Boss’s Secret Baby for Christmas

by Black, Natasha L.

  I stayed holed up in my office for most of the day, working my way through a couple of different projects. That night as I was leaving, I took the stairs down to the lower floor to drop off some paperwork with one of my colleagues. I could tell he was surprised to see me there, but he looked relieved as I handed him the packet of information.

  “God, you must have known that I was falling behind on this one,” he said.

  I grinned. “Wendell may have mentioned something,” I said. “That should get you all caught up. Let me know if you need anything else from me.”

  “Shouldn’t you be the one telling me that?” he joked, and my grin broadened. It was so good to be back at work again.

  As I walked toward the elevator, I passed by the intern’s area. I glanced over for no reason other than mild curiosity (or so I would tell myself). Seeing Mindy almost drew me up short. She looked amazing, her whole face aglow with amusement as she chatted with Vera. But then, feeling my eyes on her, she looked up.

  I don’t know what I expected she would do when she saw me, but I definitely hadn’t expected the way that her face drained of color. She turned at a sharper angle toward Vera, clearly trying to put her back to me without letting the other woman suspect it.

  I stared at her for a moment later, unable to help the anger that coursed through me. So maybe she was the one behind the anger and coldness that I’d been facing from her roommate and from Vera. What the fuck?

  I wanted to march over there and give her a piece of my mind, but I knew better than to cause a scene in the middle of the office. Besides, what could I really say? Bitterly, I realized that I had been foolish to think that everything would be okay between us just because she had said that she didn’t want to talk about what had happened between us on that night.

  I should have learned my lesson with Kelly. Women always wanted something. I should have expected that Mindy telling me that she didn’t want anything more than her job was just another play in the game.

  15

  Mindy

  Friday morning, I had my first doctor’s appointment for the baby. I wished I could be more excited about it, but I still hadn’t figured out what the hell I was going to do about this whole situation.

  I had cleared the appointment with the intern manager, although of course I hadn’t explained that I was pregnant. I just said that my doctor wanted me to see a specialist and that this was the only appointment I could get at such short notice. It was true enough, really.

  Besides, I think they were all still a little worried about me since I rushed out of my monthly review to get sick in the bathroom. I could tell they’d been going easy on me since then, lightening my responsibilities. It was the last thing I wanted since I knew that the special treatment would make it basically impossible for me to get hired into a full-time position at the end of my internship. At the same time, if I had had to deal with all of my usual duties at the moment, as well as handle the fact that I was pregnant, I didn’t know what I would do.

  The truth was that I already knew that I wanted to keep the baby. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I couldn’t give it up. Still, I was going to have to find some way to balance a baby with my career, because I wasn’t ready to give up everything I had ever worked for just to have a child. Except maybe that was a sign that I was too selfish to be a mom? I just didn’t know.

  It was all so confusing. I wished there was someone I could talk to about all of it, but I didn’t have anyone I could really turn to. I mean, sure, Risa was there for me. She knew all about the pregnancy and the fact that it was Adam’s baby. Having never been pregnant before herself, though, she didn’t know what this felt like. She couldn’t possibly imagine it—and I knew that for a fact, because I knew if our positions had been reversed, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine what she felt like.

  The only person I knew who had unexpectedly had a baby so young was my mom. I couldn’t possibly tell her about this, though. Not only was the baby unexpected, and not only was I young and unmarried, but the baby’s father was my boss. She would flip if I told her. She had always wanted more from me, and she had never made any secret of that.

  So I made my way alone to the appointment, using the Maps app on my phone to locate the office that Risa had helped me find. I was nervous about the appointment, but more than that, I was scared about how this whole thing would go. It was going to upend my whole life, everything that I had planned. Did I have the strength to go through all of this alone? The trouble was that I wouldn’t know unless I tried.

  I had to do it alone, though. I hadn’t told my parents about the baby yet, and I didn’t know how I was possibly going to. And as much as I wanted to tell Adam, I knew I couldn’t. Seeing him the other day had been like a stab through my chest. I had been trying not to think about that.

  The one time I do something out of character, and now… I sighed, knowing better than to pursue that thought any further. Whatever regrets I might have, it was all done now. I was pregnant, and the only thing to do was to deal with it. Somehow.

  The appointment was just as much of a blur as the rest of the week had been. The doctor confirmed the pregnancy and told me I was about five weeks pregnant. As if I didn’t already know that. She gave me a bunch of information to read, but that was about it. Mainly, it was just about keeping myself healthy right now. Taking some vitamins, eating better, not drinking or doing anything else that might harm the health of the baby that was growing inside of me.

  All told, I was in and out of there in less than an hour. Honestly, I probably should have headed into work after that, but I just couldn’t. I called up the intern manager and made up some excuse—I didn’t even remember what—and found myself driving aimlessly around, thinking about what to do next. I was forced to confront the fact that in eight short months, I would be a mother.

