Chapter 20

Holland

I was a girl with a plan. I had always been a girl with a plan. I was cautious and careful, and I did irritating things like make lists of pros and cons. I thought through outcomes before I acted. Sometimes I even rehearsed situations from life when I was alone so I could be sure I’d do well when the real thing came. That was how I’d been as long as I could remember. That was what kept me on track, kept me safe.

And I’d pretty much disregarded all of that when it came to Oliver. I’d shut my eyes and done the equivalent of a trust fall backward into the unknown. And now everything was ruined. This was exactly why I’d had the plan.

One week apart from Oliver had felt like the longest and emptiest of my life. I’d tried to keep the pain at bay with long hours at work. I’d spent evenings at my desk, ignoring everything and everyone. I’d even canceled on Delia the day after we’d broken up, blaming the MLB work for keeping me busy. At Delia’s for dinner that next Wednesday, I’d planned to act as if everything was normal. But that was the thing about Deel. She knew me well. Maybe better than I knew myself.

“What?” she asked, the second I walked into the kitchen where Olivia was sitting in the middle of the floor with a tiny microscope in her lap, surrounded by rocks.

“What?” I kept my voice light, reaching for the glass of wine she held out.

“What’s wrong? You have that line between your eyebrows.” She reached a finger out and pressed it to my forehead, pressing my worry line flat. “This is gonna age you, Holl. You need to relax. You can’t control everything.”

“Wrong. That’s exactly the issue. I need to control everything.” I swatted her hand away and took a healthy swallow of wine. “When I follow the plan, control the pieces, then everything goes as it should.”

Delia walked me to the living room. Spring was beginning to appear in the air outside and it was warmer in the evenings. “Well, Carl had to work late and isn’t coming for dinner. So I didn’t cook. Pizza’s on the way, we have plenty of wine, and you can tell me exactly what’s going so wrong.”

Olivia trundled into the room behind us and carefully piled her rocks in the center of the floor and then flopped down on her stomach in front of the microscope. “Hi, Ha-wen.”

“Hi, Olivia,” I said, finding an easy smile for my favorite three-year-old.

“Gigi’s watching a movie,” Delia said, answering my next question without me having to ask it. “I couldn’t take Frozen one more time, so she’s in my room.”

Olivia smiled up at her mom, a mischievous glint in her eye, and started singing “Let It Go” in her tiny soprano.

“No, Liv,” Delia wailed. “Scientists don’t sing. I can’t take it!”

Olivia got to her feet and put her fists to her hips, taking a break from the song to announce, “Scientist singer.”

“Of course. Well, if you’re going to sing Frozen tunes, you need to go join your sister or I might have to use my freezing fingers on you.” Delia waggled her fingers at the little girl and made a crazy face.

Olivia hesitated, and then gathered her rocks into the front of her yellow T-shirt and picked up her microscope, trudging off to the back of the house, strains of “Let It Go” wafting down the hall after her. My heart squeezed as I exchanged a smile with Delia. She had everything, and it amplified the pain in my chest to realize how far from her life my own still was.

My wine tasted strangely sour, and instead of making me feel better, it was turning my stomach, so I put it down. “Oliver and I broke up.”

Delia’s face immediately turned sad, as she pressed her lips together and furrowed her own eyebrows. “Oh, honey.” She reached to lay a hand on mine and then crossed to me and pulled me into a hug. “What was his reason? What did he say?”

I pushed her away. “Why do you assume he broke up with me?”

She shook her head, the tight braids shining in the glow coming from the tall windows behind her as she sat back down. “Sorry. I don’t know. It was you?”

I nodded.

“Why?” Her voice was a whisper.

“It just wasn’t right, Deel. I was sleeping with my boss!”

“That again? Seriously?”

“It’s not ethical,” I told her, annoyed that I’d have to explain it. “I got a raise, pulled in the MLB deal, took a promotion…and I don’t get to be happy about it because it feels like maybe none of it would have happened without Oliver.”

“So shouldn’t you be thanking him instead of saying ‘Get out’?”

“No!” Anger flared in my head, making the lingering headache I’d had all day throb in my temples. “No, Deel. Don’t you see how it looks? Even if I did all that myself, all anyone will think is that I got it by sleeping with the CEO.”

She shrugged. “You know that’s not true, though,” she said. “You earned all of it.”

“But it’s how it looks.”

“Right, I see that. But I’m not sure how much that matters. What if he’s the guy? What if you’re perfect together? Will you let the way things look keep you from being happy?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

We sat in silence for a moment, across from each other in the armchairs in front of Delia’s living room windows, our wine on the small table between us, and Delia looked like she was thinking about something. “Honey, I’m always on your side. That’s why I have to tell you when I think you’re wrong. Oliver was good for you. He’s a good guy, and you two fit together. I could see it. Even Carl could see it, and he doesn’t exactly notice subtleties.”

