by Lia Lee
“Gumdrop,” I said to Lilly, “Elena and I want to have a quick chat. Then after that, we’ll go out for dinner, what do you say?”
Lilly nodded eagerly.
“Right. Why don’t you decide what shoes you’re going to put on while Elena and I sit in the living room?”
Lilly agreed, happy to choose shoes from the pairs she had in her closet. I could already tell what her shoe closet would look like one day. She always wanted shoes.
Elena and I walked into the living room. She sat down on the couch where she always sat, the spot that I had come to think of as her spot, and she sighed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Elena said.
I shook my head. “I know something’s up. I can see it. I know you a little better by now.” I took her hand and pressed it to my lips. “You can tell me.”
Elena sighed. “You do know me quite well,” she said. “I’m sorry I stood you up. I feel awful about it.”
When she looked at me, it looked like she wanted to cry again. I shook my head and shifted closer to her on the couch, pulling her against me.
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “We’ve taken care of that now. We’re okay. Let’s not look back.”
Elena nodded and looked down. I put my hand under her chin, lifting her head so I could look her in the eyes.
“You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen,” I said to her. “Have I ever told you that?”
Elena shook her head.
“I’ll keep telling you that you are the most beautiful person, inside and out. So you never forget. I know why you did what you did. But it’s behind us now. We’re together, and I’m happier than any man could ever be. All I need is you in my life, and I know everything else will work itself out.”
Elena nodded, and this time, she looked like she believed me. There was trust in her eyes, and I would strive for the rest of my life never to break that trust. I leaned forward and kissed her. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and I held onto her tightly. I was never going to let go.
When we broke the kiss I hugged her to me and we sat like that for a while. My mind was spinning. I wanted to ask her something, something I’d been thinking about since I’d found out about the baby, but now suddenly I was nervous. My heart hammered against my chest and my mouth was suddenly dry.
“Elena,” I said and cleared my throat.
She looked up at me. “Yeah?”
“I was thinking, maybe you should move in with me.”
She sat back, lips slightly parted, face incredulous.
“What?” she asked.
I cleared my throat again. “Well, I was thinking with the baby, having you live with me would be a good idea for me to take care of you. And I want you here with me.” I took a deep breath. “Will you move in with me?”
Elena only had that shocked look on her face a moment longer before she smiled and nodded.
“Yes!” she said.
“Just like that? Without thinking about it?”
She nodded, still smiling. “Without thinking about it,” she said. “I know what I want. And it’s you.”
I kissed her again. Lilly came into the room, and we broke the kiss. Elena wiped her mouth, looking embarrassed, but Lilly didn’t seem to care at all.
“I chose my sparkly shoes,” she said, showing is the pink glitter shoes she had chosen. They were dress-up shoes, but I had told her she could choose, so I wasn’t going to tell her to take them off.
“Lil,” I said, pulling her onto my lap. “Your shoes are awesome.” I planted a kiss in her hair. “I have a surprise for you.”
“What?” Lilly asked.
“Elena is going to come live with us.”
Lilly looked at Elena as if she wanted her to confirm it. Elena nodded, smiling.
“You’re coming to stay here?” Lilly asked Elena, who nodded again. When she was sure she’d heard it right, she grinned. “That’s fun!” she cried out. I laughed and hugged her to me.
“That is fun,” I said. I looked at Elena who was smiling, too. I looked at her, raising my eyebrows. Should we tell her? Elena nodded. We were going to go all the way with this, telling Lilly what was happening.
“I also have a surprise,” Elena said, putting her hand on her stomach. “You’re going to be a big sister.”
Lilly frowned. “How?” she asked.
“Elena has a baby in her tummy,” I said. “And when the baby is born, you’ll be the big sister. What do you think about that?”
Lilly tilted her head to one side, looking at Elena’s stomach. “How does it fit in there?” she asked.
“It’s still really small. It’s going to grow and grow until it’s ready to come stay with us.”
“Just like you are?” Lilly asked.
“Just like I am,” Elena confirmed.
Lilly thought about it for a while. She didn’t get excited about it the way she did about Elena moving in. Instead, it looked like it was a fact she was going to accept. She nodded.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” I echoed, and that was that. “And now, I think we should go out to celebrate.”
We left the house to a restaurant that had a children’s play area to keep Lilly busy. They had paper tablecloths for the kids to draw on and a jungle gym in an enclosed area with supervision so parents could have a good time without worrying about their kids. When Elena and I sat down, the evidence of a child on the tablecloth between us and the sound of kids in the background, I knew this was what my future was going to look like. And I loved it. We were already a little family, and we were growing. Soon, we would have another child with us, and I couldn’t be happier.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Elena
A week after I had moved in with Noah, it was my first doctor’s appointment. I was nervous, my stomach twisted in knots. I had nothing to be nervous about, but nothing about this was routine for me and if I had to be honest, I was downright terrified.
