Page 61 of The Playboy's Most Unexpected Baby

“Okay,” Charlie said. He held out his hand. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going? Not to look up shark attacks.”

“No,” he told her with a grin. “I want to take you out on the boat.”

They had been on the yacht together several times since that fateful first night. At first, Olivia had told Charlie that it gave her an uneasy feeling to be back there — as if it was cursed somehow. Eventually, Charlie had pointed out that even though things had gone sideways between the two of them after that night, it had also been the night their daughter was conceived, and that was more significant and more powerful than anything else. Olivia had agreed with that, and the yacht had once again become a place they could enjoy together.

“We can’t stay out too long,” Olivia said. “Ellie did agree to stay past her usual hours tonight, but I want her to be able to get home before midnight.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Charlie said.

He understood where Olivia was coming from. She was always mindful about making sure they didn’t take advantage of Ellie’s time — it was something that mattered a great deal to her since her own mother had often been stuck working late hours before she had been able to give up her second job. But Olivia didn’t know that Charlie had spoken to Ellie today and arranged for her to stay late.

“How is your mom lately?” he asked Olivia.

“Oh, she’s great, but she’s a little stir crazy. She’s talking about going to night school to get an MBA.”

“Hey, if she wants to do that, we can pay for it,” Charlie said.

“You’ve done enough for my family, Charlie.”

“It was part of our agreement!”

“No, our agreement was that you would give me a share of the money we got for selling the house. You didn’t end up selling the house.”

“But it wouldn’t have been right to just cut you out because I changed my mind about that. You still did all those renovations. I mean, if you’d rather, I could just give you a lump-sum payment for all that work and we could leave it at that, but every time I’ve tried to pay you out, you don’t accept my offer.”

“It doesn’t seem right to take your money,” Olivia said. “I mean, I live in that house now. If anything, I should be paying you, and I’d be trying to negotiate that if I had anything like the kind of money the house is worth.”

“That’s not even up for discussion,” Charlie said. “Look, you got into all this to help your family, and we’re helping your family. They’re my family now too. That’s my daughter’s aunt and grandmother. Of course I want the best for them.”

“When you put it like that, I can accept it,” Olivia said with a smile.

Charlie had known that would work. That was what worked every time this argument came up, as it did every couple of months — every time he tried to offer her family money for something. Olivia was proud, and it was clear that it was difficult for her to take help, even now that the two of them were permanently tied together in such a profound way.

Charlie hoped that tonight would change all that.

The drive to the docks was peaceful. He helped her onto the boat and cast off from the pier, then jumped aboard and went to the helm. “Do you want to drive?”

“Not tonight.” She’d accepted his offer of driving the yacht on a few occasions, but it didn’t seem to charm her the way it always had him, and at night she was usually downright resistant to it. She sat in the front, and he pulled out into deep water.

Was he making the right decision here?

He wasn’t sure.

Of course, thebigdecision was the right one. He had no doubts about that. But maybe it hadn’t been the right move to do this out on the water. Maybe there were too many negative memories here, and she would have done better somewhere else. Maybe he was making a mistake.

Well, if he was, it was a mistake that he was simply going to have to make. He wasn’t going to turn back. Not now. He had already put this night off for too long, and he didn’t think he had it in him to wait even one day more.

Charlie killed the engine, letting the boat idle in the water, and went up to sit next to Olivia. She was gazing up at the stars.

“I love how clear it is out here,” she said quietly. “It’s really beautiful.”

“It is,” he agreed. “Someday, in the future, we’ll come out here for a week at a time. We’ll live on the boat, and we’ll spend every night looking up at the stars.”

“It sounds beautiful,” she said, leaning into him. “If not very realistic.”

“How much of our story has been realistic?” he countered. “After everything else we’ve made it through together, we can makethathappen. It will be the easiest thing we’ve ever done.”

---