Boss’s Secret Baby for Christmas

by Black, Natasha L.

  “That’s bullshit,” I sneered. “We were never trying to have kids. You’ve met Kelly—could you imagine her with kids?”

  My lawyer coughed lightly. “I can’t comment on something like that,” he said awkwardly. “I wouldn’t advise you to use that as part of your defense in court, however.” He paused. “You have one of two options: you can play nice and offer her the sum that she requests. Or else you can fight this in court.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, weighing my options. The last thing I wanted was to go back to court. But I simply could not give Kelly anything more, especially since it would set up a precedent that I was sure would bite me in the ass at some point. She wouldn’t be happy with whatever I had given her, and this would only open up the door for her to ask for more and more time after time.

  No.

  “I want to fight it,” I told my lawyer succinctly.

  “Then we have some work to do,” he said gravely.

  13

  Mindy

  I could barely believe that it had been two months since I had started at Designed by You. Somehow, it was already time for my second monthly review meeting. Thinking back to that first day, I felt like a totally different person. But I was every bit as committed to this job as I had been from the start.

  Two months with the company. One month since the night with Adam, I thought.

  I hadn’t seen him all that much since we had slept together. I knew he was still as busy as ever. We had just gotten a huge new client, and he was apparently throwing everything he had into that. Still, I had heard from more than one person that he was fighting with his ex-wife over the details of their divorce and that he had been working from home more and more lately.

  It didn’t really matter to me either way. I was just glad that he hadn’t fired me for what I had done. Actually, it was probably better for me that we didn’t cross paths any more than was strictly necessary. It made it that much easier for me to focus on my work—and not only that, but it made it less likely that anyone would ever know what had happened between us.

  Initially, I had thought that he was the person I needed to impress if I wanted this to turn into a full-time job, but I had found out not too long after sleeping with Adam that although he was the president of the company, he didn’t always have the last say in the company’s hiring procedures.

  Still, that made me feel a lot better about the whole situation. If he wasn’t the person directly in charge of hiring me, then maybe I wasn’t quite the cliché I’d been afraid I would be. Not only that, but I hadn’t screwed up all my chances by sleeping with him.

  I couldn’t help but wonder about his ex-wife. I didn’t know much more about her than her first name. She had to be crazy to have broken up with Adam. If things could have worked out between him and me…

  I didn’t let myself think things like that, though. There was nothing between the two of us, and that was the way it was meant to be. There was no point in thinking about what might have been in another time and place.

  There was a part of me that wished he would at least show up to these HR interviews, even just so that I would know one of the people who was judging my work. Not that he would make me any less nervous, but I still kind of wanted to impress him even if he wasn’t the person with the final say on whether I got a job.

  I headed into the second-month meeting, feeling almost queasy with how nervous I was. Come on, Mindy, you’re being ridiculous. I knew that I had been turning in good work all that month, even though I’d been tired and having a bit of a difficult time concentrating lately. They didn’t know I was passing out pretty much as soon as I got home, those early mornings really taking their toll on me. Nor would they care as long as they were still getting good work from me.

  Which they were. No reason to feel this nervous.

  Still, as I sat there waiting for my assessor to enter the conference room, I found myself nervously tapping my fingers on the edge of my armrest. Suddenly, nausea hit me full force. I stood abruptly and dashed for the door, startling the HR guy, who had been just about to open the door. I bolted down the hallway to the bathroom and threw up in one of the stalls. For a long moment, I stayed there hunched over the bowl, wondering what the hell had just happened.

  Finally, I straightened up, feeling a little shaky but way better. I rinsed out my mouth at the sink, staring at my reflection in the mirror.

  Who the hell was this girl staring back at me? There was no denying the fact that I hadn’t felt quite myself recently. But I had never been the type of person who got so nervous that she made herself sick. That just wasn’t me.

  There was a part of me that wanted to blame it all on the way things had gone with Adam. That didn’t make any sense, though. That one night had been perfect, and as for everything after that, it had gone just the way I wanted it to.

  No, I had probably just eaten something bad. That wouldn’t explain the fatigue, but I was sure that the two things were unrelated. There had been a lot of early mornings lately, and Risa and I were probably staying up too late talking since it was the only time we got to see one another now.

  There was a knock on the bathroom door, and then Vera entered, giving me a sympathetic look. “Hey, Brian said he saw you rush in here. You okay?”

  I scrunched up my nose. “I threw up,” I admitted, not worried about giving her too much information. We had passed that point in our relationship by now—we had actually become pretty good friends over the past two months. Not that I would ever tell her about Adam and me.

  “Yuck,” Vera said, shaking her head. “Well, good news for you, Brian said you looked kind of like shit, so he postponed your meeting with him. That’s one way to make an impression on him.” She winked at me, and I gave her a weak smile.

  “I’m sure I just ate something bad,” I said, shrugging. “Maybe I should go home for the day? But I feel okay now, I guess.”

  Vera narrowed her eyes at me. “Mindy, is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked.

