Walking over to pick up her camera, she placed it on the coffee table and decided that she’d get some shots of them in their swings and then maybe some of them playing on the floor on one of their blankets. She’d done some shots like this before, but the way they were growing, she figured they’d still look different.
“Hey, guys,” she cooed as she slowed the swings down. “How about some pictures, huh?” Olivia didn’t doubt for a second that if they could talk, they’d tell her that she’d taken enough pictures. The thought of one of them saying that to her made her laugh. “Then it’s a good thing that you can’t talk yet, isn’t it?” Reaching for her camera, she continued to talk nonsense to them while she snapped shot after shot after shot. When she was satisfied with the ones she had taken, she walked over and picked Ben up and placed him on the blanket. “I really wish I was going to be here when you learn to sit up all by yourself. That’s a picture I would love to have for the book.”
Once he was situated, she went for Maddie. When she lifted the baby, Olivia immediately knew that something was wrong. She was warm. Very warm. And now that she looked a little bit closer, she noticed that Maddie’s skin was a little flushed. “Oh, my,” she said and walked quickly to the bathroom and found the digital thermometer. Not wanting to leave Ben alone any longer, she carried Maddie back out to the living room and took her temperature.
“Uh-oh.” One hundred and one. “That can’t be good.” Without hesitation, she reached for the phone and called the pediatrician. She explained Maddie’s symptoms to the nurse and was told to bring her in as soon as she could.
As soon as Olivia hung up with her, she called Jake’s office. “I’m sorry, Olivia,” his assistant Helen said, “He’s not here. Have you tried his cell phone?”
“Not yet. I figured I’d try the office first. If you hear from him, can you please tell him that I have to take Maddie to the doctor?”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s got a pretty high fever, but other than that, she seems okay; I called the pediatrician, and they said to bring her in. I figured Jake would want to know.”
“Try his cell, and if I hear from him, I’ll pass on the message.”
“Thanks, Helen.” She hung up and immediately dialed Jake’s cell and got his voicemail. “Dammit.” With nothing left to do, she left him a message asking him to call her and that it was an emergency, and then she quickly packed the twins up and loaded their infant seats into her car. By this point, Maddie was starting to get cranky and Ben – seemingly having sympathy pain – began to cry with her.
It was the longest fifteen minute drive Olivia had ever taken.
****
Jake was exhausted. It was the first time in a week that he was getting home at a reasonable hour and was actually looking forward to possibly having dinner with Olivia. She was leaving in three days, and he didn’t want them to part ways like this. Not with him acting like a jerk.
He pulled into the driveway and his dashboard clock read six o’clock. He was going to sleep hard tonight. Every night he had been getting home around midnight and then leaving at six a.m. He missed the twins and hated having to be away this much. But if everything went as planned, today was the last of the long days, and come Monday, he’d be able to work from home with little to no aggravation.
He had hired a new manager and three new foremen. The process had been fast, furious and damn-near painful, but Jake was confident that he had found the right team of people to help him manage his company while he spent the next couple of months trying to get things settled with Ben and Maddie. Helen had suggested that if he came in once a week, she could arrange for someone to take care of the twins in the office. This way Jake would be close by in case they needed him, but he’d still get to be a little more hands-on in the office like he wanted to be. The idea had merit. It wasn’t a complete solution, but it would enable him to feel like he was still contributing to the big picture.
It wasn’t until he got out of the car that he noticed that Olivia’s car wasn’t there. That was odd. It was late in the day for her to be out with the twins. They were normally having their dinner around now or just finishing up and getting their baths. Where the hell was she?
Walking through the front door, he called out to her just in case she was there and maybe something had happened with her car. But there was no answer, and as he walked around the house, he didn’t find any kind of note or indication of where she might have gone. While he knew that he had been working late for a week, that didn’t mean that he was okay with her just taking off with his kids. This was his one night home, and he wanted to spend time with them. Now. Reaching for his cell phone, he remembered that the battery had gone dead hours ago. He cursed when he realized that that was the only place he had stored Olivia’s number.
Running to his office he dug around on his desk for his charger and plugged the phone in. He knew he wouldn’t be able to use it immediately and tossed it aside and searched for Mike’s number. Why, oh why, didn’t he memorize peoples full phone numbers rather than what number they are on his damn phone?
He found Mike’s number and was about to pick up the house phone when he heard noise coming from the next room. Dropping the phone, he quickly walked out and saw Olivia struggling to get in the door with the two infant seats. “Where the hell have you been?” he yelled as he walked across the room to take one of the seats from her.
Olivia had been shocked to see Jake’s truck in the driveway, and this was certainly not the greeting she had been expecting. “Didn’t you get my messages?”
“No! I was working for crying out loud! You know that. If you’re going to take off with my kids, then you need to let me know where you’re going. You could have at least left a note!”
