19. Olivia
CHAPTER 19
OLIVIA
H aving Charlie in Boston did make it easier to complete the work Olivia needed to get done, she reflected as she carried paint cans from the car to the house.
The most difficult factor was that it had been all but impossible to get in contact with him. He had left for the Boston office two days after their night on the boat, and Olivia hadn’t heard from him in the two weeks since. She’d messaged him a couple of times to check on things like paint colors, but when he hadn’t answered her third message, she had decided to use her best judgment and not worry about what he might say. She’d given him plenty of opportunities to weigh in.
For some reason, she felt more tired than usual today. By the time she made it up to the spare bedroom — today’s project — with the paint cans, she found herself needing to lean up against the wall and rest. She supposed it made sense. After all, she hadn’t been sleeping very well for the past few nights. Even though the idea of it bothered her, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Charlie.
If she could have taken a drug to get him off her mind, she would have done it in a heartbeat.
At least working on this painting would tire her out, and hopefully that would allow her to get a full night’s sleep tonight. She grabbed the paint can opener and wedged it under the lip of the lid, then forced it down with the palm of her hand to pry the lid off.
Immediately, she was hit with a powerful wave of paint fumes.
She closed her eyes, gagging. Had the paint been mixed improperly? It was the only thing she could think of that made sense of how terrible it smelled. She had been painting for weeks now, and had used this same brand every time — she was used to the strong smell of wet paint. It had never smelled like this before.
Something is wrong with this paint .
Pulling her shirt up over her nose to protect herself from the worst of the aroma, she pulled the lid the rest of the way off. She fully expected to see something unpleasant — unmixed paint, oily at the top and thickened at the bottom. Maybe even something worse. She wasn’t sure what bad paint would look like, but she was sure she would understand this smell when she saw it.
But much to her surprise, everything looked just fine inside the paint can. The paint was the rich, even texture she was used to. The color was the perfect pale yellow that she had ordered. Frowning, she picked up a paint stick and dipped it in to see if something was wrong at the very bottom of the can.
The stick came up looking normal — but as she pulled it out of the can, the scent of the paint hit Olivia so powerfully that her stomach lurched. She jumped to her feet and sprinted for the bathroom, her curiosity momentarily forgotten in the face of a more pressing need.
She barely made it in time. Falling to her knees on the bathroom tile, she whipped the toilet seat up and bent over the bowl. Sweat poured down her face as she vomited, and it was several minutes before she was able to sit back, propped up against the wall and gasping for breath.
What the hell?
There hadn’t been anything wrong with that paint, so what was it that had made her so unexpectedly sick? She didn’t know what to think. She closed her eyes and tried to process what had just happened.
Did she have a fever? Maybe she had come down with something? She didn’t think so. Now that her stomach had settled, she felt perfectly fine — better than ever, in fact. She felt as if she could have gone and painted the whole bedroom without any trouble — except that the thought of that paint smell made her stomach lurch again.
Did I just develop a sudden sensitivity to the smell of paint?
That really didn't make sense. She’d painted dozens of rooms in her life, and the smell had never given her a problem before. What could account for something like this?
The idea that came into her head was more a joke than a serious consideration. It was the kind of punch line she and Izzy might have exchanged with one another. And it actually brought a smile to her face at first.
Maybe I’m pregnant .
She felt herself begin to laugh at the idea, as she ordinarily would have — of course it wasn’t true — but now the laugh died in her throat.
It could be true. It’s possible.
She began counting backward, trying to remember the date of her last period. She couldn’t come up with it. She would have marked it on her calendar, but she didn’t have her phone in the room with her, so she couldn’t check on that.
But it had been too long. She knew that without having to look it up. It should have happened by now, and it hadn’t.
Oh, God.
This couldn’t be. She couldn’t be pregnant. The only person she had been with in months was Charlie, and that had only been that one time.
Of course, once was all it took…
She drew a deep breath and released it slowly. There was no sense in freaking out. Her course of action was clear. She had to get to the drugstore and get her hands on a pregnancy test. She couldn’t panic about this until she was sure, one way or the other. And once she was, then she would figure out what she needed to do next.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Olivia sat on the edge of the bathtub staring at the pregnancy test in her hands and wondering if she had forgotten which result meant positive .
She was looking at two lines. She knew what that meant. But even so, it had to be wrong, because there was no way. There was no way she was pregnant. She couldn’t be.
