Page 7 of The Playboy's Most Unexpected Baby

He didn’t do so right away. He squeezed a lime into his beer bottle and then pushed the lime through the neck until it dropped into the bottom. He took a long drink, then smiled winningly at Olivia. “I love this stuff,” he said. “Always get it when I’m in town.”

Okay, so maybe she’d been wrong. “How often are you in town?”

“Not as often as I’d like,” he confessed. “I should have visited my aunt more when she was alive.”

“Did the two of you have a good relationship?”

“We were closer than she was with any of my other siblings,” Charlie said. “I think she could sense from them how… opportunistic they were. They’d walk around the house looking at things like they were making plans for what they were going to do with them when she died. When they inherited everything.” He took another drink of his beer. “I think that’s why she left me the house,” he went on. “Well, I guess I think her sadistic nature was a part of it too.”

Olivia raised her eyebrows. “What’s sadistic about leaving you a beachfront estate? If that’s your idea of cruelty, I’d hate to think what your standards for someone being nice to you are.”

Charlie laughed. “I’m mostly joking,” he said. “I do think she meant to torment me a little, though. See, she never liked the fact that I was unmarried. All three of my siblings are married with children, and that’s the life she wanted for me, too.”

“But you don’t?”

“Not especially.” His grin widened. “I’m the sort who likes my freedom. A lone wolf, I guess you could call me.”

Oh, please. Olivia had probably met a dozen men who talked about themselves in those terms — as if there was something special about them because they hadn’t committed to a long-term relationship, as if it made them unique and cool. There was nothing special about it. She didn’t judge him for his life choices — God knew she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to judging people for being single. But she did judge him for this attitude of superiority.

“Okay,” she said. “So she wanted you to get married.”

“She did,” Charlie agreed. “She wanted it so badly that she made it a condition of my inheritance.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got thirty days — well, twenty-eight days, now — to get married,” he said. “I’ve got to show a marriage license as evidence that I’m in compliance, and if I can’t do that, my siblings get a cut of the house.”

“And you don’t want them to get that.”

“I’d rather stick it to them for the way they used to walk around like they were just waiting for Aunt Marge to die,” he said. “I hate to think of them profiting on the sale of her house. They don’t need that money, and they don’t deserve it. So no, I don’t want them to get it.”

“I see.” Olivia had a bad feeling about where this was going — but surely she had to be wrong. There was no way he was about to ask her what she was imagining he would.

“Right,” he said. “Well, obviously there isn’t a hope of me finding any sort of real marriage in that time — even if I did want to.”

“Why would she ask you to do something like that?” Olivia asked. “It does seem unrealistic.”

“I think she might have hoped I had a girlfriend that I wasn’t telling her about, or at the very least, a woman I was seeing but not getting serious with,” Charlie said. “She used to ask me about that all the time — who I was seeing, why I wouldn’t introduce her to anyone. She thought I had some sort of secret life that I wasn’t willing to share.”

“And you don’t?”

“Definitely not. I haven’t been involved with any woman for more than a week at a run in years.”

“So there’s no one you could realistically propose marriage to.”

“I didn’t say that.” He fixed her with his bright blue eyes.

Olivia felt as if her stomach was turning inside out. Suddenly, she wondered whether coming out for this drink had been such a good idea after all.

There was no denying that Charlie Coldwell was a handsome man. If she had been his aunt, it probably would have surprised her to know that he wasn’t serious with any women. He looked like the kind of man who could get any girl he wanted. He had a sincere, earnest face. His eyes were wide, giving him an innocent, almost boyish look — but that blue was so penetrating that Olivia felt helpless as he held her in his gaze.

She couldn’t have gotten up and walked away from this even if she had wanted to — and she wasn’t at all convinced that that was something she wanted. It was easier to stay with him, and she couldn’t suppress her desire to know what would happen next.

“Here’s the thing,” Charlie said. “I need to show a marriage license, but it doesn’t have to be a real marriage. There’s no way for anyone to confirm things likefeelings. No one can verify whether or not I’m actually in love with the woman. Which means that marrying just to get the house is an option I have.”

“You’d go that far to keep it out of your siblings’ hands?”

“Those vultures? Sure I would. It’s not like I’m planning on a real marriage any time anyway, so there’s no reason not to do this. It’s not like it does me any harm. Might as well see what I can get out of this situation, right?”

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