“What?” he asked, confusion marking his face.
“Do. You. Love. Me.”
“What does that have to do with any of this? You don’t seem overly thrilled with going back to L.A. I’m offering you an out.”
Wow. Just…wow. “And if I said yes, you’d expect us to have sex, right?”
He shrugged. “I think that we’ve proven that we’re attracted to one another.”
“You know what, I think I’ll pass.” She released her arms and went to walk around him, but he stopped her.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“What you’re offering isn’t a marriage, Jake. What you’re offering is a way for you to have a live-in babysitter for the kids and a plaything for you.” She pulled free of his grasp. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
He stared her down for a long minute and then just gave a curt nod and walked away.
When she heard the front door close, she knew that it was over. There would be no way to keep in touch with him – not civilly anyway. She’d have to try and get her news about the twins through her brother or maybe her mother.
Her heart was breaking. If she had her way, she’d turn the damn studio job down. It was a phenomenal opportunity, but somehow, as she looked around Jake’s kitchen and then walked out into Jake’s living room, Olivia realized for all that she’d gain by taking the job, she’d be losing twice as much.
****
At five-thirty the next morning, Jake lifted Olivia’s suitcase into the trunk of her rental car and closed it. “That’s everything?” he asked, and she nodded. He had woken up at five with the twins and it worked out well because Olivia got to feed them one last time. She didn’t have to say anything, because Jake could tell how much it was tearing her apart to leave them. Not him. But Ben and Maddie.
He had a feeling that they were going to feel her departure just as much.
And he couldn’t even imagine how he was going to feel when it all finally set in.
“I’m just going to go back in and say good-bye to them,” she said and turned on her heel and ran back into the house. When Jake found her, she was crouched in front of the two of them as they sat in their bouncy seats on the floor.
“You know that I’m going to miss you guys so much, right?” she asked softly. “I can’t believe how – for two little people –you worked your way into my heart so darn fast.” She swiped away a stray tear. “I want you to behave yourselves and not give your dad a hard time. It’s going to be tough with it only being the three of you, so try and give him a break, okay?” Two pairs of dark blue eyes stared back at her as if they were really listening to what she was saying and understanding it. “But most of all, I want you both to know that I love you. I wish I could stay here with you and play with you and take pictures of you and watch you grow up. I’ll try to come and visit though, okay?” She reached out and stroked each of their cheeks. “Just don’t grow up too fast, okay?” Before she completely lost it and broke down, she leaned in and kissed them both on the top of their heads and then stood.
It was hard to compose herself, but Olivia forced herself to pull it together. She never heard Jake’s approach and when she turned around, he was right there. She gasped in surprise at his proximity. His eyes were hard on hers and he took one of her hands in his. It was the first time in over a week that he’d physically touched her. “You can come back anytime, Liv,” he said softly, fiercely. “You know that, right?”
She nodded. “I don’t know when…”
“It doesn’t matter,” he cut her off. “Any. Time.”
It was too much. All of it. Olivia knew that she had to leave – now – otherwise she wouldn’t leave at all. Unable to speak, she simply nodded and went to pull her hand away but Jake held on tight. It took her a minute, but she found her voice. “I have to go.” Her voice was barely audible.
All the while, Jake’s eyes held hers. “I know.”
This was it. Time to go. Time to go back to her life and hopefully someday she’d be able to look back on this time and her relationship with Jake fondly. Right now it just hurt too damn much. Before she lost her nerve, she raised up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his and kissed him with all that she had. Jake instantly took control of the kiss as he banded his arms around her waist and hauled her close.
They could have kissed for minutes, seconds or hours, but to Olivia it wasn’t enough. It nearly killed her to pull back. She placed one hand on the side of his face and looked him right in the eye. “I love you. I just want you to know that. I always have.”
And Jake stood there dumbfounded as Olivia escaped from his home and his life.