  I frowned. “Like what?” I finally asked, not sure what she was getting at.

  “Like maybe you’re pregnant?” Vera said. “I mean, I totally get why you wouldn’t want everyone to know because you don’t want that to affect your internship or your chances at a future job, but you know you can tell me, right? I won’t tell anyone.” She paused. “Besides, if you are pregnant, you’re going to show long before they can offer you a full-time job, I hate to say it.”

  I stared at her for a moment and then automatically shook my head. “Can’t be,” I told her. But suddenly, the dates started spinning in my head. How long had it been since my last period?

  Fuck.

  Still, there was no way that I was pregnant, was there? Thinking back, I realized that I couldn’t remember if we had been careful. I had been too caught up in the feelings of it all, in how amazing it was. But surely Adam would have been careful. He wouldn’t want to get his intern pregnant; that would be crazy.

  Maybe he thought I was on birth control, though? Wasn’t that the sort of thing you should ask a person? The sort of thing we should have had a conversation about? But we were totally wrapped up in the throes of passion. There hadn’t been any talking about anything.

  I swallowed hard. Shit. What if I was pregnant?

  I tried not to panic. I didn’t know for sure. Even though I knew that logically you could get pregnant from just one bout of sex, it wasn’t likely. Was it? I tried to think again about when my period was due, but I couldn’t seem to remember.

  “You sure you want to stick around for the rest of the day?” Vera asked as we walked back toward our desks.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her just how much I didn’t want to stick around for the rest of the day. I knew that I couldn’t shirk my duties because of personal reasons, though. Not only that but going home now might make everyone suspicious. If I really was pregnant (but I wasn’t—there was no way), then I wouldn’t want anyone to know soo
ner than necessary.

  Because as soon as one person knew, I was sure that Adam would find out. That would spell the end of my internship, for one thing. It would lead to more than a few awkward conversations as well.

  Still, as I sat back down at my desk, I couldn’t help feeling queasy for a totally different reason.

  Somehow, I made it through the rest of the day. I basically ran out of there, making my break when Vera was away from her desk so that I wouldn’t have to fend off her inquiries into my health. I didn’t want to deal with anyone until I knew whether or not I was pregnant.

  I speed-walked to the pharmacy on the corner and stopped short in the aisle that held the pregnancy tests. Jesus Christ, I never would have imagined that there would be so many different options. What did they all mean? Which one was the best? I just couldn’t tell.

  Finally, I just grabbed two different tests, hoping that at least one of them would tell me the truth. And if they both told me the same thing, then I would know for certain. I carefully avoided making eye contact with the person at the checkout counter as I paid.

  Back in the apartment, I locked myself into the bathroom even though Risa wasn’t there. I read the instructions on the more professional-looking box. I peed on the stick and then set it on a wad of toilet paper on the counter. I sank down to the tiled floor and leaned back against the bathtub, taking deep breaths and trying to stay calm. My mind was whirling through the possibilities, though.

  What if I was pregnant? I couldn’t tell Adam about it, of course. It would be the last thing he wanted to hear. That night, as special as it had felt, had been nothing more than a one-night stand. No one wanted to get pregnant with a one-night stand.

  Especially not a one-night stand with someone they worked with. Someone they probably shouldn’t have been sleeping with in the first place.

  But what could I do? If I was pregnant, I liked to think that it had happened for a reason. Could I handle being a single mom, though? Not only that, but it felt like my career was just now taking off. Could I handle the idea of losing everything I had always worked for, of never finding a place in the design world? I didn’t want to work at coffee shops for the rest of my life. That just wasn’t an option.

  I slowly reached for the pregnancy test. I swallowed hard.

  Positive.

  It felt as though time stopped and all the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I was pregnant. What the hell was I going to do now?

  I started laughing hysterically as I thought about it. Wasn’t it funny, really? I knew people who had been having unprotected sex ever since they were teenagers and they had never gotten pregnant. I had done it once, and here I was, pregnant after just one night. What were the chances?

  My laughter broke on a sob, and I buried my head in my arms. What was I going to do?

  By the time Risa got home, I had taken the other pregnancy test and confirmed that I was, in fact, pregnant. She found me sitting on the couch, arms wrapped around myself, staring blankly into space. The tears and the laughter were both all gone, leaving me feeling nothing but numb.

  “Mindy?” Risa asked carefully, sitting on the far end of the couch and giving my leg a little shake.

  I stirred, my puffy eyes focusing on her worried face. “I’m pregnant,” I all but whispered.

  Risa’s eyes widened. Then, she pulled me into her arms. “Oh man,” she murmured. “What are you going to do?”

  “What can I do?” I asked bitterly.

  Risa was quiet for a moment, and I realized I was glad that she didn’t immediately start offering up solutions to my problem. “Are you going to tell Adam?” she finally asked.

  I shook my head miserably. “I can’t,” I sighed. “He’ll think I did it on purpose.”

