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He shrugged. “Something to think about. You have choices. Not that I’m not looking forward to time with my little man.”
“Yeah, I’ll think about it.
****
Olivia
Damn him and his soft lips. They’d lured her into having sex with him. As if watching him care for their son, then falling sleeping next to him every night, hadn’t been enough to make her feelings for him grow, throw in her crazy hormones and now mind-blowing sex. It’d been easy to fool herself into thinking it meant more than it did.
Fortunately, he’d been sure to let her know it didn’t mean anything more to him than a WWB situation. Wife with Benefits.
She obviously didn’t tell Maverick that it wasn’t an option for her to only go back to work part-time. Not if she was going to be a single mother, as originally planned.
Even if she really did get the two million the prenup awarded her, raising kids was expensive—she knew that wouldn’t be enough to quit her practice. Besides, she had never really counted on her ‘golden parachute,’ as he liked to call it. She knew how those things worked. He’d take her to court and fight her over the terms, and her attorneys’ fees would wind up costing more than it was worth.
He had, however, made a good case for staying married to him—maybe at least until Sawyer started school. It wasn’t like she was miserable living there, and they did like each other.
But she knew her traitorous heart couldn’t handle just being his fuck buddy. No matter how great the sex was, it wouldn’t make up for the fact that he was only with her because they had a child together.
“I deserve the fairytale,” she whispered to herself.
So no, she wasn’t settling.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Maverick
They didn’t talk about what transpired between them New Year’s Eve night, something he knew was a big mistake. But the more time that went by, the harder it was for him to broach the subject with her.
So he followed her lead and pretended like it hadn’t happened.
As they sat in the living room a week later with the TV on while neither of them really watched it, there was a palpable chill in the air.
She stared out the window at the snow starting to come down, then stood and walked to the heavy drapes that were rarely closed and bent down to retrieve something from behind the curtain.
Waving a blue glass ornament when she stood, she said, “They missed one.”
The decorating company had come that week and removed all remnants of the holidays. It had been bittersweet. While Maverick liked the idea of a clean slate that came with the new year, the house had been so festive, and he was sad to see it go.
“It feels kind of bare in here now, huh?”
She sat back on the couch and looked out the window again. “Yeah. I wish once the holidays were over we could just skip to spring. Either that, or I need to start skiing again.
“We could rent a chalet in Vermont for a weekend and hit the slopes.”
She shook her head. “Maybe next year.”
“Let’s plan on it,” he replied with a cheery smile.
When she didn’t respond, he picked up the shiny decoration she’d set on the coffee table and twirled it in his hand. “I think next year we should decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving—whether we hire someone or do it ourselves.”
“They did a beautiful job,” was all she said.
He was desperate to keep the conversation going. “It was nice letting someone else handle everything—especially the cleanup.”
“That’s usually the part I dread the most.”
“Me, too. The only thing I’d do differently is have a tree just for us to decorate with family decorations.”