Chapter Twelve
Two weeks later Olivia was sitting in her bed, eating a pint of chocolate brownie chunk ice cream and watching TV – some depressing doctor drama that was making her brain go numb. Or maybe it was the ice cream, she couldn’t be sure. In the distance, she heard a noise. At first she ignored it, but then she realized that it sounded as if someone was trying to break in through her front door.
Putting the ice cream down, she jumped up from the bed and grabbed a baseball bat that she kept next to her bed to make her feel safe. If someone was going to get in, they were going to get a bat to the face.
Tiptoeing through the apartment, she was just about to open the door when it opened. She screamed. “Mike? What the hell??”
While Mike hadn’t screamed, he had certainly had the crap scared out of him. “Holy shit, Olivia. What in the world?”
She slammed the door shut. “Seriously? You break in here and you’re going to give me crap for it?”
“I wasn’t breaking in, I have a key.” He held it up to prove it to her.
“Yes, that was supposed to be used only in an emergency. Not just for the sake of stopping by and scaring me.”
He grinned. “Yeah, sorry about that. I was going to call, but I figured you’d be working. Mom told me all about the big project. Did you get done early today?”
She shook her head. “Not really, I actually got done early – period.”
“Is that a good thing?” he asked as he dropped his luggage to the floor and walked toward her kitchen to help himself to something to drink.
Olivia shrugged. “I sort of pushed things along, worked long days, made people change their schedules and got done five days ahead of schedule. The studio is thrilled, my agent nearly peed herself, and now I can sit back and relax for a bit.”
He chuckled. “Be careful. The last time you tried to take some time to relax you ended up playing nanny.”
She glared at him. “And whose fault was that?” Walking around him, she went into the bedroom and grabbed her ice cream. She was wearing sweats and a t-shirt, and being that it was only Mike, she really didn’t even care. Once back in the kitchen, she sat down at the breakfast bar and took a spoonful of ice cream. “So what brings you to L.A.? I thought you were going to be in China for at least another week.”
“Well, like you, I got done early, and I was heading home to meet up with Jake.”
Her immediate reaction was to ask how he was, but she didn’t want to know. Well, she did, but it would kill her to hear that he was moving on just fine without her, so she just nodded. “Are you going to stop and see mom and dad?”
He shook his head. “Not this time. Actually, they don’t even know that I’m back, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention it.”
She made a zipping motion across her lips. “They won’t hear it from me.” She took another spoonful of her ice cream. “And why can’t they know?”
“Jake and I are going on a fishing trip. A week up in the mountains like we used to when we were younger. If I tell dad that I’m going, he’ll want to come too. I just can’t deal with him right now. He scares the fish away because he can’t hear well anymore and makes me yell everything to him. It’s annoying.”
“Wait…what? How are you and Jake going fishing? What about Ben and Maddie? Who’s taking care of them?”
/>
Mike uncomfortably looked away and opened the refrigerator again. “Do you have anything to eat here that isn’t yogurt?” He closed the door and walked toward the phone. “Does your pizza place deliver?”
“Mike?” snapped. “What’s going on? Who’s going to stay with the twins?”
“Look, um…forget that I mentioned it, okay?”
“How can I just forget about it? Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on?”
He sighed and hung his head low. “Jake,” he said and then took a deep breath and collected his thoughts. “Jake realized that he couldn’t handle raising Ben and Maddie alone. He’d already taken custody and parental rights away from Marilyn – not that that would have made a difference – but he knew that he couldn’t do it anymore and be the kind of parent that they deserved.”
“What are you saying?” she asked, her stomach churning and she felt like she was going to be sick.
“He contacted a lawyer and social services and an adoption agency. Someone is coming to pick the kids up on Monday.”
“No!” she cried and collapsed to the floor. Mike was immediately beside her and held her until she caught her breath. “How? Why? I…I don’t understand. They were fine when I left!”
Mike nodded. “He’s muddling through, but he’s overwhelmed. Not everyone is cut out to be a single parent, Liv. He wants better for his kids. He wants them to be raised in a home with two parents, and that’s not what he has to offer.”
