Yeah, that definitely scared him.
It was time to man up and figure out how to get his life back on track. As much as he hated to do it, he was going to have to use the time that he had left with Olivia to get his company back in line and find the kind of managers and foremen that could handle the job without him holding their hands. Then, once that was done, he could figure out how to work from home and maximize the time that he spent working while the twins were napping.
All of this meant less time with Olivia. That made him feel uneasy and it was not at all what he really wanted to do; but he had to make sure that he was ready when the time came that she would go back to L.A. They’d have to take the time now to evaluate what they had and for Jake to learn how to take care of his kids on his own.
None of it sounded appealing.
He wanted to cry out that it wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Just a few weeks ago he was a single guy with a successful company, good friends and a fairly carefree life. Now he saw that it was all an illusion. His company was successful because he worked his ass off to make it that way and was clearly over-paying his staff for work that he was doing himself. And as for being carefree, how could he have been so oblivious to the fact that Marilyn was pregnant with his babies? They had been involved with each other for years, had mutual friends! How was it even possible that no one let him know what was going on?
Maybe they had, and he just wasn’t interested in listening. Not that anyone had come out and said “Hey, Marilyn’s pregnant”, but maybe it had been suggested that he give her a call and he had simply ignored it. The old ignore-the-problem-and-it-will-go-away approach was clearly not the way to go on this one.
Dammit.
Sitting up straighter, he looked at the notes he had written. All five pages of them. He was totally screwed. As it stood, he was going to have to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow and get into the office and begin searching for new employees while fixing the problems his current ones had caused. Great.
And if things didn’t get worked out quickly, he’d be repeating that same pattern for the rest of the week. Awesome.
Cursing under his breath, he stood. In the distance he heard the first cries coming from the nursery. Looking at the clock he saw it was going on four o’clock. Right on schedule, he thought with a grim smile. Great, he’d be able to set his watch by his children – thanks to Olivia – but he had no idea how he was going to manage his time so that he could be everything to everybody all of the time.
Like a condemned man walking to his execution, Jake left his office and went to take care of his children.
****
Something was wrong. Olivia knew it the moment she stepped into the nursery to get the twins. Jake’s shoulders were slumped, and he wasn’t talking with the kids like he normally did. She didn’t say anything – she knew that he’d been on the phone with his office for well over an hour. Clearly things hadn’t gone well. She stepped up and took care of Ben while he got Maddie changed and together they walked silently down the stairs to the living room where she had bottles waiting.
Once they were seated on the couch and the babies each had a bottle in their mouths, she turned to him, unable to stay silent any longer. “Is everything all right?”
Jake couldn’t make eye contact with her. He just couldn’t. One look into those eyes that he loved and he knew that he’d cave and he’d beg her to stay forever. And what kind of man would that make him? “I’m going to need to be gone all day tomorrow. I have to hire a couple of new guys and there are some situations that are demanding my attention, so I’m going to have to travel to a few job sites. I know it’s going to put a lot of pressure on you and I’m sorry for that, but I don’t really have a choice.”
His words were fairly monotone, and Olivia knew that there was more to this than he was letting on. She’d leave it be for now, but she knew that sooner or later, they were going to have to discuss it. “That’s fine. You need to do what you need to do,” she said the words lightly so that she wouldn’t let on that she suspected anything.
“I’ll probably leave in the morning around six, and I have no idea what time I’ll be back.” It was almost said as a dare – like he was daring her to demand that he not go or that he come back early.
“That’s fine. I’m sure that we’ll survive okay.” She looked down at Ben. “Won’t we, buddy,” she cooed. “We’ll have fun. If the weather cooperates we’ll go shopping or to the park…I’ll keep them busy so that they’ll maybe sleep a little bit longer.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” he muttered and fairly yanked the bottle from Maddie’s mouth to burp her.
Olivia almost jumped up and demand that he hand the baby to her, but she stopped herself. She couldn’t control everything, and there were going to be times when he didn’t want to deal with the mundane chores of dealing with infants. He was in a pissy mood; and she knew Jake would get over it and Maddie was oblivious to her father’s mood. So far.
Since Jake refused to engage in conversation, she took the bottle from Ben’s mouth and stood up to burp him – talking to him the entire time. It wasn’t that she couldn’t stand silence, she just couldn’t stand this particular brand of silence. For weeks, she and Jake had talked about everything – all of his hopes and fears about parenthood – and suddenly he was shutting her out. Whatever it was that he was dealing with, it must be pretty big.
Ben let out a little burp, and Olivia sat down and began to feed him again. She glanced at Jake out of the corner of her eye and decided that she wasn’t going to let him pout all night. “So what’s going on? Where are the job sites that you have to go to?”
He glared at her. How dare she act like it wasn’t a big deal? Like he wasn’t being a bastard who was taking advantage of her! “What difference does it make? I’ve got to go to them. End of story.”