Delia had always had a way of cutting to the basic elements of a situation while I had to think through every detail and often got lost in the weeds. I tried to weigh whether she was right in this case, but still felt the sting of not owning my accomplishments entirely. I knew I’d done the right thing breaking up with him. It was right, at least on paper, but God, I missed him. I picked up my wine, but the first sip made me put it back down on the table.

“You don’t like it?” Delia asked, nodding to the wineglass. Her own glass was almost empty. “It’s the Vermentino you told Carl was the best thing you’d ever tasted. We bought a half-case just for you!”

“Maybe this bottle is corked?” I asked, picking up the wine and sniffing it. Even the smell made me flinch.

Delia sniffed hers and then swallowed the rest with a smile. “Something’s wrong with you, girl.” She grinned at me.

I shrugged and put the wine back down. Nothing had tasted right since I’d broken up with Oliver. “I think my heart is making my food taste funny.”

“I don’t think it works like that.”

The doorbell rang and Delia jumped up to answer it. “Pizza!” she called to the back of the house. The faint sounds of the movie stopped and small feet pounded down the hallway as Delia paid the pizza guy and handed me the boxes. “Can you get some plates out?”

We ate with the little girls, listening to their analysis of whether Sven was a reindeer or—Olivia’s opinion—a moose, and whether Olaf would really enjoy a beach vacation or if that was just something he threw in the song to make it rhyme. It felt good to distract myself for a while with their happy chatter, but I couldn’t eat much and Delia was watching me through the whole meal with a strange look on her face.

As we cleared dishes, she cornered me in the kitchen. “When was your last period, Holl?”

Not the kind of question I was used to from a dinner companion. I raised an eyebrow and frowned at her. “When’s the last time you and Carl had sex?” I shot back.

“This morning, and I’m serious.”

“Heh. Impressive. Like before work? Or—”

“Holl, do you think you could be pregnant?”

The thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but my entire body stiffened at the suggestion. “What? No, I…” My mind raced. I honestly couldn’t remember when I’d had a period last, but I knew it was before I’d begun seeing Oliver. Sleeping with Oliver. “Oh God.” A list of strange sensations and occurrences seemed to align themselves in my mind with a firm and almost audible click. I’d been nauseous. Food tasted funny and I didn’t want alcohol. I was pretty sure I’d missed a period…and Oliver and I hadn’t used protection after that first time because I’d been on the pill. “I’m on the pill,” I said, my voice a dull monotone as I tried to reassure myself.

“People get pregnant on the pill,” Delia said. “It happens.”

I stared at her, probing my body mentally, searching for some feeling that would answer the question with certainty. I could not be pregnant. It just wasn’t possible. Except that it was.

“I think I have a test,” she offered, her voice light and casual. “No reason to freak out until you know. Let me go look.” Delia disappeared to the back of the house and I sat back down at the table, watching her daughters sorting the rocks into piles as Olivia directed her older sister in proper microscope usage. God, I wanted that. But not now. My hand lay absently on my stomach, and I considered. Wouldn’t I know? Shouldn’t I feel something?

Delia returned with a box and handed it to me, and I took it to the bathroom, feeling dumbstruck. “Can I come?” she asked.

“To watch me pee on a stick?”

Her grin seemed out of place as she nodded, but I shrugged. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d been in the bathroom together.

We waited, sitting on the counter with the stick between us while Delia watched a timer on her phone. “One more minute,” she told me just as the sound of shrill voices erupted from the living room. “Mommy!”

She slid off the counter and went to the door. “Be right back,” she said.

Delia was gone more than a minute, mediating whatever battle had erupted between her girls, and I stared at the stick, afraid to pick it up and check. When she didn’t return for what seemed like an hour, I couldn’t take it anymore. She returned to find me sitting on the counter staring at the plus sign that had appeared like a beacon of doom on the stick’s white screen.

This was not part of my plan.

Delia had been reassuring, but her words had felt hollow and sounded empty as I thought them over on my way home from the doctor’s office that Friday morning.

“Not everything in life happens because you plan it, Holl.”

“It could, if I wasn’t a careless moron.” I was crying, tears rolling down my cheeks as I drove to work after the appointment that confirmed my pregnancy, trying not to lose it completely. “This changes everything.”

“It will change things, yeah. But it will be okay, honey. Carl and I are here.”

“How am I going to tell Oliver?”

She paused, but then she said, “You just tell him.”

“But what if—”

“There’s no what-if. You tell him. Either he can handle this or he can’t.”

“I haven’t even spoken to him in over a week. To call him and just drop this on him…”

“Holland, can I tell you something?”

My silence must have seemed an assent.

“Some of the very best things in my life were unplanned.”

“This is not the time to be cryptic.”

“Carl and I weren’t even engaged when we found out Gigi was on the way.” When she stopped speaking, the silence on the line seemed to echo my surprise.

“Seriously?”

“But our marriage, and her birth? The best things I’ve ever done.”

“You weren’t broken up at the time.”

“Minor complication.”

“Right.” I gripped the steering wheel and sniffed, trying to clear my mind so I could walk into my office without everyone inside immediately knowing that my carefully planned life was falling down around me.