Olivia thought of the proposal the night before she left and began to cry. Her brother cradled her beside him and just let her. When she began to calm down, he placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head. “Hey, I know that you got attached to them while you were there, but…you have to understand, Jake’s just not cut out to do this on his own. And when you turned down his proposal, well, he just thought…”
“Wait…what? You know about that?” Olivia lifted her head and looked at her brother in shock.
“Well…yeah. He said that he asked you to marry him and that you turned him down.”
“That’s because he wasn’t really asking me to marry him. He wanted someone there to take care of the twins. It wasn’t as if he was in love with me.”
Now it was Mike’s turn to look confused. “Are you kidding me? Jake’s been in love with you for as long as I can remember.”
“What are you talking about?” Olivia demanded as she came to her feet. “Why would you even say that?”
Mike rolled his eyes and came to stand next to her. “Liv, I’ve been his best friend for most of our lives. I knew. Just like I knew that you had a crush on him, and when I saw you guys kissing on your eighteenth birthday, I thought ‘Finally!’ But then nothing ever came of it. Then you completely avoided him like the plague for like…ever. I thought that when you guys saw each other again that you’d finally get it together.” He shrugged. “I guess I was wrong.” He studied his sister. “Why’d you turn him down?”
She shook her head to clear it. “I told you, he doesn’t love me. He talked about me being fond of the kids, them being fond of me, blah, blah, blah…and when I asked him directly if he loved me, he asked what that had to do with anything. Does that sound like love to you?”
Mike was stumped. “Honestly, I don’t know why he would do that – unless he thought that you weren’t in love with him.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” she cried out and stomped away to get her ice cream and took a heaping spoonful and then almost cried out with the brain freeze. “Dammit!”
“Look, I know it sucks, Liv, but it really is for the better. Jake wasn’t happy, and he said that the babies were crying all the time, and he just didn’t know what else to do. So I’m planning on flying out there and being with him when they come and pick the kids up and then taking him out of town immediately.”
Olivia looked at the calendar and saw that it was Thursday. There was still time. Without a word to Mike, she ran over to her computer and began searching for flights back to North Carolina. "What are you doing?” Mike asked, mildly amused.
“He can’t do it, Mike. He just can’t. I’ll go there and talk to him. I’ll stay as long as I can – as long as he needs me to so that he doesn’t have to give Ben and Maddie away.”
“Liv, maybe you should just leave it alone. I mean, it’s not like you’re in love with him. You going back there is just going to mess with him.”
She straightened and looked up at her brother’s face. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m in love with him! I even said that to him when I left. I told him – right to his face – that I loved him and that I always had! He didn’t even try to stop me!”
“He didn’t want to stand in your way, Olivia,” Mike said soberly. “He knew that this job was a big opportunity for you, and he didn’t want to be the reason that you gave it up.”
Olivia laughed. “You want to know something funny?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I was wishing that he’d stop, me because I really didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to come back here and even do this job.”
“What? Are you crazy? I hear that you’ve got royalty from all over the world wanting you to come and take their pictures!”
She nodded and found a flight that worked for her and began clicking on it to book it. “I do. And you know what? I don’t care. I’d rather spend my days taking pictures of Ben and Maddie than sitting with these obnoxious Oscar winners who think that they’re better than everyone else. I’d give up taking pictures of the Queen herself any day for a chance to get the first pictures of Ben and Maddie’s first steps.” Just the thought of seeing that milestone made her smile. She was not going to let Jake do this. She refused to let him do it.
“So what’s your plan?”
Olivia spun around and walked toward her bedroom to begin packing. “I’m going to take the redeye tonight and that will have me landing in Raleigh tomorrow morning at around seven. I’ll rent a car and go and plead with him to change his mind.”
“I don’t think you’re going to be able to do that, Liv. His mind is made up.”
