Misadventures with the Boss

by Kendall Ryan

  Chapter Sixteen

  Piper

  I brushed my fingers over my lips, recalling the gentle pressure of Jackson’s kiss from the night before, when my sister’s voice over the phone drew me from my reverie.

  “Are you even listening to me?” she whined, tapping her finger on the phone. “Hellllooo?”

  “I’m here,” I said, cheeks flushing at how easily distracted I’d become lately. I gripped the phone more tightly and willed myself to pay attention.

  “I was asking you, how is Mr. Hottie?” Hailey sing-songed the last word, and I did my best not to snap at her.

  For the past hour, I’d been trying to catch up with her all while trying to skillfully avoid this question, but my sister knew me too well to allow that sort of thing to pass.

  Unluckily for her, I wasn’t willing to give up the goods quite so easily.

  “He’s fine. But what about Mom’s new hobby? Is Dad going crazy with all the glitter or—?”

  “Nope, I’m not doing this with you,” Hailey said with that stubborn edge to her voice that made my gut clench. “You’re telling me details, or I’ll take a flight and introduce myself to him and ask him for the answers you’re not willing to give me. Your call, big sis.”

  I rolled my eyes. Drama queen. “I already answered you. Things are fine.”

  “And you’re telling me you’re not still worried about everyone in the office finding out you’re schtuping the boss?”

  “No, I think…I think we’ve been discreet. At least, I hope we have.” A little coil of dread rolled through my stomach at the thought, but I tried to brush it back.

  If anyone thought anything about our relationship, they certainly hadn’t said anything to me about it. And, of course, it was true that I spent every morning in his office with the blinds drawn, but that was because we were still unraveling the mess that was the merger. Everyone in the office knew what we were doing, even if they didn’t know exactly how serious the situation was.

  “He’s actually been pretty stressed out lately,” I said, finding myself caving, if only to have someone to talk to about all of this. Truth was, every day, I was getting in deeper, growing more attached. When the time finally came—and, let’s be honest, this was Jackson, so it would—letting go was going to be the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.

  “I have an idea of how you can fix that.” There was a laugh in Hailey’s voice that I tried to ignore.

  “Why don’t we ever talk about your sex life instead of mine?” I asked.

  “Something has to exist for you to talk about it,” Hailey answered, apparently nonplussed. “I’ve been in a serious dry spell. Let me live vicariously through you, sister dear. I want to know more about him. I saw his profile, but it barely said anything. What’s his deal? Why do you like him? Is he funny? Do you like him more than just someone to screw around with?”

  “Woah, tiger, slow down,” I said with a chuckle.

  “Sorry. You’re just making it really hard to fantasize about how awesome your life is by being so stingy with the deets. Plus, I need to tell Mom something about him.”

  “Mom?” I choked.

  “She’s asking me all sorts of questions about him. What’s he like?”

  “I’ll tell you something if you promise not to tell Mom,” I shot back immediately.

  “Deal.” I could practically see Hailey’s grin through the phone. No doubt this had been her plan all along—threaten me and then get me to spill once the threat was gone, but I was so relieved to have the specter of our mother off my back, I didn’t care. I loved our mom, but she was what people tended to call “a real piece of work,” so I tried to keep our visits biannual and our phone calls to once-a-week check-ins if I could help it.

  Hailey sighed, and I knew I’d reached the end of the line. I had to give her something here, or she was going to ratchet up from annoying to relentless.

  I thought hard, trying to figure out how to explain Jackson to someone who had never met him.

  “He’s a serious kind of guy,” I started.

  “I figured that from his picture,” Hailey said. “Serious good or serious bad, though?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Hailey sighed. “Well, isn’t it obvious? Serious good is like ‘I’d die for the woman I love,’ and serious bad is like…cold. Like he’s humorless.”

  I thought of the glint of mischief in Jackson’s eyes when he messaged me to meet him around the corner at the hotel.

  “Serious good, then,” I said.

  “Good,” Hailey said. “So what else, then?”

  “He cares a lot about his company.”

  “And his family?” Hailey prompted. “Is he a my-mother-is-a-goddess-on-earth sort of guy or a guy who thinks his mother ruined him for life? Or…?”

  “None of the above,” I answered patiently. “He’s on his own. No family.”

  “Wow. No family. And serious too.” Hailey whistled. “Sounds dark and mysterious.”

  “Sort of, I guess.”

  “And you like him? As more than just—?”

  “Maybe we should talk about something else,” I said. “You haven’t told me anything about your job. What’s going on there?”

  “It exists. There’s not much more to say about it. I want to know more about Christian Grey over there, though. How is he in bed? Does he have a play room?”

  I considered our encounter in the conference room the week before, our time in the elevator, and even the first night on that rooftop garden.

  “No, no play room.” It was better than that. He didn’t have a room full of mysteries, but there was no telling which room he would claim as our own. Now every time I stepped into an elevator, it was with the memory of his lips on my body. Whenever I walked into his office, it was with the knowledge that he’d bent me over his desk and lifted me on top of it more times than I could count.