That was it. Olivia placed Ben’s seat down in the middle of the living room and shrugged out of her coat and threw it on the sofa and waited for Jake to put Maddie down. “For your information, I called you eight times! Eight!” she nearly screamed. “And on top of that, I texted you and called Helen at least four times in hopes of getting a message to you!” She stepped up and got in his face and poked her finger into his chest. “So don’t you dare cop any kind of attitude with me, dammit! I did tell you where I was, and I tried repeatedly to get you to answer me because you needed to know what was going on. Maybe you should pay more attention to keeping your damn phone charged and remember that you have two children that may need you!”
Her breathing was ragged, and she took a step back and made sure that her voice level hadn’t upset the babies. “Although for the life of me I don’t know what difference it would make, it’s not like you’re interested in fatherhood anymore,” she muttered as she went and got the diaper bag that held Maddie’s prescription in it.
She had almost made it by him when Jake reached out and grabbed her upper arm and spun her toward him. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Yanking her arm free, she stood her ground. “It means that for a week you haven’t even spent five minutes with them. You’re out of here at the crack of dawn and you’re home at midnight. You’ve slept through all of their feedings, and you know what? That’s crap. In case you’ve forgotten, I leave in three days. You’re going to have to get your shit together, Jake, because there’s no one else here to help you!”
“Don’t you think I know that? Has it once occurred to you that I’ve been working like this because you’re leaving, and I have to get my affairs in order at the office so that I can be here full-time?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “No. Of course not. It was too easy to make assumptions and paint me as the bad guy!”
“Well, what choice did I have? Did it ever occur to you to talk to me? To let me know what was going on? I mean, what the hell, Jake? The first few weeks I was here, we would talk for hours about anything, and now? Now I don’t even know what’s going on with you!”
“I’m getting things in order so that I can devote my time to my children, Olivia. They are all
that matters to me. Things with the company got a little crazy, and I had to fix it. I think I’ve taken care of everything, and come Monday, when you’re gone, I’ll be able to take over just fine.”
Something about the way he threw in ‘when you’re gone’ hit Olivia like a knife to the heart. She’d deal with it later. Without looking at him, she went and grabbed the bag with Maddie’s prescription. Once she had it, she turned to him and decided to give him something that would hurt him just as much as he’d hurt her. “Just so you know, we were at the doctor. Maddie was running a high fever, and I called the pediatrician and he took her in right away. I knew you’d want to know, maybe even be there, but you couldn’t be bothered keeping your phone charged.” She stormed past him and made her way to the kitchen.
Jake immediately followed.
“A fever? The doctor? What did he say? Is she all right? What’s wrong with her?” He was rambling a mile a minute, and Olivia knew that for the first time in a long time, he was scared.
“She has an ear infection. It’s fairly common in infants. She’s going to be fussy for a few days, but he gave us something for the pain that should make it easier for her to sleep.”
“What about…?”
“I had him check out Ben, too, and his ears are fine. No sign of any problems.”
Jake nearly sagged with relief. He started to say that he was sorry for over-reacting, for not having his phone – everything – but she was clearly pissed off and not ready to hear any of it. He watched as she read the instructions for what to do for his daughter and then go and take care of her.
Without asking, Olivia explained everything to him that she was doing and why. None of it was difficult, but Maddie was clearly upset and getting the eyedropper of medicine into her mouth was proving to be a bit of a challenge. Olivia managed to get it done and then handed Maddie to him so she could wash the dropper off.
They worked together to get the twins fed and bathed and changed into pajamas, and Olivia ended up making some grilled cheese sandwiches for them to eat during it all. It certainly wasn’t gourmet, but it was good to finally be eating something.
At nine o’clock she started walking up the stairs with Maddie, and Jake questioned her. “I’ve been putting them down at nine the last couple of nights. They don’t go to sleep right away, but I think it’s important for them to be able to be in their cribs without crying about it. Plus, with you being gone all day, I’ve been pretty exhausted by this time of night.”
He felt like ten kinds of crap at her words. “What time are they waking up for their bottles?”
“I’ve been fortunate – we’ve had quite a few nights that they’ve slept all the way through to five and even six a.m. It’s been pretty great.”
Jake was shocked at how much he had missed over the course of a week. “Olivia…I…” His words were cut off by the sound of Olivia’s cell phone ringing. She turned around on the stairs and carefully ran down – with Maddie in her arms – to answer it. Jake was about to offer to take his daughter, but Ben let out a little cry of annoyance at being ignored.
Olivia saw the name on the screen and cringed a little. She looked at Jake briefly over her shoulder before answering the call. He looked curious as hell, and she figured she might as well get this over with. “This is Olivia,” she said, forcing a cheeriness that she didn’t feel into her tone. “Uh-huh…what? No. That’s not…that’s not…you’re not listening, Margo,” she snapped impatiently, “that’s not going to work for me. We had an agreement…” Olivia listened for a moment and then said, “Let me call you back in ten minutes, okay?” She didn’t wait for an answer, she simply hung up.
Without acknowledging Jake, she took Maddie up the stairs and got her settled in her bed. When she turned to leave, Jake came in with Ben. She was going to ask if he wanted her to wait, but she figured that it was now or never – he was going to have to learn to get back into the habit of taking care of his children without her there to guide and help him.