“O-kay,” she said and found that she was beginning to lose her patience. Normally Olivia was a pretty optimistic/glass is half-full type of girl, but right now she sensed something bad was coming, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Opting to go with keeping her mouth shut, she got comfortable with Ben and finished feeding him. When he was done, she placed him in his infant swing and went about getting ready to make dinner.
Jake followed her into the kitchen five minutes later. “Don’t bother making anything for me,” he said as he placed Maddie’s bottle in the dishwasher. “I’m just going to make myself a sandwich and then hole up in the office for a couple of hours.”
Yeah, something was definitely wrong; and if she didn’t know any better, she’d think Jake was purposely trying to push her away. Olivia wanted to lash out and demand to know what she’d done wrong or why he was behaving this way, but there was no way that she could do it without breaking down.
And she hated that little admission most of all.
“That’s fine,” she said as she wiped the countertop down from where she’d prepared the bottles earlier. Turning her back on him, she finished what she was doing and then walked back out to the living room to check on the twins. If Jake thought that she’d offer to make his sandwich or that she’d try to engage in conversation with him again, he was mistaken.
The whole thing made her sad. It didn’t seem like it was that long ago that she was thinking about talking to Jake about a future – about what was going to happen when she had to go back to L.A. But she felt like she had her answer now. Nothing. Olivia hadn’t been prepared for such an abrupt ending to their relationship, but maybe it was for the better. She’d finish up her time here – not that she owed it to him – and then go back to her life.
Looking over at Ben and Maddie her heart kicked in her chest. She was going to miss the two of them most of all. They definitely owned a piece of her heart, and she knew that if they were old enough to understand that they wouldn’t just throw it back in her face. They would appreciate it and hopefully cherish it.
Too bad their father wasn’t that smart.
&
nbsp; ****
Jake was exhausted. He could no longer look at the reports in front of him without his eyes crossing. He’d shut the door to the office and turned the radio on to purposely block out any sounds from around the house. He didn’t want to hear Olivia or the twins. While he knew that was the wrong attitude to have – they were his children after all – he just needed a couple of hours to himself to organize his thoughts.
Looking at the clock across the room he saw that it was after one. He cursed as he rose from the desk and stretched. No doubt Ben and Maddie would get up at three for their usual feeding which meant he had to squeeze in two hours of sleep.
Sleep. How the hell was he supposed to do that? He looked around his office and knew that there was no way he could sleep in his desk chair. There was no sofa in there and the floors were hardwood so that wasn’t an option. He could go and sleep on the couch like he had before he and Olivia had become intimate. That wasn’t appealing either, but he knew it was his only real option. After the way he’d behaved earlier, it would be completely inappropriate for him to crawl into bed beside her as if nothing was wrong.
Another curse escaped as he headed toward the living room and came to grips with the fact that he’d be sleeping there for a couple of hours and then have to face Olivia and try to be at least a little civil. In reality, he wanted to tell her what was going on. He desperately needed someone to talk to – to bounce ideas off of – but he was already too reliant on her, and she was going to be leaving soon. Jake knew he needed to stand on his own two feet – no matter how much it was currently killing him.
Bypassing the living room, he went to the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water. He was so damn tired. His feet dragged as he walked back out of the room that was almost completely cast in shadows and went to sit on the couch. Looking to the left he noticed that the bedroom door was open and that there was a light on inside. That was odd in and of itself; Olivia was never up at this hour. She knew the importance of sleeping when the twins slept, so what was going on?
Standing wearily, Jake walked closer to the door and saw that the bed was made and that Olivia was nowhere in sight. What the hell?? Panic seized him. She wouldn’t have just left without telling him, would she? What about the kids? Were they okay? Spinning around, Jake ran from the room and up the stairs to the nursery. There, sleeping peacefully in their cribs, were Ben and Maddie. He looked at each of them and placed a hand on them just to assure himself that they were fine.
That still left the question about Olivia’s whereabouts.
Quietly walking from the room, he stood in the hallway and contemplated the situation. He needed to check the master bedroom and see if her things were still there. If her clothes were still…he stopped. At the end of the hall, the door to the guest bedroom was closed. It was never closed. Could she…? Tiptoeing down there, he got to the door and slowly turned the knob and almost sagged with relief to see Olivia asleep in the bed.
But why? Why would she sleep up here instead of the room she’d been using all along? It didn’t take long for Jake to figure out the answer to that one – she probably didn’t want to take a chance on him showing up in the middle of the night and crawling in beside her. Because clearly that was what he’d been reduced to – that jackass of a guy who pretty much was obnoxious all damn day and would still expect sex at night.
He was really beginning to loathe himself.
She never moved – never uttered a sound – and yet she called to him. It was impossible for him to leave. He stood in the doorway and simply watched her sleep. As irrational as it was, he wanted to crawl into the bed beside her and just hold her. It wasn’t about sex or anything physical, it was the way that Olivia had of just making him feel as if everything was going to be all right.