  “Boo,” Hailey’s voice interrupted my thoughts, and I snapped back to attention. “Well, is he good in bed at least?”

  “Hailey, I’m not going to tell you that.”

  “Because you don’t have to. I mean, you guys have been getting it up and down for like a month and a half now. It must be good to keep at it like that.”

  “A month and a half?”

  Had it really been that long? It didn’t seem possible. Time was going by so quickly that I—

  My heart stopped and then leapt into my throat.

  A month and a half. She was right. Our first night together had been right before Cinco de Mayo, and now it was the middle of June. And in all that time…

  “Piper? What’s wrong?”

  “I have to go.”

  “No way. You sound like someone just shot you in the chest. No fucking around here, tell me what’s going on immediately,” Hailey demanded, her tone as serious as a heart attack.

  I swallowed back another rush of nausea and forced the words through my numb lips.

  “I haven’t had my period,” I whispered, clasping my hand over my mouth before mumbling the rest. “I didn’t realize. We’ve been working so hard, and…”

  “Look, it’s probably nothing,” Hailey rushed. “You’ve been under a lot of stress at work. Your period always gets wonky when you’ve got your mind on other things.”

  “It does,” I agreed, though I didn’t move my hand from in front of my mouth.

  Instead, I was thinking back to that day on the steps of the museum. How Jackson had said he’d always tried to be careful ever since he and his ex had broken up. How he’d said he didn’t want the responsibility of raising children.

  “The important thing is not to panic,” Hailey said, but her voice sounded as if it was coming to me from the end of a long tunnel.

  I was long past panic. I just kept thinking of how tired I’d been and how weird my stomach had felt. And how many times Jackson and I had slept together.

  Distantly, I heard myself tell her that I’d have to call her back, and then I dashed
to the drug store and picked up three pregnancy tests.

  The next ten minutes went by in an adrenaline- and fear-induced haze, and before I could even stop shaking, I was back in my apartment bathroom. I wrenched down my pants, more determined to pee than I’d ever been in my entire life.

  Carefully, I read the instructions for each test and followed them to the letter, setting timers for every single one and then pacing my apartment as I chewed on my nails—a nasty habit I’d forced myself to break way back in high school.

  I couldn’t be pregnant. We’d been so careful. Every single time.

  If I was, though, everyone in the office would have to find out who the father was. My career would be ruined. And then, of course, there was Jackson himself.

  He’d be in the same position he’d been in all those years ago, trapped with a woman who’d only been a casual fling because she was having his baby.

  Shit.

  I was already starting to freak out.

  I didn’t know for sure yet and wouldn’t for another—I checked my phone—three and a half minutes.

  The phone trilled to life, and Hailey’s face flashed on the screen. Reluctantly I answered and pressed the phone to my cheek.

  “Are you okay?” Hailey asked. “I tried to call you back about seven times. You hung up on me.”

  “I’m… I don’t know,” I panted. “I’m dizzy.”

  I sat on the couch, but the world around me continued to spin.

  “Did you go buy a test?” Hailey asked.

  “I bought three,” I replied.

  “Good. That’s, uh, prudent. You’ll be sure.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And then, when it comes out negative, you can move on with your day,” my sister said, trying to keep her tone light.

  “Exactly. Right.” I breathed. A silence stretched between us for a long moment. “But what if I’m pregnant?”

  “Well, would you want to… I mean, would you consider—?”

  “Adoption?” I asked. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Or, you know, you have other options too,” she said lightly.

  I blinked. That hadn’t even occurred to me.

  “No, I’ll keep the baby. If there’s a baby to keep. This might all be nothing.”

  “It probably is all nothing,” Hailey agreed.

  I gripped the phone a little tighter and walked carefully back into the bathroom. Against my ear, the phone vibrated, and I knew time was up. This was it. Where the rubber met the road.

  “I’m going to check them now,” I said, but Hailey said nothing.

  As I walked toward the sink, I felt like I was walking up to my own coffin. The other end of the line was dead silent, and I realized both of us were holding our breath.

  But I knew.

  Somehow I just knew even before I saw the little pink plus that it would be there staring up at me. Mocking me like a cruel joke.

  I wanted to faint, and again the world went dizzy, and I sank onto the bathroom floor.

  “Piper?” Hailey whispered.

  “Millions of women try to get pregnant every day and can’t,” I said, my voice hollow.

  “They do, but that doesn’t mean you have to…”

  “It might not be millions. Maybe it’s only thousands. But still, they all try, and they all want a baby so badly.”

  “Piper, that doesn’t mean—”

  “I should be grateful,” I said. “I should be happy.”

  “You’re pregnant,” Hailey said. It wasn’t a question.

  Not anymore.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to tell him.”

  “Let’s worry about him later. For now, I want to think about you,” my sister said. “Are you sure you want this?”

  I pressed a hand to my stomach and leaned back against the bathroom wall. This place, this city. It had all been part of my fresh start. In his way, even Jackson had been part of that.

