Page 44 of Expecting an Argument
I didn’t even listen to my podcast during my run because I was wracking my brain to figure out why Olivia was still so hell-bent on saving money. Why was she not satisfied with what I had given her? Wasabundancenot enough for her?
Desperate for a key to unlock the female mind, I called Mom and asked her.
“It isn’t about money, it’s about control,” Mom said through the phone. “She thinks the more she depends on you to survive, the more control you have over her.”
I set the ingredients for my post-run water on the marble bartop in the media room. “Doubt it.No onecan control Olivia Adams, you don’t know her.”
“Andyoudon’t know women,” she argued. “Your endlessmoney pit isn’t impressing her, it’s freaking her out.”
I mixed my water and scoffed. “How would you know that? A month ago, you were calling her a gold digger.”
“So she’s a different type of dangerous, then,” she said dismissively. “A tiger has stripes and a leopard has spots, but both will still maul you.”
I took a slug from my water and walked toward the study. Might as well spend thirty minutes answering emails before I figured out what to do for the rest of the day.
A tense sigh left my lips and I kept my voice low in case Olivia was home. “If I’m attentive, I’m wrong. If I keep my distance, I’m wrong. Do you have any other creative ideas for how I can be completely useless in this situation?”
“Fulfil your obligations as the father of those twins, that’s all you do,” Mom said. “Don’t involve yourself with her any more than you already are. She might be growing the next Fontaines, but she clearly doesn’t want us to bring her into the fold.”
I pulled open the study door and stepped inside. “She doesn’t even want to give them the Fontaine name. I’m just hoping I can get her to see reason and she’ll give up the ridiculous notion thatmybabies will carry the name Ada—”
The sight of a tall coffee cup placed on my desk stopped me in my tracks. I set down my water and picked up the cup—the coffee was still warm.
“She…got me a coffee from the place downtown,” I said into the phone. A neon blue sticky note on the side of the cup caught my eye. “And a note.”
“What does it say?”
I read the message written in purple marker. “Of course you’re a Capricorn.”
“Great,” Mom groaned. “She’s one ofthosewomen.”
I put the note in my pocket. “How did she know? What does this mean?”
“It means she snooped through your socials and got information,” Mom said. “Worse, it means she’s suspicious or she’s bored—either way it’s dangerous.”
I weighed the coffee in my hands, as if testing to see if it would explode. “So, do I need to make myself even more uninteresting so she doesn’t go digging?”
“Nothing about you is uninteresting,” Mom said. “But if Olivia doesn’t want to be part of this family, shecan’tlearn anything else. Understand?”
Though she couldn’t see me, I still nodded.
Mom wasn’t happy that I told Olivia the bare-bones story of what happened to Grandpa, or even that Katie and I had a bad fallout instead of just spinning the “amicable breakup” lie. She could be as mad at me as she wanted, but Mom didn’t understand what it was like at the manor.
“You know I’ll do anything for this family…what all is left of it.” I examined the coffee cup and then tossed a glance to the framed ultrasound photo that sat on my desk. “But the family includes the babies and the babies are relying on their mother. Olivia is…fragile right now, and sometimes I have to share bits of my life to get her to take care of herself. I’m doing my best to be discreet, but this is a tough balancing act.”
Mom took in a long inhale, likely taking a drag of her cigarette. I anticipated a lecture, but instead she sighed and said, “You’re going to be a good father.”
My heart warmed as I kept my eyes on that blurry black-and-white photo of my little babies. “Thanks, Mom.”
“You have a good rest of your day,” she said. The soft patting of her carton of cigarettes against a table echoed through the speaker. “And happy birthday, baby. I love you.”
“Love you too,” I replied.
After she hung up, I examined the seemingly innocuous note. The blue note had come from a pack in my desk drawer. HadOlivia been snooping? Did she find the keys to the filing cabinet that were hidden in a box behind the pens? Did she drug the coffee to make me collapse on the study floor so she could make copies of my thumbprint to use on the family safe?
I let out a breath and glanced at the googly-eyed globe on the other side of the desk. Mom was making me paranoid, but was it unjustified? I hadn’t been this close with anyone since Katie, and even though I couldn’t say Olivia and I were anything resembling romantic, she made me feel very…exposed.
I was a defanged rattlesnake when it came to the mother of my children. We could hiss at each other all we wanted, but I could never risk inflicting strife on her as she grew the babies. She could hurt me a hell of a lot worse than I could ever hurt her, but I couldn’t let her know that.