  What was I going to do next? I parked my car near a promising-looking bakery and went inside to order the most sinful-looking slice of cake I had ever seen. I needed it.

  I nibbled at the cake, trying to think through everything I needed to do. The internship at Designed by You was everything I had ever wanted, everything that I had worked toward in school, but I knew I couldn’t hang on to it. Vera was right: by the time it came around to deciding who would stay with the company and who wouldn’t, I would be too obviously pregnant to pretend and Adam would know I was carrying his baby. There would be no hiding it anymore. I had no long-term future with Adam’s company, just like I had no long-term future with him.

  What I really didn’t want was for him to feel like he had to offer me a job just because he had gotten me pregnant. I wanted to earn it based on the work I had done as an intern. Now that that wasn’t an option, I knew I had to get out of there. I couldn’t ruin his life as well.

  Of course, I wasn’t showing yet. I could stay with the company for a little while longer. But seeing Adam the other day, it had taken everything I had not to walk up to him and admit the fact that I was carrying his child. Even right then and there in the middle of the office. I knew I couldn’t do that, but the longer I stayed at the company, the more likely it was that I wouldn’t be able to keep this to myself.

  No, I had to leave the internship.

  Of course, I had to find something else to pay the bills first. I had already hinted to my boss at the coffee shop that I might be looking for more hours soon, but she had told me apologetically that they might not even have weekend work for me soon because things had been kind of dead in there lately.

  I couldn’t leave the internship until I found something else that would make me some money, hopefully something that paid well enough that when the baby was born, I would be able to take some time off without draining all of my savings.

  I was already worried about that. I knew babies were expensive. Everything from diapers to clothes to baby food would add up. I wasn’t in a position in my life at the moment where I could really afford to have a baby. It didn’t feel li
ke I really had a choice, though. Somehow, I would have to find a way to make ends meet.

  Adam could help me. Except I knew that I could never ask for that. Doing so would make me no better than the terrible wife who had asked for more and more money once they were divorced. I didn’t want Adam to hate me. Besides, if he was helping me to pay for the baby, then he would have some sort of say in what role he took in the kid’s life. I didn’t know if I could stand to have Adam around while I raised the baby. It would hurt too much, having him so close and knowing that I had never been anything more than a one-night stand for him.

  I fretted my way through the rest of my cake and then slowly got up and headed back to my apartment. I sat on the couch, staring at the first of the papers I had been instructed to read. I couldn’t seem to get my eyes to focus on the words, however.

  Pregnant. I still could barely believe it.

  My eyes slid from the pile of documents to my phone. I knew I should call my mom. The longer I put it off, the more upset my mom would be. It wasn’t like I could hide it from her forever, either. Even if it took until the day that the baby was born, she was going to find out that I had gotten pregnant. I wouldn’t be able to keep her grandchild a secret for the rest of my life.

  I sighed and reached for my phone. I picked it up, toyed with it for a moment. I dragged the quilt that my grandma had made off the back of the couch, wrapping it around myself. Somehow, that made me feel safer and more secure.

  Even if I still didn’t hold out much hope that everything was going to be all right in the end.

  I found Mom in my contact list and pressed Call. The tears came almost immediately.

  16

  Adam

  I didn’t know what in particular was causing my funky mood on Sunday, but I knew that I hadn’t felt this blah in a while. Not since I had first moved into my own place, really. I was trying to pretend that the reason I felt this way again now was that it was my first day at home since I had finished round two of court with Kelly.

  I knew that wasn’t 100 percent accurate, though. Sure, it was the fact that I didn’t have to go into the office today that was putting me in a funk. I had time to think about a lot of things. But there was more to it than that.

  Wendell and I had gone out to the bar the night before, and the bartender had been rude to me again, glaring every chance she got. The service had been terrible. It had all been enough that Wendell had noticed, and of course he had asked me about it.

  There had been a part of me that was tempted to tell Wendell everything. He was technically my assistant, but over the years, he had grown into more my friend than anything else. Besides, I was pretty sure that he had already put two and two together and realized that Mindy and I had slept together and that that was the backstory for all the mystery that following week.

  At the end of the day, though, he was my assistant, and I didn’t want anyone at work to know what had happened. My performance had been shoddy enough lately without everyone knowing that I had slept with one of the interns. That was just call for a mutiny. I doubted Wendell would try to get me fired, but then again, I never would have expected half the shit that I’d had to deal with from Kelly. Who knew what he might do if he thought he could get ahead?

  I hated to think that way. It was something that I would never forgive Kelly for, this jadedness that now colored my every day, but there was no getting around that now.

  So I hadn’t told him about the real reasons that the bartender was giving me the stink eye. I had laughed and said something about how she had probably watched me pick up enough women from in there that she just didn’t like seeing me in there anymore—or maybe she was jealous. As I said the words, I felt sick to my stomach. That was so not the kind of guy I wanted to be.

