadn't realized how hurt Kass had been by their estrangement. She should've made more of an effort. She should've noticed something was wrong as soon as Kass walked into the shop.
"Kass," she said as the bell tinkled over the door, "Matt's having an affair."
The words were blades, piercing Olivia's heart. They hurt more than the worst day of physical therapy. No, that was a lie.
But this wasn't: Her husband was having an affair.
A knot of disbelief had lingered in her stomach since last night. She was in a daze, a nightmare. This sort of thing happened in books and movies, or to people who already knew deep down their partner was scum. Amelie from the High Ts club complained endlessly about her husband Pete hitting on every woman in visual range. A few of the High Ts ladies were taking bets on when she might discover some lewd affair of his. No one would've even considered it happening to Olivia.
Kass paused by the door before turning back. "I'll kill him."
"You sure?" Briony said to Olivia. Her gray eyes were creased with concern.
"I overheard him talking to her on the phone last night." Olivia's breath caught, as if her body were reliving the moment. "I couldn't believe it, so I went into his emails while he was asleep and there were so many messages between them, going back at least six months… I spent all night reading about how much he loved her, how he couldn't wait to see her again, couldn't wait to get away from me–"
"I'll literally kill him."
"Are you going to confront him about it?" Briony said.
"I don't think so."
"Why the hell not?" Kass demanded.
"Thank you, Mrs Winning." Clarice stepped out from behind the curtain with her previous customer. "I'll be right with you, Mrs Alexander."
Olivia lifted her hand in acknowledgement, then dropped her voice as she said to Kass, "I don't want to throw away the last seven years. I can fix this."
"You don't need to fix it. Leave him."
"It's not that simple."
"Yes it is!"
"I just need to be more…more. I just need to be more."
Kass' jaw fell open.
"I need to put the effort in," Olivia said, gesturing to the mannequins. "Buy sexy lingerie, book romantic holidays, you know, remind him why he loves me. Then he'll forget all about Sarina."
A funny expression flickered across Briony's face. She looked surprised, as if the name meant something to her.
Before Olivia could ask, Kass said, "Have some self respect, ay. You