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“Keep lying to me and I will throw a drink in your face,” she replies. “Let me guess. You’re playing the bachelor card for that stupid stock thing, aren’t you?”
“Last week, someone at theEnquirerstarted a rumor that I’ve been dating a supermodel from LA,” I say. “Almost instantly, there was a tremor on the market that shaved half a billion off Bucklow Tech’s value. It took a whole PR effort to kill the rumor before it did more damage. There are clearly enough players invested in this move that I simply cannot afford to go public with any of my personal endeavors. If word gets out about Olivia and the baby, the whole damn thing will tank. I’ll lose billions.”
“It’s not even money you worked for,” Lilian scoffs. “It’s extra. You didn’t put a single drop of sweat into that, Will. I didn’t think you were this greedy…”
“This isn’t about greed,” I insist. It’s about fear. My fear of losing even a dollar, of being a dollar closer to poverty. But how am I going to make someone like Lilian understand? She knows my life story but she will never truly understand what drives me. Her upbringing was downright vanilla-sweet compared to mine. “It’s about putting my projects and my successes first. You’re the one who taught me to prioritize.”
“Good grief, Will. A baby becomes an instant priority!”
“I can’t. And Olivia and I are in agreement over this. It’s not for me, and she wants to raise her family alone, so I’m not getting involved.”
“You’re going to regret this. All of your stock games and projects and whatever else you’re gonna use as an excuse not to be with Olivia… it’s worthless. It will fade away, and when it does, you’re gonna look back and see everything that you will have missed out on. Nobody will give you that wasted time back. If there is one thing I can tell you from my own experience, Will, it’s that time… it’s everything we’ve got. It is our most precious commodity. And you’re actively choosing to waste it while running away from true happiness.”
I shake my head like the stubborn ass that I am. “Please, Lilian. What’s done is done. I can’t fix anything at this point. I’ve hurt Olivia badly enough, more than once. I don’t belong with her, and both she and our child are better off without me. Of course, I’ll make sure they never want for anything, I’ll do my duty. But I… I can’t, Lilian, just stop.”
“You’ll regret it,” she insists.
“And I will have to live with it, then.”
It’s not the answer I wanted to give her. It’s not the road I wanted to take in the first place. But the further I get, the more time goes by, the wider the gap gets between Olivia and me. It has become a dark chasm that I can no longer see through. I can still feel my heart strings tugging whenever my mind wanders back to her. Sometimes, I can envision her clearly when I close my eyes. I even dream about her. About our child and what that life would be for us.
It would be everything I never got, and that… I think that’s what scares me the most.
I’ve always walked in parallel with true happiness. I’ve reached out to it more than once, and the closest I ever got to it, really close, was during my private time with Olivia at Clearlake. But deep down, I don’t deserve true happiness—or so I’ve pushed myself into thinking. Therefore, Olivia will move on with her life and raise our child. I will be here, in my dark corner, regretting my decisions and eventually telling Lilian she was right.
My heart hurts, but I don’t have the courage to fix it.
CHAPTER23
OLIVIA
It’s my second ultrasound appointment and I am petrified. Rick was kind enough to come with me, since Mom is with Dad at a hospital appointment of his own. I should go out and see them this weekend, I think. It has been a while, and we still live in the same city.
Dr. Rhodes is a middle-aged woman with a petite figure and a pixie haircut that makes her look like a twenty-year-old, her eyes always warm and bright. “All right, let’s see what’s going on in there,” she says as she applies some of that cold gel onto my belly. “Sorry, it’s always icy at first… So, you said you’ve been feeling worse lately?”
“Yeah. A lot more nausea… I’m constantly drained of energy and sleeping more,” I reply, inwardly wondering if I may have caught a mild depression in my bid to isolate myself from Will and the future that never was. “I also think I’m a lot heavier than I should be at this point in the pregnancy. The scale kind of scares me as of late…”
“You’re growing a life inside you. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to gain some weight in the process,” Rick quips.
“Yeah, but… dude, I feel like I’m the size of a torpedo.”
The doctor looks over to the screen while she moves the ultrasound device around my belly, then settles on one area in particular, just above the navel. Soon enough, a rhythmic drumming echoes through the sound system. It’s a little odd, though. It sounds like it’s overlapping itself.
“Oh, I see what’s going on here,” Dr. Rhodes says. “And it does explain the symptoms you’re getting, especially since they weren’t as acute before.”
“Oh, God. Is there a problem?” I manage, dread washing over me.
“No, no. A challenge, more likely. See here?” She points to the screen, fingertip gliding over two different shapes. My stomach drops as the craziest thought crosses my mind around the same time as she explains my issue. “You’re going to have twins. There’s one little tyke… and there’s the other one. It’s possible to miss them at early scans, but it’ll be a field day once they start turning and kicking. Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”
She’s smiling, waiting for my brother and me to seem elated, but all she’s getting is mumbling and nods as I try to understand how the hell this came to happen, and how I’m gonna handle raising two babies instead of one. Oh, God.
“It’s probably not what you wanted to hear,” Dr. Rhodes adds once she reads my expression, then goes over my chart again. “I see here that the father isn’t in the picture.”
“No.”
“But she’s got a big family that’s ready to help with everything,” Rick cuts in proudly.
“You’re sweet.” I laugh nervously while my mind adjusts to the new parameters of my own body. “Good Lord, twins. How the hell am I going to pull that off?”