“Jake?” she rolled over and whispered. “Is everything all right? Did I not hear the twins?” She sat up and rubbed her eyes and when the blankets draped around her waist and revealed one of the tiny tank tops that she wore to sleep in that drove him insane, he almost begged her to let him join her.
He had to physically hold onto the door frame to keep from going to her. “No…no…they’re fine. Still sleeping. I just got done working and went downstairs and saw that…well…that you weren’t there. I wanted to make sure that you were all right.”
For a minute Olivia thought she was dreaming. This was the Jake that she knew and loved. This was the man that she wanted to be with – the one that was kind and caring. “I’m fine. I just figured it would be…better…for me to sleep up here. I’ll be closer to the twins when they wake up or if they need me.”
There was no reason for him to speak or to respond. He felt like crap for even thinking that she would leave in the middle of the night without saying anything. All Jake knew was that he was seriously losing it.
And that he was losing Olivia.
And he wasn’t ready for that.
“Liv…” he began, his voice pained.
“Don’t,” she said quietly. “Just…please don’t say anything.”
More than anything he wanted to give her what she wanted – what she needed – but not this. He needed to talk to her. To tell her he was sorry. For his behavior. For tonight. Everything.
But words escaped him.
Standing in the doorway, Jake stood there and watched her. And waited. He was dying to hear if she was going to say anything else to him or if he was just supposed to walk away and go downstairs. Alone.
Olivia was at war with herself. It was foolish to want him after the way he’d been behaving and yet she couldn’t help herself. Their time together was growing short, and as she reminded herself earlier, she wasn’t prepared for it to end this way. Maybe she was desperate. Maybe she was so sleep deprived that she wasn’t thinking clearly. Either way, she knew what she wanted and she wanted it right now.
Rather than saying anything, Olivia scooted over to one side of the bed and folded the blankets back. Jake knew what she was offering, and he didn’t hesitate before moving into the room and quietly closing the door behind him.
Neither of them spoke – too afraid of breaking the tenuous hold on the peace or truce that they were declaring. But as it had been since she arrived on his doorstep, they were too in sync with one another.
Jake approached the side of the bed and stripped down to his boxers before placing one knee on the bed and leaning forward to caress one of Olivia’s cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but she placed a finger over his lips to silence him.
“For tonight,” she whispered, “just be with me.”
He knew it was selfish and on some level he knew he should be the strong one and just walk away. But he wasn’t strong. At least where Olivia was concerned. She had always been a weakness to him, and if he was only going to have tonight – maybe – then he needed to take it and not have any regrets. He’d let his body tell her everything that he couldn’t. He’d show her everything that he wanted to show her – as long as she’d let him.
He only prayed that it was going to be enough.
Chapter Ten
To say that the next week was a strain would be an understatement. Olivia felt as if these were her babies and not Jake’s because he was never home. Whatever it was that was going on with his company – which he still hadn’t shared with her – it had to be major to keep him away from home for so many hours each day.
It was a good thing that Olivia was so organized; and the twins were settled into a good routine where they would wait for longer periods of time between feedings, and they were sleeping a little bit longer each night. The first time that they slept until four a.m., Olivia said a prayer to her guardian angel. When it continued to happen and now they were almost sleeping until five, she almost wept with joy each morning.
She and Jake hadn’t slept together again since the night in the guest room. They didn’t discuss it – just like they didn’t seem to discuss anything these days – but it seemed to be an unspoken agreement that that part of their
relationship was over. It made her sad – broke her heart actually – but deep down Olivia knew it was for the best. She had spoken to her agent who was picking her up at the airport Friday night and knew that once she landed, she was going to hit the ground running. Literally.
There was a big museum opening coming up from one of the biggest studios in Hollywood, and they commissioned Olivia to do a series of portraits of today’s hottest actresses dressed up as some of the most iconic roles in the studio’s history. It was a definite feather in her cap, but she didn’t have much enthusiasm for the project. It was being rushed because the head of the studio had just thought of it and felt that it would make for a great exhibit in one of the rooms of the museum. While she was used to fast deadlines and all that went with it, she knew that for something of this scale that her head was going to need to be completely in the game.
From what was discussed on the phone, she would have access to actual movie props and sets for the sessions – all of which were already set up in the museum – and the models-slash-actresses and actors were already chosen and being fitted for their wardrobe. All Olivia had to do was show up and take the pictures.
She really had to thank her agent for that one. Normally she was much more involved with every aspect of organizing and setting up of these shoots, but being that the time constraints were so great, it was nice to have that burden removed from her.
Thinking of the photo shoot, she looked over at Ben and Maddie who were happily swinging in their swings and decided that she wanted to get a few more shots of them. When she got back to L.A., she planned on making a scrapbook for Jake and sending it to him – maybe for Christmas, maybe for the babies’ first birthday. She hadn’t decided yet.
Baby, Be Mine (Life, Love And Babies Book 3) Page 12