  And now all of that was going to change. Again.

  But I still knew the answer to her question without thinking. I’d always wanted children. Of course, in my daydreams, I’d been married first.

  “Yes,” I said. “I want this baby.”

  “I know this isn’t how you wanted it to be, but for what it’s worth, I always thought you’d be a great mother,” Piper offered softly.

  “Thank you.” I still felt numb. The cold bathroom floor was all I could feel, aside from my racing heart. My palms were growing sweaty, and before my phone slipped from my hand, I cleared my throat and said, “Look, I think I’m going to lie down for a little while. Could I call you back later?”

  “Sure, of course,” Hailey said.

  “And one other thing,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t tell Mom about this either. Not yet.”

  “Of course not,” Hailey replied swiftly. “But hey.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you. And I meant what I said.”

  “I love you too.” I hung up the phone, crawled toward my bed, and climbed beneath the sheets, hoping they would swallow me whole.

  I was going to have a baby. Jackson’s baby.

  Distantly, I wondered if the baby would have his piercing eyes or silky dark hair. Whether I was carrying a boy or a girl.

  But it was all too soon for that and all too surreal.

  I couldn’t think about the baby or who I would tell or even when I would go to the doctor.

  It was too much. And for now?

  I was just going to lie in my bed and cry like my heart was breaking. Because the second I told Jackson about this baby, I was going to lose him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jackson

  I blew a sigh out my nose and resisted the urge to pound at the keyboard until all my frustration had finally dissipated. After all my work, all my hours of negotiations, compromises, and number crunching, the investors I’d lined up wanted to back out of the merger.

  It didn’t make any goddamned sense, and that alone was enough to make me want to rip my hair from my scalp. Worse, I had to deal with every inane, bullet-pointed excuse on my own since Piper had taken the day off for a doctor’s visit.

  Briefly, I considered calling her and asking her to reschedule her appointment to a more convenient time. Like, say, when the world wasn’t coming down around our ears. But I knew that wasn’t an option.

  I was going to have to ride this wave alone, no matter how choppy—and stupid—the waters.

  Slowly, I rolled my tongue over my teeth and opened a new document, typing quickly and carefully, though I was sure to retain a civil and respectful tone.

  Maybe Piper could at least look this over before I sent it. Make sure we were heading in the right direction. After all, anyone who’d met me knew I wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who knew how to handle people with more delicate sensibilities than my own.

  Pulling my phone from my pocket, I shot her a quick text asking if there was any way she might be able to come in just for an hour or two, and in a matter of seconds the phone buzzed in my hand.

  Sure. Be there soon.

  Good. That was something at least. With Piper by my side, I’d be able to talk the investors into just about anything. And, knowing her, she’d be sure to color-code their responses.

  In spite of everything, I smiled to myself, glanced at the board she’d made for me, and then settled back into my work. In such a short span of time, work had become more than just the struggle to maintain my success. Now, every day that I checked a new item off the list or followed her carefully laid plans, I felt like I was doing something to make her proud.

  Like we were a team. And the more time went on, the more I felt like I didn’t want to do any of this without her. In fact, I was beginning to wonder how anything had ever gotten done before she’d come along.

  Twenty minutes into my attempt at drafting the perfect memo, there was a gentle knock at my office door. I blew out a sigh of relief.

&nb
sp; “Come in,” I called, not bothering to look up from my work. “Piper, come here and read this.”

  The door clicked closed, and the smell of her lavender perfume along with her soft footfalls made me aware of her approach. I breathed deep, letting her general presence flood me for a moment before pointing at the screen.

  “These bastards want to cancel the merger. After everything we’ve done.”

  “Oh.” Her voice sounded hollow, and I glanced up at her. “That’s awful,” she added.

  I frowned as I took in her appearance. Was she normally so pale, or was it just the soft glow of the computer screen that made her skin look chalkier than I’d ever seen it before?

  “What happened at the doctor’s?” I asked, my stomach clenching suddenly. What a shit. I hadn’t even asked her why she was going or if she was all right. Jesus, don’t let it be something serious. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m feeling fine. Just a checkup,” she murmured and then glanced at me, meeting my eyes for only a second before her pupils darted back to my computer screen again.

  “There’s no way you can send this email,” she sighed, a little of the color seeming to return to her cheeks as she focused on the job at hand.

  “Why not?” I demanded.

  “Because you sound like you’re negotiating with a supervillain rather than the people who you are hoping to partner with.” Her mouth thinned into a line, and she rolled my chair back, pushing me away so she could get closer to the keyboard. “We just need to soften up some of this language,” she added.

  “The language is plenty soft,” I mumbled, but it was all bluster. I was just glad she was here and that everything was all right. If she needed to fix my email, so be it.

  “Maybe for a hostage negotiator,” she shot back.

  I watched as she studied my words, clicking here and there as she nipped and tucked my sentences. Still, as she went, she didn’t seem to have that same laser-focused determination she always had when she set to a task. She hadn’t made a single complaint about my grammar or anything.