Page 45 of The Playboy's Most Unexpected Baby

He raised an eyebrow. “The coast guard?”

“I don’t know what the rules are.”

“No,” he said. “We’re not going to get into trouble.”Not that kind of trouble, anyway. In a different sense, he felt as if he had never been in more trouble in his life than he was right now. How was he supposed to move forward after what had happened last night?

It had been the best night of his life.

He couldn’t afford to think like that, though. He had to let go of what had happened. The idea that it would never happen again made him feel sick to his stomach. But the fact of the matter was that he had betrayed both of them when he had brought Olivia into his bed. She hadn’t evenwantedto come out on the boat. He’d talked her into it!

He was as bad as his siblings thought he was.

He was exactly the person he had always told himself that he would never be.

And what made the whole thing so much worse was that he actually did have feelings for Olivia, in spite of his determination not to let that happen. He cared for her. He could see himself dating her, and that wasn’t something he ever said about anyone.

He had to pull out of her life right now, before they became any more deeply entangled. Before it was too late to separate at all.

He swallowed hard. “Why don’t you enjoy that coffee,” he suggested. “I’ll go pull up the anchor and start home.”

“I’m not in a hurry, Charlie.” She reached out and put a hand on his wrist, and Charlie’s stomach jolted. “We can stay out here for a while… if you want to.”

Such a massive part of him would have liked nothing more. But no. No, they couldn’t.

He pulled away from her. “I think we should get back.”

She frowned. “Is everything all right?”

“I just think it’s important that we get… get back quickly.” He had to stop himself from sayingget home. It wasn’t a good idea to think of the house they shared — the house they would both be leaving soon — ashome. It wasn’t home to either one of them. Not really, and certainly not for much longer.

“You seem upset,” Olivia said.

She saw right through him, of course. They had been so open with one another lately, and they’d spent so much time together — how could he have believed it was possible to hide anything from her? How could he have thought he could act as if things were fine and that she would believe it? They had bared their souls to one another, night after night. He had told her things about himself that nobody else knew. The thought of acting, now, as if nothing in particular was on his mind, and expecting her to believe it — he should have known better than to try it.

But what could he say? He couldn’t tell her the truth — that he was already regretting last night. It would hurt her to hear it.

On the other hand…

He glanced over at her. The way she was looking at him, so full of hope and expectation — he needed to find a way to crush that. He needed to find a way to push her away from him, to makeherregret what had happened between the two of them so she wouldn’t hope for it to happen again.

He cleared his throat. “I just think we made a mistake here,” he said. “And I’m sure you’re thinking the same thing.”

He wasn't sure of any such thing, of course — he had only said it so that she could save face. And he saw the shock register briefly in her eyes before she managed to mask it.

“A mistake?” she asked. Her voice was carefully neutral.

“Well, we always said that we weren’t going to let this turn into anything serious. We always said we were going to keep things professional. And we haven’t done that. We crossed a line that we shouldn’t have, especially now that we’re so close to the finish line. If we make it this far and then something gets in the way of us accomplishing what we meant to…”

“Why would it get in the way?” she asked him. “Is last night going to prevent us from selling the house in some way?”

“No, of course it won’t. But you know we still have meetings with Rogan to attend, and if he sees that something’s changed between the two of us, that could be a problem.”

“You really think he would get suspicious now? Now that we’re closer to each other than we’ve ever been?”

“You know that’s not how things always go after sex,” Charlie said.

Olivia’s jaw tensed. She crossed her arms. “What does that mean?”

“It means… well, you know how things can go. Sometimes things like this come between people. Sometimes it creates a distance.”

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