Page 50 of The Playboy's Most Unexpected Baby

She was looking at two lines. She knew what that meant. But even so, ithadto be wrong, because there was no way. There was no way she was pregnant. She couldn’t be.

She felt like she was staring down the barrel of a gun as she took in the results of the test. She swallowed hard.

What am I going to do now?

There was only one answer to that, of course — she was going to have to tell Charlie what had happened. Even though they had barely spoken since that night on the boat — even though he seemed to be avoiding her to the point of leaving town about it — this was information he needed to have. He deserved to know what was going on.

She went down to the kitchen in a daze, feeling as if a fog had gathered around her brain. Was that a symptom of pregnancy, or was she just in shock? She couldn’t be sure. None of this was remotely expected, and she had no idea what to make of it all.

Her phone was on the counter. She picked it up and dialed the number for Charlie.

It rang and rang, just as it had every other time she had tried to call him.

This was ridiculous. Anger flared in the pit of her stomach. All right, so he was a player — so he was the kind of man who hooked up with women and ghosted them. That didn’t mean that he could ignore the obligations he had to her. She might be a woman he regretted having slept with — well, there was nomightabout it, really, he had told her so explicitly — but she was still the realtor who was selling his house. He should pick up her calls.

The call went to voicemail. Olivia hung up the phone, feeling deeply frustrated — she wasn’t going to give him this news in a voice message. Of course, given the way he was acting, he deserved to hear it that way, but even so, she couldn’t do it.Shedidn’t deserve that. She had a right to get his immediate response when he found out, and she didn’t want him to have the chance to put together some prepared, practiced answer. She wanted him caught off-guard, the way she had been.

Was that selfish of her? It probably was, she decided — but it was what she wanted all the same. She wanted to know that this news had some sort of impact on him.

She dialed again. The phone rang again, and again it went to voicemail.

She was going to have to say something.

“Charlie,” she said, when the phone alerted her that it was time to leave a message, “this isn’t acceptable.” She hesitated. “Actually, this is pure crap. You have to call me back, because you and I have unfinished business. You have to talk to me about what we’re going to do with this house. I’m supposed to be listing it in a week — unless you want me to do that without speaking to you about it again?”

She hesitated, almost as if she expected him to speak — though she didn’t, of course. A part of her fantasized that he might pick up the call mid-voice message, but in truth, she didn’t know if that sort of thing was even possible.

“If you don’t call me back, I’m going to list the house,” she said. “And you won’t get any more input on that.”

She took a breath. Who knew whether that threat would be enough to change his might about ignoring her or not?

But she had one more card she could play, she realized suddenly. It made her feel sick to think of doing it, but it was something she could do, and she thought it would probably work.

“If you don’t call me,” she said, “I’ll call Cait. I’ll get her to help me. And… and I’ll tell her everything, Charlie. I will. I don’t want to do that, but you know perfectly well that I can’t sell this house without someone in your family signing off on it. If you’re not going to be that person, I need someone else. And Cait would be so happy to know that she was right about us that she’d cut me in on the profits. I don’t needyou. I just need someone.”

She hated that she’d said that, and she knew for certain she would never, ever do it. Even now, she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to betray Charlie like that.

She swallowed hard. “Call me, Charlie,” she said. “I don’t want to turn on you. But right now, you’re not giving me any choice. You have to work with me here, because I can’t do this on my own.”

She ended the call.

She had no idea whether he’d believe what she had said. It had been an outright lie. She would never tell Cait the truth before Charlie had indicated he was ready to do that.

But she wished she could.

With the way he had treated her and was continuing to treat her, she would have loved to tell his siblings everything — to let them know that they had been right from the start in thinking that he was incapable of a real marriage. Of course he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t even keep up a fake one.

This is the man who’s going to be the father of my child.

It occurred to her that maybe she didn’t even want him to know that.

After all — what would happen if he were to find out? Would he want to be involved in the baby’s life? It was hard to conceive of a world where he would choose that, since he hadn’t even been able to stomach the idea of prolonged contact with her after they had slept together. He had left town over it. No, this man certainly wasn’t ready to be a father — she couldn’t give him the chance to do that.

And besides, he had hurt her badly enough. She didn’t want to be rejected by him yet again, after everything he had put her through, and she most definitely didn’t want to risk him rejecting her baby.

But don’t I have to tell him? Doesn’t he have a right to know?

Olivia felt sick all over again, but this time, it had nothing to do with pregnancy nausea. The idea of making this decision — of trying to figure out whether or not she could tell Charlie the truth — was tearing her apart, and she had no idea what she was going to do.

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