“It’s going to be okay,” Noah said for the umpteenth time.
“Are we going to see the baby?” Lilly asked from her booster seat in the back.
I turned in my seat to look at her. “We’re going to do an ultrasound so we’ll see the baby, but it's not going to look like a baby yet. It will be a little blob on the screen with a heartbeat. And we won’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, yet.”
Lilly nodded. She was playing with a doll she had brought with her, focusing on combing the hair rather than looking at me. I turned back to the front and took a deep breath, trying to let go of the tension.
In the waiting room, there were all kinds of women, from thin to heavily pregnant and everything in between. We sat down and waited for a while before we were called in.
The consultation went well, with a few questions we had to answer before we were escorted through to another room where I had to lie down on a bed.
“What are they doing with that?” Lilly asked when the ultrasound tech squirted jelly on my stomach and I squealed because it was freezing.
“We’re going to meet your brother or sister,” the tech said.
Pictures appeared on the screen, and a moment later, the tech zoomed in on a blob the size of a coin.
“That’s your baby,” she said. “About eight weeks along.” She pushed a button, and a heartbeat filled the room, so fast and so beautiful. I teared up, a lump rising in my throat. When I looked at Noah, he was as emotional as I was.
“Is that it?” Lilly asked, sounding disappointed.
“Before you know it, that’s going to be a sibling,” the tech said. “What would you like, a brother or a sister?”
Lilly tilted her head to the side, thinking.
“I think I’d like a brother,” she said. I looked at Noah, smiling. Lilly was adorable, accepting the baby and me without blinking.
“I think I would like a boy, too,” I said. Noah nodded. We were all on the same page, although it didn’t matter w
hat we had. If we had a girl, we would be as happy as if it was a boy.
When the ultrasound was over to the pharmacy to get the prescription filled for the prenatal vitamins I had to take. Noah was serious about keeping me safe and healthy for the duration of the pregnancy. It was endearing to see him like this, eager to meet the new baby and involved with the pregnancy right from the start.
“I think we should get ice cream to celebrate,” Noah said when we climbed back into the car.
“Yeah!” Lilly cried out.
I laughed.
“I can eat ice cream,” I said. I had been getting cravings lately, and ice cream was on the list. Noah chuckled, and he turned in the right direction to head to the ice cream parlor. When we sat down at the table and ordered what we wanted, Noah sat back and looked around like a satisfied man. He was watching the other families, and I could see he was happy to be one of them.
“I think we should change the guest room closest to ours into the baby room,” he said. “What do you think?”
I laughed. “We still have thirty-four weeks to think about it.”
Noah shrugged. “Well, that’s one thing down, then. We have to make a lot of changes.”
I shook my head. He was so on board with this. It was hard to think that I had been so scared to tell him I was pregnant. That I’d been worried it would interfere with his professional life. The man that sat opposite me was so on board with being a new parent again everything was perfect.
“Can the baby sleep in my room?” Lilly asked.
I shook my head. “The baby is going to cry a lot at night. I don’t think you want to wake up all the time.”
Lilly made a face. “And smelly diapers.”
“That’s right,” Noah said.
I nodded. “The guest room sounds like a good idea.”
“Done,” he said. I knew we would talk about painting and color schemes soon, with how he was going on about it. And it was perfectly fine by me. With Beth’s wedding around the corner, I had a lot to think about, but once that was done, it would be great to start preparing for the baby to arrive.
The ice cream arrived, and I watched Noah and Lilly dig in. A sense of peace overwhelmed me, and I realized this was the feeling that everything was going to be okay, that I was exactly where I needed to be. It was hard to think that I found my happily ever after when I hadn’t been looking, but I was in it now, and I couldn’t be happier. This was what I’d imagined my life to be like when I was younger.
Noah’s phone rang, and he took it out of his pocket, frowning at the screen.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“I have to take this,” he said, excusing himself from the table. He walked out of the door for privacy, and I sat with Lilly.
“Do you think my brother will like ice cream, too?” Lilly asked.
“We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl yet,” I said. “But I’m sure that he or she will love ice cream just as much as you do.”
“I can’t wait to play.”
I chuckled. “It’s going to be a while before Baby will be ready to play, honey.”
Lilly straightened her shoulders. “I can wait,” she said.
I loved her. Lilly had been nothing more than my boss’s daughter once, but they had become so much more to me in such a short time. And now that I had moved in, Lilly was like a daughter to me. I didn’t want her to think I was her biological mother, and soon we would have that talk – I wanted her to know about her birth mother so that there weren’t questions later – but for all intents and purposes, I was her mother.
And she seemed as happy about it as I was.
I glanced up at where Noah was standing talking on the phone, and he looked troubled, nodding and frowning. I wondered if it was about work.
When Noah finally joined us again, his ice cream was melting.
“Was it the office?” I asked.