Once down the stairs, she picked up her cell phone and walked into the master bedroom where she closed the door for privacy and called her agent back. “Margo? It’s Olivia. What the hell is going on? We had an agreement. The shoot is scheduled to start on Monday.”
“That was the original plan but Jennifer Davis’ agent called and said that she was needed over in Morocco on Monday, so we need to get her shots done before she leaves the country.”
Olivia pinched the bridge of her nose and fought the urge to punch something. “Then I’ll do it on Saturday,” she said. “Make the arrangements; I land in L.A. Friday night at seven. I don’t care how early we need to do it on Saturday morning to get it done.”
“Not going to happen, Liv. Sorry. They want the shots done by no later than Friday because Jennifer and her agent need to approve them before they leave.”
This was why she hated working with celebrities. “Margo, you have no idea what you’re asking.”
“Look, Liv, I have done my best to give you the blessed peace and quiet that you ranted and raved about needing, and I still don’t know what exactly you’ve been doing; but whatever it is, it’s not as important as this shoot. If you get this done in the period of time that they gave you, and you do it up right? Sweetie, you’ll be able to quadruple your asking price and be the biggest name in photography.”
Olivia sighed heavily. “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
“Not me, darling, Jennifer Davis…her agent…and the studio. I’m just the messenger.”
And because Olivia knew that Margo was beyond efficient, she asked, “What time is my flight tomorrow?”
“You leave out of Raleigh at eight a.m., and you land here in L.A. noon our time.”
“And the photo shoot?”
“We’ve arranged to have access to the museum from six until midnight tomorrow. I’ll have everything ready and waiting for you. A car will pick you up at the airport and bring you home so that you can freshen up or whatever, and then you can meet me either here at my office or we’ll meet up at the museum.”
“I guess the museum,” she said wearily.
“Liv, lighten up. This is huge. You should be on top of the world!”
“Yeah, you’re right.” But her heart just wasn’t feeling it. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I land.” She hung up and sat down on the bed. This was it. It was time to go. She so wasn’t ready for it. Knowing that she couldn’t put off the inevitable, she rose and walked to the door and opened it to find Jake sitting on the couch looking anxious.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
Oh, God. How was she supposed to do this? How was she supposed to pack up and leave after all they had shared? How was she supposed to pack up and leave Ben and Maddie? They may not be hers but in her heart, they felt like they were.
“That was my agent on the phone,” she said carefully as she walked around to sit at the other end of the sofa.
“And?”
Olivia sighed. “And…I need to leave sooner than expected.”
“When?” His throat felt as if he’d swallowed glass.
“Tomorrow morning.” She looked up at him and couldn’t help the tears that began to well in her eyes. “I’m sorry for the short notice. It couldn’t be helped. My flight has been booked, and I’ll have to leave here before six tomorrow morning in order to return my rental car and catch the eight a.m. flight.”
Jake inhaled slowly and then exhaled. He knew the time was coming and yet didn’t think it actually would. And the fact that she was leaving earlier did little to ease his worries.
“Will you be all right staying home from the office tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’m going to have to be, aren’t I?” he said a little too shortly.
“Look, I didn’t plan this, Jake. I just got the call a few minutes ago, and you know it.”
“Do I? For all I know you set this whole thing up as a way of getting back at me for working all week.”
Olivi
a’s eyes went wide at the accusation. “You have got to be kidding me!” she cried. “You are unbelievable, you know that? And an egomaniac besides! Believe it or not, this has nothing to do with you. I was just handed an incredible opportunity with a big production studio. It’s the kind of thing that I’ve been working for my whole career. So yes, I’m leaving early to go and take the job. It’s no different than you having to go to the office and take care of business. My photography is my business. And this job that I’m going back for, is something that is going to make my career soar into a whole other stratosphere. So sue me. I need to take it.”
“Fine. I’m not stopping you,” he said defensively as he stood up and walked into the kitchen. Olivia followed him.
“I’ll make bottles tonight and all of the laundry is done so that…”
“We’ll be fine, Olivia,” he said as he opened the refrigerator and got himself a can of soda.
“Okay, well…I’ll take the car seat bases out of my car so that…”
“I’ll take care of that, too,” he snapped. “Why don’t you go and pack?” He walked out of the room before she could respond.
“Tell me what I’m supposed to do!” she called after him and was surprised when he strode back into the room. He stopped when he was right in front of her.
“Marry me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Marry me.”
Olivia was stunned. So many times she had dreamed of this moment, but somehow it was a lot more romantic and a lot less…angry. “Why? Why would you even suggest such a thing?”
“It seems to me that you’ve grown fond of the twins, and they feel the same about you. They may not be able to verbalize it, but you can tell that they do. You’re really good with them, and you and I…well…we’ve proven that we’re compatible. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
Her stomach clenched. She crossed her arms across her middle. “Let me ask you something, Jake. Do you love me?”
Baby, Be Mine (Life, Love And Babies Book 3) Page 13