I feel guilty that I’m offering my ex-girlfriend a baby when my current girlfriend is probably at my house, waiting for me — wanting me to offer her a marriage. My life comes into focus when I walk through my front door. There is music playing loudly from my stereo. I walk over and turn it down. Jessica is at the stove, flipping something in a frying pan. It amazes me that she wants to cook even when she’s not at work. You’d think she’d be sick of it by now. I sit at a barstool and watch her until she turns around.

She must see something on my face. She sets down the wooden spoon she is holding and wipes her hands with a dishtowel before walking over to me. I can see the sauce of whatever she is cooking pooling on the counter under the spoon. I don’t know why, but I can’t stop looking at that spoon.

I grind my teeth as she walks toward me. I don’t want to hurt her, but if I do what I did with Leah, I’ll land up staying just to protect her heart. It’ll be halfhearted, because the only thing I want in life is to protect Olivia’s heart.

When she reaches for me, I grab her hands and hold them. She can see the breakup in my eyes; she shakes her head before I’ve opened my mouth.

“I’m still in love with Olivia,” I say. “It’s never going to be fair to anyone I’m with. I don’t want to give you pieces of me.”

Her tears pool and then spill.

“I think I knew that,” she says, nodding. “Not the cause, but you’re different. I thought it was because of what happened with Leah and Estella.”

I flinch.

“I’m so sorry, Jessica.”

“She’s a bitch, Caleb. You know that, right?”

“Jess-”

“No, listen to me. She’s a bad person. She defends bad people. Then out of the blue, she calls you in the middle of the night and wants you to come rescue her. She’s cunning.”

I rub my forehead.

“It’s not like that. She’s not like that. She’s married, Jessica. I don’t get to be with her. I just don’t want to be with anyone else.”

I look at the spoon and then I force myself to look at Jessica.

“I’d want to have children.”

She backs up a step. “You said you didn’t.”

I nod. “Yes, I spoke out of hurt. Because of what happened with … Estella.” It’s the first time I’ve said her name in a very long time. It hurts.

“I’ve always wanted a family. But, I don’t want to be married to someone and pretend I don’t want kids.”

She shakes her head; it starts slowly and then speeds up.

“I have to go,” she says. She runs to the room to grab her things. I don’t stop her. There is no point. Once again, I’ve hurt someone because of my feelings for Olivia. When will it stop? Will it ever stop? I can’t do this to anyone again. It’s got to be Olivia or nothing for me.

Chapter Twelve

Four o’clock, five o’clock, six o’clock, seven. I still wasn’t out of the building. I’d been waiting four hours for papers. Papers! As if the rest of my life depended on me signing my name to a piece of paper. I glanced at the clock. I was supposed to be at Olivia’s an hour ago. I checked my phone. She hadn’t called. Maybe she was still busy packing.

“Caleb,” my co-worker, Neal, stuck his head through the door, “you sticking around for the party?”

I grinned. “No, I have somewhere to be tonight.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You have somewhere better to be than a dinner your boss is throwing for potential clients?”

“My boss is also my stepfather,” I said, typing into my keyboard. “Pretty sure I can swing it.” My secretary popped her head next to Neal’s.

“Caleb, Sidney Orrico is here. She says she has some things for you to sign.”

I jumped out of my chair. “Send her in.”

Neal raised his eyebrows, but his head disappeared and was replaced by Sidney’s.

“Hey you,” she said.

I stood up and walked around the desk to greet her.

Sidney Orrico: brown curls, dimples, blue eyes, long legs. We were neighbors, we went to the same school, and our mothers dragged us along to social events and then forced us to interact. We saw each other regularly, and by force or by nature, we became friends. And then we became more. It started with a kiss on the fourth of July. After the first kiss, we’d hide out in the rec room at my house and make out on the pool table every chance we got. After a few weeks, I worked my way up to second base. By the end of our first summer together, I’d claimed her virginity. When we started school in the fall, things got awkward … really, really awkward.

Sidney wanted a boyfriend. I wanted a friend with benefits. My fifteen-year-old self tried to explain this to her, but she started crying and then I made out with her just to quell the tears. Then we had sex, and then I had to explain the whole no-dating thing to her again. She slapped me across the face and swore that she was never going to talk to me again.

Not true. She wouldn’t stop talking to me. Fifteen-year-old girls are intense — especially when they think they’re in love. When she caught me at a popular ice cream place on a date with another girl, she went postal, dumping an entire bowl of dripping chocolate ice cream on my lap.

Sidney Orrico.

Fortunately, for me, she backed off after the ice cream incident. She dated my brother for a while, and then broke up with him for a quarterback. We saw each other randomly after that — holiday parties, prom, the mall. By the time I was dating Olivia, I hadn’t seen her in at least a year. She had bypassed college and had gone to real estate school. My mother told me she was working for her father’s development company. That’s when things got sticky.

I was building Olivia a house. Our house. It was a decision I’d made as soon as I realized I wanted to marry her. I hired an architect to draw up the plans weeks before I bought the ring and contacted Greg Orrico, Sidney’s father.

“The project will take about a year, Caleb. Especially with all of the additional inspections we’ll need to pass a widow’s walk.”

I tapped my pen on the desk. That was fine, as long as the foundation was laid by the time I asked Olivia to marry me. I wanted to be able to take her to see something. The foundation of what we were going to be.

We made plans to meet and sign off on all the paperwork. Before I hung up, Greg told me that Sidney would be my project manager.