Status Updates From Olivia Twist

“The Dodger was coming out of retirement.”

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Up to ch24. Wow...fraught with drama.

Up to ch14. So hard to do the ‘right’ thing. We can’t help but view Jack and Olivia through our ideals, but they’re taking a huge risk.

Up to ch9. So pleased we switch between Olivia and Jack as it keeps revealing snippets of info.

Up to ch6. I’m enjoying the witty repartee between Olivia and Jack. Both lifted from their poor start, but still full of life.

“Princess Olivia, please come down,” he called.
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Oh ffs.

“Jack confessed to the murder only to protect me, Your Honor.” Olivia’s voice trembled with emotion, and the tears she’d held back squeezed her throat.
“Why would he do such a thing?”
“To protect the one he loves, sir,” Topher declared, and wrapped an arm around Olivia’s shoulders.
The judge’s face was no longer passive; in fact, his mouth hung open slightly, his eyes soft and distant.
---
Oh my god kill me now.

“And one more thing.”
Jack turned back and the old man’s watery eyes locked on his. “For what it’s worth, my boy, love never needs to be forgiven.”

“Does he love you? Jack, I mean.”
“I don’t know.” Was Jack even capable of love? The forever kind of love that every girl dreamed of? “I don’t think so.”
Remembering Jack’s promises to do anything to help her, how he’d protected her since they were children, and how his eyes lit like blue fire when he looked at her, Olivia was forced to concede, “But he does care for me, in his way.”
“Then you have to fight for him!”

“Remember that night, soon after I found you, when you rushed into my bedroom after reading Sleeping Beauty? You were terrified to fall asleep.” He shook his head, lost in memory. “You were afraid you might never wake up again because you hadn’t yet found your true love. You asked me if he was really out there.”
---
Oh lord.

The vilest thug of London since Bill Sikes, and her blasted half brother, was challenging the man she loved . . .
Olivia gulped, a lump passing through her throat and lodging in her chest. Love? Did she love Jack? Her eyes landed on his dark head bent over the note, hair in his eyes, square jaw set in determination, and warmth spread through every inch of her body. Yes, she loved him. Perhaps she always had.

Could she truly shut down the warnings in her head and follow her heart? Listen to her inner voice?
---
Ugh...

“Miss Brownlow, your lovely face is only surpassed by your brilliant wit.” Unintentionally, his voice had dropped low and soft, and with a start he realized he meant every word. Recovering, he wiped the besotted look off his face and quipped, “What a sparkling treasure you are.”
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Well, that's a bit cringeworthy.