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Olivia tried to disguise her smirk. “We’ll see.”
**
Rose sat on the sofa in the dress shop, drinking champagne while Olivia tried on wedding gowns.
“So, he turned out to be Prince Charming after all?” her friend called from her seat.
Olivia poked her head out from behind the changing room curtain. “What do you mean?”
“Last time we talked you didn’t even want to live with him; said you deserved the fairytale and implied he couldn’t give that to you. Now you’re marrying him?”
She gulped. “I kissed the right frog, I guess.”
Except, the only kiss he’d given her was on her forehead, like he did their son. Still, Rose didn’t need to know that. Not yet, anyway.
Olivia zipped up the winter white, floor-length Italian wrap dress, then stepped out.
Her friend let out a small gasp when she saw her. “Oh, Liv, that’s the one. You look gorgeous.”
Olivia stepped onto the small platform in front of three mirrors that let her see the dress from all angles. It was off the shoulder, with a slit up the leg, and cinched at the waist with a ruffle along the side to help disguise her post-pregnancy body.
“I don’t know about gorgeous,” she said as she turned to check out her backside in her reflection. “But I think you’re right. This is the one.”
“Maverick isn’t going to be able to keep his hands to himself when he sees you in it.”
She doubted that. They’d slept in the same bed every night since she moved in, and he hadn’t seemed the least bit interested.
Still, she laughed like Rose was right.
She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to keep her marital situation a secret—especially from her brother and best friend. Maybe she didn’t want them judging her, or worse, tell her she was making a mistake. Not when she worried enough about that herself; the last thing she needed was someone close to her confirming it.
After keeping Sawyer’s paternity a secret for almost her entire pregnancy, pretending she was a blushing bride should be a piece of cake.
When Olivia came out of the dressing room in her street clothes, Rose wrapped her arm through Olivia’s and murmured conspiratorially. “Now let’s find the perfect shoes and some sexy lingerie for your wedding night.”
****
Maverick
Olivia had left a bottle of breast milk while she went wedding dress shopping and to lunch with her business partner.
And little Sawyer wanted nothing to do with the silicone nipple.
“I don’t blame you, buddy. This is nothing like the real thing,” he murmured as his son turned his head to reject the bottle while becoming increasingly agitated the hungrier he got.
“Come on, little man. If you eat, you’ll feel better,” Maverick pleaded when the baby screamed bloody murder.
He wasthisclose to calling Olivia and begging her to come home, when he heard the garage door open. He’d moved his Porsche into the car barn so Olivia would have a stall for her car.
He wanted to buy her a new Mercedes as a wedding gift, but when he’d asked her what model she’d like, she told him that was frivolous and her car was perfectly fine.
His future bride was not marrying him for his money, of that he had no doubt.
No, she was marrying him to guarantee she didn’t lose custody of the red-faced, screeching child he was bouncing in his arms as he met her in the kitchen.
“Oh, sweet boy!” she crooned patiently as she set her purse and shopping bags on the counter, then moved to the sink to wash her hands before taking Sawyer from Maverick. In one movement, she pulled her sweater and bra down to expose her breast, and their starving child was quickly silenced as she nursed in the armchair in the small sitting area by the bay window in the kitchen.
“He wouldn’t take the bottle, huh?”