Olivia remembered another time that his mind was made up and she managed to change it then, too. She had every confidence that she could do it again. “No, he just thinks that it’s made up.” Marching to her bedroom, Olivia pulled her suitcase out of her closet and threw it on the bed and began randomly throwing clothes in it.
From the doorway, Mike stood in dazed amusement. “Olivia, I know Jake. Don’t go there and mess with his head.”
She turned and glared at him. “Is that what you think I’m going to do? Do you really think that I’m that kind of person?”
He shrugged. “Not intentionally, no. But Liv, your photography and your career are your life. What are you going to do if you walk away from here and go to North Carolina, huh? How is that going to work?”
Dropping her hands to her side she smiled up at her brother. “I don’t know. If I have to, I’ll take pictures at the mall. I just want to be with them, Mike. All of them. I love all three of them.”
That was what he wanted to hear. “What time do we need to get you to the airport?”
****
Olivia was near-delirious when she pulled in to Jake’s driveway the next morning. Her flight had been slightly delayed, and she hadn’t landed until eight o’clock; and by the time she got her luggage and her rental car, it was well after nine. She hadn’t slept well on the plane because she was so tense about seeing Jake and convincing him that giving Ben and Maddie up for adoption wasn’t the right thing to do. She only hoped that he would be willing to listen to her.
The car was barely parked when she tumbled out of it. She ran to the door and knocked and then remembered that she still had her key. In her hurry to leave two weeks ago, she had forgotten all about it. She waited and waited and waited and just when she thought that she was going to have to resort to using the key, the door opened.
And there was Jake.
Looking weary and tire
d and sexy and…better than anything she had ever seen in her life. “Olivia?” he asked as if he didn’t trust what his eyes were seeing. “What are you doing here?”
She didn’t wait for him to invite her in, she simply stepped around him and looked around to see if anything was different. “Look, I know that things haven’t been easy and that you’re feeling a little overwhelmed with all of the responsibility, but you can’t go through with it, Jake.”
He shut the door and looked at her with confusion. He had been asleep when he heard the knock at the door. Stumbling out of the bed, he had grabbed a t-shirt and jeans that were on the floor to throw on. His hair was sticking up on ends, and now that he looked around the house, he saw that it kind of was a disaster. “What are you talking about?” he asked around a yawn.
“Mike stopped and saw me last night.” She paused. “He told me.”
He frowned at her. “Told you what?”
She rolled her eyes as her shoulders sagged. “You know…about…sheesh, I hate even saying it.” She huffed. “He told me that you’re putting the twins up for adoption.”
“What?” he said loudly but Olivia wasn’t paying attention.
“Here’s the thing, Jake, you can’t do that. You just can’t. We can totally make this work. Me and you. When you asked me to marry you, I was surprised, that’s all. I guess I always thought if you asked me to marry you that it would be a little more romantic – and you’d tell me that you love me – but it’s okay that it’s not like that. Like you said, we’re compatible. And we both love Ben and Maddie and want what’s best for them.” She paused and took a breath. “I never should have left; I know that now, and I’m sorry that I did. I was being selfish, and I never should have done it. I love you and those babies more than anything, and I should have made you my first priority. Tell me I’m not too late. Please. I don’t think I could live with myself if I was a contributing factor to you letting those precious babies go.”
Jake could only stand there and stare at her. Olivia took his silence as a bad sign.
“I’ll move my business here,” she blurted out. “If anyone wants me to photograph them, they’ll have to come to me. We’ll hire an assistant that you approve of that can help me when I have to bring the twins on photo shoots. Or if you prefer that I don’t work, I’m okay with that too. I can take a million pictures of Ben and Maddie and never get bored. I was planning on making you a scrapbook of all of the pictures I had taken. I know that sounds lame, but…it’s what I do.” She took a slow step toward him. “It’s okay that you don’t love me. I can live with that. We’re friends, though, right? And maybe that’s going to be even better for the kids in the long run.”
Baby, Be Mine (Life, Love And Babies Book 3) Page 14
