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“Olive, that’s not-,”
She waved her hands to cut me off. “You don’t need to worry, Liam, I got the message, or the lack of messages loud and clear. Go live your life or whatever the hell you call it and just leave me the hell alone!”
Ouch. I expected anger but I hadn’t expected this level of anger from sweet little Olive Jensen. She wasn’t wrong and I had no good excuse for how I behaved. “I’m here now.”
She tossed her head back and let out a loud, obnoxious laugh. “Oh well let’s roll out the red carpet, shall we? Now that Liam gives a damn about something, let’s all stop our lives to hear what he has to say. Well?”
Maybe it was wrong, but this version of Olive was turning me on. A little. Okay, a lot. “Olive.” That’s all I had because there was no excuse, no good one anyway.
“As fun as this little display is,” Eva said, smoothing her skirt as she stood to the side of where Olive and I glared at each other, “this is our place of business and I can hear you shouting in my office. With the door closed. Take it somewhere else. Please.”
“That was my suggestion,” I said and folded my arms.
“Then you should have waited until I was ready to talk to you instead of ambushing me at work. At. Work.”
“Can we go someplace private now?”
Olive nodded and took a step back. “I’ll be at Pizza Town in ten minutes for lunch,” she said and looked down at the watch on her slim wrist. “Be there or not. I don’t care.”
“Clearly,” I growled and stalked off towards the door. “That’s not exactly private is it?”
She shrugged. “What do we need to say in private that we can’t say inside a quiet restaurant?”
She had a point. “Ten minutes,” I told her and left Time For Love offices. My car was parked right out front so I fed the meter and used the short walk to clear my head. To calm my racing heart and to settle frustration I felt down to my bones. Nothing Olive had said was untrue, but it pissed me off.
It was late afternoon and Pizza Town only had a few stragglers remaining, which would give us the privacy we needed despite what Olive believed. I started towards a table near the back just in case the place filled up again. “Liam, over here.”
I turned at the sound of my name and found Olive seated at a table, a big bowl of salad in front of her and a small drop of vinaigrette on her bottom lip. “Too hungry to wait, I see.”
Her shrug was unapologetic. “That’s what happens when you spend half the day bent over a toilet. Or a trash can.” Olive dug into the salad with intensity, not giving one damn whether I found her attractive or judged her for the giant salad in front of her.
“Are you okay? I mean, are you doing all right?” It was the second time someone had mentioned being sick, which I knew was part of pregnancy but it seemed…excessive.
Olive bobbed her head while she chewed, a smile danced in her eyes. “You don’t need to worry about me, Liam. I’m fine. The nausea is part of the experience along with plenty of other things.” She took another bite before I could ask what other things and then the waiter came to take our order.
“Want to split a pizza?”
She gave a half-nod, half-shrug answer. “Spinach and mushroom with extra cheese?”
“You heard the woman. A large cola and water, too please.”
“Got it. Your order will be ready soon.” The freckle faced kid hurried off, probably eager to get away from the tension that surrounded the entire table.
As soon as he was gone, Olive laid both hands flat on either side of her salad bowl, green gaze serious. “Yes Liam, I am pregnant and yes you are the biological father.”
I didn’t like the emphasis she put on biological as if there was some other kind of father out there, or worse, that she was looking for that other. “Okay. Glad we cleared that up. Thanks for telling me.”
“You’re welcome,” she snorted and went back to her salad with more enthusiasm than she was giving me at the moment. “I guess.”
It was my turn to be the bigger person. “I’m sorry, Olive. Truly. It was shitty of me not to return even one call. I’m not that guy and I know it’s hard for you to believe, but I’m really not.” At least I didn’t think I was.
I hoped I wasn’t.
Olive tore into the rest of her salad with so much energy I couldn’t believe this was the same prim woman who favorite knee-length dresses and cardigans colored like Easter eggs. I watched her curiously, waiting for her to say something, anything about my apology, but she was more interested in the salad.
