Page 34 of The Playboy's Most Unexpected Baby

The solemnity broke, and Olivia laughed. “You’re really never going to let that go, are you?”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he grinned. “You have to admit, it’s a funny story. You going off about how terrible the guy who owned this house must be, not realizing that he was standing right next to you.”

“Well, I was wrong, anyway,” she said. “You’re nothing like what I pictured you to be. Nothing like what I was imagining that day. Or rather… you are like that, I guess, but there’s so much more to you. I thought you would be vapid and shallow, but you certainly aren’t either of those things.”

“You might be the first person who’s ever thought that,” Charlie admitted.

“Well, if that’s true, then everyone else you’ve ever known has been wrong. Because I know what I see when I look at you. You might have a silver spoon in your mouth, but I believe you’ve got a heart of gold.”

She chuckled as she said it, and Charlie knew that she was mostly teasing, but her words warmed his heart anyway. It was so rare that anyone paid him such a wholehearted compliment, and he didn’t quite know how to respond.

He settled for taking another sip of his wine instead, and the two of them returned to the companionable silence that they had been sitting in so comfortably — but now it felt full of tension and words that had gone unsaid.

CHAPTER13

OLIVIA

“Do you want another glass?” Charlie asked.

“I’m fine,” Olivia said.

“Are you sure? You know, the bottle is best when it’s first been opened. I can recork it, but it will never be as fresh as it is tonight.”

Olivia couldn’t help laughing. “Are you trying to get me drunk, Charlie?”

“I’m not going to pretend it’s not fun to see you relax a little,” he said, flashing his most charming grin. “But no, there’s no pressure if you really don’t want any more. I just thought you might be turning me down because you didn’t want to finish off my good wine or something, and I’m telling you that it’s perfectly all right if you do finish it off.”

“Well, if you insist.” She held out her glass.

“I’ll grab the bottle,” Charlie said. “You wait here.”

He went off to the kitchen. Olivia relaxed into the couch cushions, which were thick and plush, and thought about what would happen when they finally sold this house.

She had been so eager to get this done, but now it occurred to her that she would probably miss living here. It was the nicest home she had ever lived in, and she had begun to settle into a routine in spite of herself. She had gotten used to the process of waking up early in the morning and making herself an espresso on the nice machine in the kitchen. She would bring it in here and settle on this luxurious couch, turning on the TV and scrolling through the enormous amount of cable channels with the set on mute. It was usually easy to find a movie or an obscure sport to watch — something she wouldn’t have been able to access with the carefully curated bundle of streaming services she had at her own home. Charlie had all those streaming services too, but he had every possible source of entertainment. Just this morning, she had watched a lacrosse game between two high schools in Canada, something she wouldn’t have even believed would be televised if she hadn’t seen it for herself. It was a treat to be able to watch such things, to discover sections of the world she would never have known about if she hadn’t been living here.

Charlie returned now with the wine and poured some into her glass. He set the bottle on the coffee table and sat down opposite her. “Thank you,” he said.

“What are you thanking me for? You’re the one who just refilled my glass.”

“I meant thank you for telling me about your family,” he said. “I appreciated it. I think it wasn’t easy for you to open up about that.”

“It wasn’t… easy, no.” She was surprised that he realized that. “I don’t usually talk about that part of my life.”

“I understand,” he said. He sipped his own wine. “You know, you think our lives have been so different, and that’s true. But in a way, I can relate to your story.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, frowning. She didn’t want to dismiss what he was saying, but it was hard to give credit to the idea. Surely he had never had to worry about earning money for his family.

“What I mean is… I know what it’s like not to have your parents around,” he said. “I know it’s different, because your motherhadto work all the time. For my parents, it was a choice.”

“Oh,” Olivia said quietly. “They worked too much?”

“I don’t know if I should saytoo much.”

“You can say it if it’s true,” she told him gently. “It sounds like what you’re saying is that they weren’t there for you when you were young.”

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck. “It feels wrong to complain,” he said. “Especially after the story you just told. We never wanted for anything.”

“Charlie,” Olivia said gently, “if your parents weren’t around for you, then youdidwant for something. It doesn’t matter how many fancy toys you had. There’s no replacement for an involved parent.”

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