  Risa was silent, and I could tell from her posture that she disagreed, but she didn’t try to fight me on it. She couldn’t, really. She didn’t even know Adam. Hell, I didn’t even know Adam. What had I been thinking, having sex with a guy I didn’t even know? With my boss, of all people?

  I knew that if I kept this baby, I was going to have to tell everyone. They were all going to find out. Adam, my parents… Oh god, my parents. What were they going to say? They were going to kill me.

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” Risa assured me.

  I didn’t have the heart to contradict her, but I really didn’t see how they could be. I was pregnant with my boss’s baby, and there was no way to gussy that up to seem any better.

  14

  Adam

  I couldn’t describe how good it was to walk into work on Wednesday morning, knowing that I had the whole day there and wouldn’t be called away for anything. I felt lighter than I had in a while, although it would definitely take me some time to get back to normal after the latest ordeal with Kelly.

  God, what a mess that had been. I hated to admit how far behind I had gotten on work in the past month. A lot of my other employees had had to step up and pick up the slack, and I felt bad about that. Not that there was anything that I could have done differently. I was more than ready to throw myself back into everything now, though.

  It definitely helped that she hadn’t managed to squeeze anything more out of me than she already had. Her lawyer hadn’t managed to prove that there was any reason to increase the original amount we had agreed upon for alimony. As I’d said to my lawyer, that bonus I’d received had been a one-off thing. My salary was still the same. So the amount I paid to her every month would remain the same as well.

  Things had finally wrapped up the previous day. I had called my dad and Wendell almost the moment it was all done, and we had headed out to the bar. I needed a good stiff drink, and my dad and Wendell were the two people who knew the most about my failed relationship with Kelly and all that this court stuff had entailed.

  I owed them both for sticking with me through it. I wouldn’t have stuck with me if I could have helped it.

  I had been confused at my usual bar by the dirty looks the bartender kept giving me. I tried to remember if I had slept with her, but I made a point of not sleeping with staff at my usual places, knowing that that was a recipe for disaster. Maybe if I had seen her somewhere else, though? But the face didn’t ring any bells, and even though there had been a number of one-night stands since I had officially been divorced from Kelly, I liked to think that I remembered what all of them looked like.

  Suddenly, though, I remembered that night that I had gone home with Mindy. Hadn’t she mentioned something about her roommate working here? Was it possible that this was the roommate? But what reason would she have to hate me?

  I mean, I guess if she knew about my one-night love affair with Mindy, she might have cause to give me dirty looks. No doubt she was just looking out for her roommate and wanting better for her. Still, Mindy and I had amicably decided that we weren’t going to go there again. In fact, Mindy had pretty much spearheaded the campaign for that Friday night to be just a one-time thing. Not only that, but she had been adamant that she didn’t want anything at work than to keep her job.

  There was no reason for this roommate to be pissed at me. I decided not to dwell on it, though. Mindy and I had barely seen one another over the last month. Going back to court with Kelly had sucked up pretty much all my time and energy. The dirty looks didn’t bother me enough to make me want to say anything, and I still got decent enough service, so I just let it go.

  Either way, it was good to be back to my normal schedule, back at work, and be done with Kelly.

  I caught the elevator with the other intern. Vera, that was her name. I made small talk as we headed up toward our floors. She was polite but cold, and I spared a moment, in light of the previous night’s interactions at the bar, to wonder if everyone knew about Mindy and me.

  But how could they all possibly know that Mindy and I had slept together? Had she told them all?

  I felt an irrational surge of anger go through me. I had thought that we were on the same page when it came to pret
ending that that night had never happened. Surely, she realized that her job would be just as much at risk as mine if everyone found out she had slept with the boss.

  Except that—no. I couldn’t see Mindy telling everyone about us. Over the course of the past month, when it had become clear that she really wasn’t planning to blackmail me or to ask for anything more, I had somehow come to trust her.

  Could you really trust someone you barely knew? Somehow, though, I felt as though I knew her better than I truly did.

  Wendell came into my office not too long after I arrived and started giving me the rundown on everything in the office, as though I hadn’t been checking in remotely as often as I could. Again, I couldn’t help but feel guilty about everything I had missed in the past month. Not that my assistant phrased things in such a way as to make me feel bad.

  I kept waiting for Wendell to mention Mindy—not because I thought that he was still suspicious about that envelope and the mystery meeting with Mindy that I’d had the following morning. I just figured that somehow her name would come up as Wendell talked about the things that had happened over the past month.

  But he never said her name, and I didn’t dare ask how things were going with her. She must have finished up her second monthly review recently, but I hadn’t heard any of the details. I wondered how things were going.

  I forced myself to focus on my job as Wendell left, however. I had slacked off plenty lately, even if it was through no fault of my own. Time to start picking up the slack again. I was the president of the company, and it was high time that I got back to acting like it.

  If I had had any other position at the company, I was sure that I would have been fired over all of this. I just simply hadn’t been putting in the work that was required of me. It was inexcusable. But damned if I was going to let Kelly lose me my company. No, I was going to put the effort in now that things were over with her (again) and go back to being what the company needed from me.