I kept my sunglasses on during my trek through the lobby and up to my office, lowering my chin practically to my chest and doing my best to be invisible. I went through email, returned those that were urgent, and just before noon I took a deep breath and pulled up an empty email. I knew I should call. Better yet I should just walk up to Oliver’s office to talk to him. But I couldn’t get past the memory of the way his eyes had gone hard and cold, the way he’d driven away and not looked back. He was so angry with me already. I couldn’t imagine facing him. I pictured that frightening irate man I’d seen throwing a potted plant across the executive reception area that night when I’d first seen him. I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of those plant throws. And if I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to see him like that and know I’d been the cause of it this time.

I typed.

Oliver,

I’m sorry to reach out this way, but I need to share some information with you. I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important. Would you be willing to stop by my place later on your way home? Or I can come to you. Just not at work.

Let me know.

Thanks,

Holland

Short, to the point, hopefully professional. I hit “send” and tried to busy myself with other things, but it turned out to be unnecessary. A response landed in my inbox within minutes.

I’ll stop by at six.

Why did that one line make me feel like crying? I reread it forty times, seeking some hidden bit of emotion, some hint of what he was thinking or feeling, but it wasn’t there. It was one line. Simple and to the point. And now I just had to wait.

By the time Oliver knocked at six, I’d changed into comfortable sweats and worn a path through the cheap thin carpet in my living room pacing back and forth. How was I going to tell him this news? What in the world would he think? First I push him away, now I’m telling him we’re inextricably connected. A thousand different scenarios ran through my mind, and I found it difficult to even decide what it was I hoped for.

The knock pulled me out of my fearful reverie and back to the moment, and I stared at the door for a long second, delaying the inevitable. When I finally pulled it open, my heart flew into my mouth. It was the first time I’d seen him since we’d broken up. It had been little more than a week, but it felt like years. I wanted to throw myself into his arms, bury my head in his chest and stay there forever.

Oliver stood in my doorway, his beard less trimmed than normal and hollows beneath his eyes that spoke of nights awake. Despite that, he was as beautiful as he was in every one of my dreams—tall, broad, and handsome. His dark eyes burned as he stood staring at me, not moving.

“Come in,” I said, clearing my throat in an attempt to regain my voice. I stepped back and Oliver strode into my apartment, filling the space with his confident beauty and giving me an odd sense of relief. Having Oliver near me made me feel settled, calmer, but I pushed the feeling away. He wasn’t mine. He never really had been.

Oliver raised an eyebrow, standing in the center of my living room and waiting for me to speak.

“Maybe we could sit down?” I gestured at the couch, my voice still weaker than I would have liked.

“I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to get comfortable in an employee’s apartment on a Friday evening,” Oliver said, not a hint of sarcasm in his voice, which was cool and detached.

I nodded. “I deserved that.” I sat, looking up at him. Maybe he wouldn’t sit, but I didn’t think I’d get through this standing.

“What’s going on, Holland?” His voice softened slightly and I saw a hint of the old Oliver flicker through his dark eyes.

Meeting his gaze after that was an impossibility because I was fighting the urge to just step into his arms, to resume feeling like he was an island of safety discovered in a lonely sea, a place where I was finally at home. I stared at the coffee table instead. “I had a doctor’s appointment today,” I began. “I’d been feeling a little bit…off, I guess. Anyway, I went in—”

Suddenly Oliver was sitting, his knees touching mine and a hand on my shoulder. “Holland,” his voice was broken, gruff.

I met his eyes, relieved to see every ounce of feeling there that I’d extinguished the week before, but no more able to hold that gaze. “I’m fine,” I said quickly. “I mean, I’m not sick.”

He sat back, the hand falling away as a chill raced down my spine. He exhaled.

“I just need to tell you that I’m pregnant,” I said, the words coming in a rush. “I haven’t been with anyone else, and I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’m on the pill, I told you that. I guess…it’s just…sometimes it happens.” I met his gaze once the words were out. I’d done it. It was out. No use being pathetic and afraid of what was inevitable. I watched him, waiting for a reaction.

Oliver’s face darkened and he took a deep quick breath in surprise. Then his eyes widened as he blew it out, staring at something in the distance ahead of him that only he could see. And after a long moment, a tiny smile flew across his face and disappeared as he looked directly at me. “I think that’s wonderful.” He seemed to be thinking, a crease appearing between his eyebrows. “I’d like to talk about your plans for the baby. Given your reluctance to be linked with me at work, I’m wondering what role I might hope to play here.” The words were formal, but there was a warmth in them that told me he wasn’t upset, wasn’t going to get angry. He did look confused for a second, though, and I held my breath as he stood back up. But then he pulled my tiny giraffe from beneath a pillow where he’d been sitting and gave me a half-grin, putting it on the coffee table and sitting back down.

What role would he play? I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just needed to tell you what was going on.”

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 to tell 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 yourself worrying 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.