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Little Sawyer’s cries broke the tension, and Maverick reached down to pick him up, then handed him to Olivia when she murmured, “He must be hungry.”
Evan took that as his cue to leave, so he stood, but not without commenting, “I’ll be back tomorrow with Mom and Dad to help take you home.” Although his remark was directed at her, she knew it was meant to be a warning to Maverick.
He responded in kind. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. But you needn’t worry about helping them home, since they’ll be coming to my place.”
The standoff began again.
Olivia decided to let the two men have their pissing contest and not interject that she was, in fact, going back to her house and not Maverick’s.
Finally, Evan broke his stare and glanced at Olivia, who was now feeding Sawyer.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Love you, E. Thanks for coming today.”
“Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away.” He glared at Maverick, then his face softened when he looked back at Olivia. “Love you, too, Sis.”
She wasn’t expecting Maverick’s soft laugh, followed by, “I like him,” once her brother left the room.
“Could have fooled me.”
“He obviously loves you and is just looking out for you and Sawyer, so how can I not?”
“You realize we’re not going to your house tomorrow, right?”
He was quiet for a minute while he watched her and the baby, as if calculating how he wanted to proceed.
Finally, he murmured, “You don’t want to fight me on this, Olivia. You won’t win. At least not in the long run.”
That made her feel helpless—something she despised, and she sassed, “So, you expect me to just uproot my life and move in with you? Isn’t that convenient—for you.”
“Look, I know it’s not ideal, but since I just found out this morning that I’m a father again, while you’ve had, I’m guessing, at least seven months to get used to the idea, it will have to do for now.”
“This isn’t fair,” she whispered as she stared down at her nursing son.
“But you think lying to me about being on birth control and getting pregnant on purpose was?”
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
He scoffed. “So that’s supposed to make it better? I’d have had a son out in the world that I knew nothing about, Olivia.”
“Yeah, exactly—key words: knew nothing about.”
She realized from his clenched jaw that probably wasn’t the approach she should have taken.
“Did you ever stop to think he might have done a genealogy test in the future? How do you think that would have turned out when he showed up on my doorstep and announced he’s my son? Did you think he wouldn’t be bitter that you let him grow up without a father, or I wouldn’t be angry that you kept my child from me?”
She swallowed hard.
Well, when he says it like that…
“I told you, I tried to find you.”
“You should have tried harder.”
“What would you have had me do, Pete? Should I have hired a private investigator to chase you down? For all I knew, you’d lied to me about co-owning the bar. Heck, I wasn’t even sure if Pete was your real name, since the other owner of the bar seemed to have no idea who I was talking about.”
He sat down at the foot of her bed, his expression softer.
