Page 51 of The Playboy's Most Unexpected Baby

It was probably for the best he hadn’t answered his phone.

CHAPTER20

CHARLIE

Charlie stared at the screen of his phone, at thetwo new voicemailsnotification that had been there for the past week and a half.

It was no surprise that Olivia had tried to reach him. It was time to list the house, and Charlie had been avoiding her — not taking her calls, not reaching out to her. He had checked online and had seen that the house was not yet on the market, so he knew that she was waiting for him to tell her to pull the trigger.

He couldn’t do it.

There was no excuse for the fact that he hadn’t been able to do it. This had always been the plan, and Charlie knew it. He was supposed to tell her to sell the house the day it became legal to do so. That had happened. They would no longer be violating the terms of the will. If the house sold now, they would get the money, and then?—

And then they would divorce and go their separate ways. That was the thing Charlie hadn’t been able to face.

He hated himself for it. How could he have allowed these feelings to develop? How could he spend every day wondering what she was doing, and every night fantasizing about the scent of her hair and the look in her eyes in the moment before he’d kissed her? How could he fall asleep each night thinking about the way her skin had felt against his?

I can’t have those things again. I can’t.

He couldn’t, and yet he knew that the moment they sold the house, it would become official that he never would. That would be the moment things truly ended between the two of them.

So he had gone to Boston. He had hidden there for the past month so that he wouldn’t have to face reality. She couldn’t sell the house without his consent, which meant that their marriage wouldn’t end. It meant that, even though he knew there was no future for the two of them, the thread wouldn’t be cut.

This is pathetic. I’m pathetic.

He drove back into the Old Prescott city limits for the first time in weeks. The one thing that had managed to get him back here — his meeting with Rogan — could not be avoided. He had to attend, and that was going to mean seeing Olivia — that was, if she bothered to show up.

He had to admit that he wouldn’t have been able to blame her for not coming. After the way he had acted, she really didn’t owe him anything.

But she was there, standing outside Rogan’s office building, and for a moment, she took Charlie’s breath away. She wore her hair loose today instead of in her usual sensible ponytail or bun. It fell in waves around her shoulders, and he couldn’t help but think that she had done this on purpose — that she had deliberately chosen a hairstyle that would punch him in the gut when he saw her.

That was nonsense, of course. She couldn’t have known how he would be affected. She couldn’t have predicted that seeing her like this would throw him back to the moment they had first fallen into bed together, when he had seen her hair billow out like a cloud on the white sheets, when her face had flushed with desire and she had reached up to pull him down on top of her. She probably wasn’t thinking about any of those things.

In fact, she didn’t even look at him for more than the moment it took her to acknowledge his presence. “Your siblings are already inside,” she said.

“We should go in, then.”

She hesitated. “I haven’t spoken to Cait.”

“Why would you have?”

Now she gave him an appraising look. “No reason,” she said at last. “You’re right. Let’s go in.”

He caught her arm. Just the act of touching her made him feel a jolt of electricity. She looked up at him, shock on her face, and Charlie knew she hadn’t expected this.

He hadn’t expected it either. He hadn’t dreamed that he would be this incapable of self-restraint. He had known that it would be hard to see her again, but he had also known how important it was that he keep it together. That was a big part of the reason he had gone off to Boston — he simply didn’t trust himself to be around her.

It seemed like he was right not to have trusted himself. Just a moment in her presence and he was already giving in to his desires.

He released her quickly. “I think we should talk before we go in,” he said.

“Now you want to talk?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Charlie, you do know that I’ve been trying to get in touch with you, don’t you?”

“I know,” he said.

“And you decided that you didn’t want to return my calls or reach out to me in any way.”

There was nothing he could say to that, so he simply nodded. “I know.”

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