later, Jeff was searching stages of pregnancy on his phone, checking them against his calendar and travel commitments when Olivia’s office door swung open and she walked out to greet him with a welcoming smile.
“Jeffrey, what a wonderful surprise!”
“Got a few minutes for me?” he asked, unfolding from the deep sofa to lead her back into the office. And once there, he closed the door behind them. “Is it private in here?”
Olivia’s brow crumpled a bit at the question as she looked at the closed door behind him and then her neatly organized desk loaded with her current projects. “I was thinking you might be here to take me to lunch.” Her nose crinkled before reluctantly meeting his eyes again. “But are you here for something…else?”
A bark of laughter escaped him as he realized the direction of her thoughts. She’d thought he was here for some kind of afternoon desktop quickie. Yeah, now he got her confusion. It wasn’t exactly like that between them.
Shaking his head, he crossed to the cluster of club chairs across her office and held a hand out asking her to join him. “No, Olivia, I’m sorry. Something…unexpected has come up. We need to talk.”
A little furrow had cut between her delicate brows as she lowered herself into the chair across from him. “You’re worrying me, Jeffrey. What’s happened?”
Looking at her guileless face and earnest eyes, he wished there was some way to sugarcoat the bitter news he was about to give her. But it wouldn’t help either of them. “A couple of months before we met, I spent the night with a woman who came to my office today. She’s pregnant.”
Olivia sat stone still, her eyes gone wide. “Was there something between you?”
He opened his mouth to say no, but said instead, “It was one night.”
“Who is she? Would I know her? Is she the type to keep quiet? What does she want from you?”
“I doubt very much you know her, unless you’ve spent more time in Vegas than you let on.”
“She’s a stripper. Oh, God, Jeffrey, please tell me she isn’t a prostitute.”
“No!” He raked a hand back through his hair. “No, she was the waitress at a bar I was stuck at waiting for Connor the night he met Megan. I was killing time and one thing led to another.”
He didn’t like the sound of his explanation, but the deeper, expanded version of the truth wasn’t something Olivia needed to hear.
“You just found out? So, there hasn’t been any time for conclusive paternity testing, then. This baby might not even be yours. I mean, Jeffrey, one night with some Vegas cocktail girl three months ago. We don’t know anything yet.”
A part of him wanted to agree. Tell her she was probably right and to give him a few weeks to sort it out. Only she deserved the whole truth. “We’ll have the DNA testing done, but I already know this baby is mine.”
She didn’t ask for details but he could see the understanding in her eyes. The way the hope shifted toward disappointment.
She swallowed, withdrawing her hands from his to tuck them around her waist. “Are you going to marry her?”
Darcy’s emphatic pre-proposal rejection came to mind, pushing a wry smile to his mouth. “No.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding slowly before meeting his eyes with a steel he hadn’t encountered in hers before. “Then cut her a check.”
He stared hard at the woman seated across from him, the one he’d thought might be able to share his life. “To what, go away? Disappear?” He couldn’t even voice the next alternative he hoped to hell she wasn’t suggesting.
Something roared inside him, as a protective instinct churned hot in his gut. “It’s my child.”
“And we’ll raise it as ours,” she said quickly, taking his hands. “We’ll get married. Have a private adoption. We’ll craft an explanation to suit us both.”
Adoption. Of course, that’s where Olivia’s head would have gone first. Adoption and marriage. A neat package, except for the part where she’d completely discounted Darcy as a part of the equation beyond a dollar amount on a check.
“Jeffrey, we have something here. Something I’ve been waiting to find for a very long time. We could make this work.”
Offering Olivia’s hand a quick squeeze, he pushed up from his chair.
He needed to cut Olivia some slack. She’d jumped to the wrong conclusion, probably because the few details he’d parceled out pointed that way. She was trying to come up with a solution to a problem he’d dropped in front of them. It just wasn’t the right one.
Walking over to the bank of windows, he rubbed his hand over his jaw. Darcy was right. They all needed a little time to get their heads around this new development.
“Darcy doesn’t want to give the baby up. She was offering me an opportunity to be a part of its life. Not to…option it off. You don’t know her.”
Olivia sat back, watching him the way he watched guys from across the conference table. Reading their tells and all the things their faces and bodies said without their mouths having to. “And you do?”
“Only enough to say, she wasn’t here to give her child up.”
“Okay. Then we’ll take it from there.” She followed him across the office, laying her hand gently over his arm.
“Olivia, I don’t know what this next year is going to bring. I think it might be better for everyone if we—”
“No. I’m not going to give up on us because things aren’t exactly the way I thought they would be.” She met his eyes. “We’re so well suited. So right. All I’m asking is you give us a chance before making any decisions. Please.”
Jeff wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She felt stiff against him. Like an off fit in a way he’d never noticed before.
Which he supposed made sense, considering he’d just put something between them neither of them knew exactly how to deal with. Now the least he could do was grant her request and give them a chance.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“YOU GOT THE waitress pregnant?” Connor shook his head, rocking back on his bar stool as though the news had physically blown him over. “You’re sure? I mean, all the question marks…?”
Jeff nodded. “Had a DNA test pushed through, but even if I hadn’t—I’m sure.”
“A baby. How in the hell?”
At Jeff’s raised brow, the other man held up a staying hand.
“Don’t. I know how. Your dad did a bang-up job with the ‘talk’ back in high school. I just can’t believe—you—like this—now.” Then shooting him a concerned look, he asked, “Someone mentioned you were seeing Olivia Deveraux. That you two might be serious.”
“Before Darcy showed up at my office, I would have put money on a future with Olivia. But now.” Now, even two weeks later, he wasn’t any closer to knowing what their future held. Olivia hadn’t changed. “She wants it to work. Offered to marry me and adopt the baby.”
“Generous.”
“If Darcy were considering giving it up. But not for even a single second.”
He thought about her busting him looking at her narrow waist, and accusing him of trying to option her baby. Once again giving in to the reoccurring grin that stomped all over his face every time he thought about her outraged, accusing look, he held up his hands. “She’s going to be an amazing mother. You can see it.”
“Olivia?”