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Oliver raised an eyebrow and slowly moved to take my hand, the way you’d approach a feral cat or a dog you didn’t quite trust. When I didn’t flinch or move away, he put his other hand on top of mine. “I know you didn’t plan this, duchess,” he said, referring to the plan I’d told him about, the one that had governed my life for more than a decade. “And I know the timing is maybe not ideal.” A grin spread across his face. “But maybe things happen for a reason.”
“You don’t really seem like the type to believe in fate,” I told him, letting the warmth of his skin and his smile rinse away some of the doubt that had been plaguing me.
“I don’t normally, but it seems to me the universe is sending a clear message.”
“Not coming through clearly to me.”
“Duchess.” Oliver pulled my hand to his lips and kissed my palm. “There are so many things I wish I’d said to you before. Maybe this is another chance totell you. I think we found each other for a reason, and that we’re supposed to be together. I don’t care that we work together. We’ll figure something out, some way to handle that. But this?” he shook his head, a smile on his full lips. “This just feels right. And the idea of starting a family? With you? Just because we didn’t plan it this way doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing.”
It was almost too much. It was exactly what I wanted but none of it made sense. Nothing had changed, but everything had changed. I felt a tear slip down my cheek. Stupid hormones. I wiped at it angrily. “Oliver, nothing has changed.”
“Everything changes.”
“We still work together.”
“We’re going to be a family.”
I stared at him, tried to imagine going back to work, our relationship in the open. Now not only would I be sleeping with the CEO, I’d be having the CEO’s baby. “How will it look?” I whispered, wanting everything Oliver was suggesting, but unable to see past the whispers and stares I knew were inevitable at work.
“Holland,” Oliver said, and I heard an edge of the voice he’d used to sell MLB. I knew he was shifting into sales mode to convince me. “A job is a moment in time. It’s important, but it’s part of the backdrop of our lives. It’s a detail, like the car that you drive, the place where you live. It’s a choice. But a baby? A relationship with someone who loves you? That’s the focus. And you have all that—that’s what’s being offered here.
“Don’t distract yourselfworrying about the details. They might change, anyway, and none of that will matter if the other things are solid. Look at the opportunity we have. We’re two people who don’t know where we came from, who’ve never been anchored to anyone by the family connection everyone else in the world seems to have, to take for granted.” He smiled, his eyes bright. “I love you, Holland, and I’m going to love this child. Please let me do both.”
Somehow, while Oliver was speaking, I’d found my way into his arms, and now I settled my head against his chest to inhale the clean scent of him. My heart settled within the circle of his arms, soothed by his words despite my surprise at the ease with which he’d said them. He was right. I’d never had a real family, and that was what he was offering. I was afraid to let myself think too hard about it. I could control work, but this? Family had always been the one thing I couldn’t plan or fix, no matter how much work I did. And now here it was, being held out to me like a prize I didn’t even know I’d tried to win. “Okay,” I breathed.
“Okay?” he said, his voice soft but excited.
“I love you, too,” I said, the words muffled by the warm fabric of his shirt.
We stayed on the couch for another half hour, me in Oliver’s arms and him alternately kissing me and peppering me with questions about how I was feeling.
I pushed away the nagging worries I had about work. He was right—this was more important. Everything else would work out.
CHAPTER 21
Oliver
Holland and I spent the weekend in a cocoon-like state, moving in slow motion from the bed to the couch in her apartment. I went home to pick up clothes and then came back to hibernate some more, basking in the sudden joy taking over my life. Holland O’Dell was mine, and we were going to be a family. A real family. A smile was permanently affixed to my face, and I didn’t care at all. Love surged through me in a way I’d never felt, like a new drug I was trying for the first time.
We watched movies on her couch, our limbs tangled together and kisses interrupting the plots when they got slow. We made love once, slowly and carefully, and I’d felt a new sense of responsibility. I had an overwhelming desire to take care of her, and that transferred into what happened between us sexually. Knowing she was pregnant didn’t change anything for me in terms of wanting her, or needing to feel her next to me, around me.
We had long languorous talks about things that we probably wouldn’t have talked about otherwise. She told me about her childhood—or parts of it. I had to work for those.
“I had one friend when I was in third grade—Tessa,” she told me at one point, lying with her head in my lap as I stroked her forehead. “Her mom was pregnant. It seemed like such a big, magical thing.”
“It is,” I assured her.
“She had money, Tessa. Her house was huge, and she had all the things I wanted, things I couldn’t have. But the thing that I have remembered since then was the baby’s room.”
“The baby had all the things?” I asked.
“All the things. And more. The nursery was this whole jungle theme. And there was a giraffe in one corner—this huge stuffed thing. It was taller than I was. And I was a tall third-grader.” Her voice was reverent, disbelieving.
“A big giraffe,” I said.
“I know it sounds stupid. It was the thing that made me think, This baby has everything.” Her eyes shone as she looked past me at the ceiling and spoke. “That baby—it hadn’t even been born and its parents were so committed, so head over heels in love with it that it owned more things than I did and I was eight years old.”
“Things don’t equal love.”