Noah shook his head. “It was Nicole’s mother.” Hearing the name made my blood run cold, but Noah carried on. “She heard that Nicole had phoned me, threatening suicide.” Noah had told me about the phone call, and I had felt for him. He hadn’t cared about her the way she’d wished he would, but knowing someone was willing to go that far was tough to deal with, no matter who they were to you.
“Apparently, Nicole is okay. She didn’t do anything to herself. She said she wanted to, but instead, she booked herself into a rehab facility in Utah. She’s getting the help she needs, and it was her own choice.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. I hadn’t known where the conversation would go when he mentioned Nicole’s name, but this wasn’t the direction I had expected. “I’m glad she’s alright.”
“Me too,” Noah said. “It was nice of her mother to phone me.”
It had been kind, I agreed. And of course, I was glad that Nicole hadn’t done something drastic. But I was relieved that she was out of our hair now. She had caused enough trouble in our relationship, and I didn’t want more drama when we needed this time to focus on our future and enjoy our time together.
Noah leaned over the table and kissed me. “I’m saying I’m happy she’s safe, but I’m also relieved she won’t bother us anymore.” He had known what I’d been thinking. “And I told you so,” he added.
“Told me what?” I asked.
“That everything was going to be alright.”
I laughed and kissed him again because he was right. Everything was okay.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Noah
I wasn’t very often nervous when it came to business, but today was bigger than usual. It was the launch of our subscription service and software. After that, we would have a meeting with the investors, and how well that would go depended solely on the numbers after the launch.
I was nervous because this was the turning point in my career, the product that would ultimately make or break my business. When Elena had suggested the subscription service, everything added up. It had made sense. We had a run with it because it had been such a good idea. Still, there was a small chance that it wouldn’t succeed, and I was anxious to find out which way things would go.
“Everything is going to be okay,” Elena said. We were in my office, waiting for the launch. Any minute now, the numbers were going to climb as the product was released and people started to subscribe.
“Are you using my line on me?” I asked. I told Elena that everything was going to be okay, often. We had been dating for only a month now, officially, and in the past few weeks, there had been many reasons for me to remind her. I wasn’t often on the receiving end, though. It felt good to hear.
“Sometimes you just need to hear it,” she said and kissed me.
The computer pinged and a moment later, the number starts to rise.
“It’s out there,” I breathed. I couldn’t believe we had come this far. That we had managed to make this happen at all. We watched as the numbers kept climbing, going higher and higher until I could breathe again, knowing that it would reach the projected amount for the first day.
“You’re doing it,” Elena said, excited.
I shook my head. “We are doing it. In fact, you are doing it because, without you, this wouldn’t have happened.”
She flashed me a smile before turning her eyes back to the computer screen. There were a few drops here and there, the numbers going down slightly before shooting right back up, but the general curve was upward, and I knew we had done it. We had saved Saturn Intelligence.
“Congratulations, my love,” Elena said and hugged me. I felt a little shell shocked. From the start, I had believed that this would work, but seeing it with my own eyes left me reeling. This was exciting. We were entering a new era for SI, and now that we had broken the market with subscription services, there was only one direction to go from here. Up.
“I can stare at these numbers all day,” Elena said. “But we have to meet with the investors. They will have their opinion about this as well.”
And she was
right. I glanced at my wristwatch and realized it was time to meet with them. Together, we walked to the boardroom and took our seats. I was at the head of the table, as always, but this time Elena wasn’t in her corner. Instead, she stood at my side. She was the brains behind this operation, after all.
“Well, Mr. Fuller, that is quite a launch,” one of the investors said and I nodded, unable to keep the satisfaction off my face.
“We are very pleased,” I said. “Of course, the numbers were as predicted.”
The investors all nodded. They looked as pleased as I was. “We would like feedback every week or so, but if things go the way they are going now, we can’t see any reason to pull out. Congratulations. Your subscription service is a huge success.”
“I am positive that this will become a trend,” I said.
“And we agree,” one of the investors said. “We will keep monitoring you, but if you keep this up for the next few months, you will have saved the company. Considering how far you were down, it’s a glorious feat.”
And they were right. We had done something spectacular. I looked at Elena, and she was smiling. Together, we had taken a company that had been on the edge of bankruptcy and not only pulled it back to safety, but it would be one of the richest companies in a very short amount of time. It felt amazing. Almost as amazing as it was to build a family with Elena.
That night, we had a celebration in the office. I paid for the whole thing myself, calling out catering and setting out an open bar. My employees all deserved to be congratulated for their success and commended for their hard work.
“Without each and every one of you, we wouldn’t be celebrating this today,” I said in a speech. “I want you to know how much you are appreciated in this company and how much I value every individual. Thank you.”
I was emotional. I had managed to retain my client base without forfeiting loyalty and without losing my company. I had done what my father had instilled in me, staying true to who I was. But I hadn’t lowered myself to his level and sunken my personal life in the process. I had taken the good, discarded the bad and standing in front of my employees, with Elena by my side, I had everything a man could ever want.