She felt like she was staring down the barrel of a gun as she took in the results of the test. She swallowed hard.
What am I going to do now?
There was only one answer to that, of course — she was going to have to tell Charlie what had happened. Even though they had barely spoken since that night on the boat — even though he seemed to be avoiding her to the point of leaving town about it — this was information he needed to have. He deserved to know what was going on.
She went down to the kitchen in a daze, feeling as if a fog had gathered around her brain. Was that a symptom of pregnancy, or was she just in shock? She couldn’t be sure. None of this was remotely expected, and she had no idea what to make of it all.
Her phone was on the counter. She picked it up and dialed the number for Charlie.
It rang and rang, just as it had every other time she had tried to call him.
This was ridiculous. Anger flared in the pit of her stomach. All right, so he was a player — so he was the kind of man who hooked up with women and ghosted them. That didn’t mean that he could ignore the obligations he had to her. She might be a woman he regretted having slept with — well, there was no might about it, really, he had told her so explicitly — but she was still the realtor who was selling his house. He should pick up her calls.
The call went to voicemail. Olivia hung up the phone, feeling deeply frustrated — she wasn’t going to give him this news in a voice message. Of course, given the way he was acting, he deserved to hear it that way, but even so, she couldn’t do it. She didn’t deserve that. She had a right to get his immediate response when he found out, and she didn’t want him to have the chance to put together some prepared, practiced answer. She wanted him caught off-guard, the way she had been.
Was that selfish of her? It probably was, she decided — but it was what she wanted all the same. She wanted to know that this news had some sort of impact on him.
She dialed again. The phone rang again, and again it went to voicemail.
She was going to have to say something.
“Charlie,” she said, when the phone alerted her that it was time to leave a message, “this isn’t acceptable.” She hesitated. “Actually, this is pure crap. You have to call me back, because you and I have unfinished business. You have to talk to me about what we’re going to do with this house. I’m supposed to be listing it in a week — unless you want me to do that without speaking to you about it again?”
She hesitated, almost as if she expected him to speak — though she didn’t, of course. A part of her fantasized that he might pick up the call mid-voice message, but in truth, she didn’t know if that sort of thing was even possible.
“If you don’t call me back, I’m going to list the house,” she said. “And you won’t get any more input on that.”
She took a breath. Who knew whether that threat would be enough to change his might about ignoring her or not?
But she had one more card she could play, she realized suddenly. It made her feel sick to think of doing it, but it was something she could do, and she thought it would probably work.
“If you don’t call me,” she said, “I’ll call Cait. I’ll get her to help me. And… and I’ll tell her everything, Charlie. I will. I don’t want to do that, but you know perfectly well that I can’t sell this house without someone in your family signing off on it. If you’re not going to be that person, I need someone else. And Cait would be so happy to know that she was right about us that she’d cut me in on the profits. I don’t need you . I just need someone.”
She hated that she’d said that, and she knew for certain she would never, ever do it. Even now, she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to betray Charlie like that.
She swallowed hard. “Call me, Charlie,” she said. “I don’t want to turn on you. But right now, you’re not giving me any choice. You have to work with me here, because I can’t do this on my own.”
She ended the call.
She had no idea whether he’d believe what she had said. It had been an outright lie. She would never tell Cait the truth before Charlie had indicated he was ready to do that.
But she wished she could.
With the way he had treated her and was continuing to treat her, she would have loved to tell his siblings everything — to let them know that they had been right from the start in thinking that he was incapable of a real marriage. Of course he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t even keep up a fake one.
This is the man who’s going to be the father of my child .
It occurred to her that maybe she didn’t even want him to know that.
After all — what would happen if he were to find out? Would he want to be involved in the baby’s life? It was hard to conceive of a world where he would choose that, since he hadn’t even been able to stomach the idea of prolonged contact with her after they had slept together. He had left town over it. No, this man certainly wasn’t ready to be a father — she couldn’t give him the chance to do that.
And besides, he had hurt her badly enough. She didn’t want to be rejected by him yet again, after everything he had put her through, and she most definitely didn’t want to risk him rejecting her baby.
But don’t I have to tell him? Doesn’t he have a right to know?
Olivia felt sick all over again, but this time, it had nothing to do with pregnancy nausea. The idea of making this decision — of trying to figure out whether or not she could tell Charlie the truth — was tearing her apart, and she had no idea what she was going to do.
It was probably for the best he hadn’t answered his phone.