  But what else could I do?

  I wished there was someone I could talk to about the Mindy thing. I kept thinking back to the way things had gone down between us, wondering if there was something I had missed. I felt like I had given her every opportunity to tell me what she might want from me. She had been the one who went into it saying that we would never talk about that night again. That she wouldn’t tell if I wouldn’t tell.

  What the hell had happened to that, anyway? From the looks I was getting, she clearly had told someone.

  In any case, even after she had said that she wasn’t interested in anything else, I had called her into my office and asked her if there was anything she wanted. And she had told me that the only thing she wanted was to keep her internship. I had given her that.

  Why did that suddenly not seem like enough? Maybe I should have pushed to give her more, right from the start. She had run out of there before I really had a chance to, though.

  I didn’t understand where all of the animosity was coming from. I had thought that we were in agreement and that we were on good terms.

  Wendell had laughed and clapped me on the shoulder, not seeming to realize that I was lying, for which I was grateful. “You need to find a new bar,” he had said.

  “I know,” I had sighed. Even if he didn’t know the real reasons for it, he was right. This bar was tainted now. I wasn’t going to be able to come here without getting dirty looks. More than that, I wasn’t going to be able to come here without thinking about Mindy.

  I had been surprised at how much I was thinking about Mindy that week, ever since I had seen her at work. I had tried not to think about her too much as I was going through the court process with Kelly. I hadn’t expected, though, that as soon as that process was done, I wouldn’t be able to get Mindy out of my mind. What was that about?

  The sex had been good, but she had been just a one-night stand, and she was going to stay that way.

  To be honest, I wasn’t all that interested in sleeping with anyone at the moment. In fact, the previous night at the bar, I’d turned away three different women who had tried to get my number. I wasn’t in the mood for even a one-night stand.

  That had definitely piqued Wendell’s interest. He had looked at me in surprise as I sent the final girl away without my number. I couldn’t help but just feel tired of it all, though. I didn’t want another nameless woman in my bed the next morning. I couldn’t trust them not to have ulterior motives.

  Besides, it had all been good while I was just getting over Kelly, but now, I felt like I was finally 100 percent over Kelly. Seeing her in court that week, all I really felt was anger and frustration. She was still pretty, and I could see flashes of why I had fallen for her, but for the most part, I knew too much about how she operated and how rotten her personality really was.

  I was just over her, and all I really wanted now was quiet. I wanted to enjoy my drink with my friend. It wasn’t that I was comparing the girls who had approached me to Mindy and finding them lacking. I was trying not to think about Mindy at all, and it had become easier since I had hardly seen her over the past month. It felt like I had starved out that attraction and moved on to other things.

  So no, it wasn’t that I wanted someone else. I just didn’t really feel the desire to go home with anyone right then. Given the way that things had gone since the divorce, though, it was only natural that Wendell would note how out of character my rejections were. He had asked about it, too, but I didn’t even have an excuse for him. All I said was that I wasn’t feeling it. Thankfully, he had let the matter drop.

  The truth was that I was partly just tired. Maybe it was just the fact that I was trying so hard with work, or maybe it was the shitty sleep I was having thanks to everything with Kelly. I was at the end of my rope, though. Today it was Sunday, and I wanted nothing more than to just chill on the couch watching football and avoiding the rest of the world. If I had woken up to someone in my bed that morning, well…

  It was just better that I was on my own for the time being.

  Except that it all felt different now that I was back at work. I couldn’t get through my day without remembering that Mindy was somewhere in that same building, and it felt like
my soul was searching for her. I had wanted to go down to her desk to see her, but I knew that that would be obvious. Too obvious.

  I had just sorted out things with Kelly, again, and the last thing I needed was to have everyone thinking I was starting the whole damn cycle again with someone else. Especially with someone who worked for me. I needed to focus on my work.

  It seemed my brain wouldn’t let me forget, though, that somewhere in that office building, there was a pretty brunette who took none of my crap, a woman who could have been something if I had been interested in that. A woman who had asked for nothing but made me want to give her everything. A woman who currently, apparently, wanted nothing to do with me.

  I wondered what had happened. I had thought that we’d left things on decent terms, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I had made a mistake.

  Suddenly, there was a roar on the TV. The underdog had scored. I realized that I hadn’t really been paying attention—and how much of the game had passed by without me even noticing?

  I had been in my head for long enough now. Clearly, football wasn’t going to do it for me today. I got up, clicked off the TV, and headed for the gym.

  17

  Mindy

  I had never liked Monday mornings, but that morning was even less fun than usual. Morning sickness was kicking my butt, and the pregnancy brought along even more worries than I ever could have expected. I wished I were back to the point where all I was worried about was whether or not I was going to tell Adam about the baby. Now, those quandaries were eclipsed by other things.