Knocked Up By The Boss: A Secret Baby Romance

by Lauren Wood

  It gave me a little bit to think about, but I wasn't really thinking about Cynthia. I was thinking about Madeline and wishing that we had not been so rudely interrupted. I definitely wasn't done with her, not when we were just getting to the good part.

  I didn't have a choice though. Madeline was gone and with Cynthia rushing in like she did and almost catching us, I couldn’t see her wanting to do it again any time soon. Early winner rush was probably not going to make her want to do it again anytime soon. It didn’t help that I was her boss at work.

  Whatever was going to happen, I was going to have to get Cynthia to stay out of it and to stop popping up wherever she wanted to. She was becoming a real cockblock and she needed to stop. I don’t care who she was to me, Cynthia was not going to keep me from Madeline. I just wasn’t going to let it happen. She was really putting a damper on my sex life.

  I didn't see her again until the next day at work. As much as I tried to stay away from the PR department, I just sort of gravitated there and when lunch time came again, I asked her if she wanted to share a meal with me. I had a pretty good feeling that she knew I wanted more than just lunch.

  “I really don't think that's a good idea, Chris. We should keep things professional and lunches don’t end that way with you.”

  “Come on, Madeline, you know it’s a very good idea. I could have sworn that you were into it yesterday. Don’t you want more of that?”

  “Yeah, it was real nice, but then your fiancée walked in and ruined everything. We should have never done anything, and whether you want to claim your marriage to her as real or not, it is in the eyes God. It’s just not right and I shouldn’t have let it get so far.”

  She was upset and I couldn't hardly blame her. What she must have thought of me wasn't something that I was necessarily comfortable thinking about. There were other times I underestimated how hurtful the situation was for Madeline. Obviously, it bothered her, and it made me realize that maybe there was another way to solve this problem. Pushing the company to finish up the deal sooner would help immensely.

  “I'm sorry that that happened. You know damn well I didn't want it to. I was fully committed to seeing it out till the end.”

  “It's not that I blame you. I blame myself. I knew better, and I knew that it was a messed-up situation and instead of walking away, I went along with it. I should know better by now.”

  “Don't say that. You can't mean that.”

  I wanted to get close to her, pull her next to me and kiss her like I had before, so she would not be able to talk such madness. I could not, though, not if she didn’t want me to.

  “I do mean it and you should probably not talk so loudly. I don't want everybody knowing that we had an affair. I can't believe that I'm the other woman with my boss, who is about to get married. I think we just added the plot to about ten romantic comedies.”

  She was shaking her head once again. I wanted to remind her that I wasn’t in a real relationship, but I knew that she didn't want to hear it. It was real enough for her and that was the point. It needed to be real, so that it would serve its purpose. Well, my father's purpose anyway.

  When I tried to explain myself to her, she pulled away and moved further apart from me. She was shutting me off from touching her, and I knew then that I was going to have my work cut out for me. It was touching her, kissing her, reminding her of what I was capable of, that was going to hopefully get her to forgive me.

  “You gave me an assignment, remember?”

  I let her go without a fight because I was not really given a choice, and I didn’t want to make it any worse than it already was. I knew that somehow I was going to have to get rid of Cynthia if I wanted Madeline in my life. It was going to make everything complicated, but it was worth it. I just knew at the end of the day, I was supposed to be with Madeline. Losing her for something fake wasn’t going to cut it.

  No deal was worth losing a woman that made me feel something again.

  15

  Madeline

  I got a call late Tuesday morning and it was a dreaded call that changed everything. One minute, everything was normal, and the next, the world was closing in around me and I had no idea what I was going to do about it.

  It was the sort of call that most people knew they could get, but that they would most likely not. My mother had gotten into a car accident and the police had called me because my number was listed as her emergency contact. Finding out that she was hurt but that she was going to be okay, was a relief, however, it made me realize instantly that I had to go back. Not only was my mother going to need my help, but I needed to get back to take care of my daughter as well.

  It was a lot to take in, but I knew immediately that I was not going to be able to stay in the city. I'm finally at the job that I'd been working hard for, but none of that mattered. My family came first and instead of waiting around to call in the morning, I sent an email to Chris. I knew that it was going to be awhile until I came back to the city, if ever, and since we had shared those moments together and I knew that our daughter was missing having a father in her life, I gave him more information than just that I wasn't coming back to work. I told him about our daughter as well, and before I could lose my nerve, I pushed the send button.

  Because everything was so complicated, I did not call him. Maybe I should have, but it would have been just as hard to tell him now as it would have been in the beginning. It all felt impossible and leaving the ball in his court, made me feel better about it. It took the pressure off of me and if he wanted to meet her and get to know her, I would know that it was because he genuinely wanted to and not because I had made him feel guilty or forced him into it.

  I packed up as much as I could fit in my car and as quickly as I could, made my way back home. I had a friend that was going to take care of Emily until I got there. Eve was someone that I desperately wanted to talk to, and I desperately missed my daughter. Maybe going home and finally finding Chris to tell him the truth, was exactly what was needed the whole time. I'm honestly just sorry that it took my mother getting into a car accident for me to realize it.

  “Madeline! What are you doing here?”

  I got into the hospital room my mother was staying in about the time that she was arguing with one of the nurses that she needed to leave. All of that stopped when she saw me through the chaos she was starting.

  While she was asking me what I was doing here, she had a big smile on her face. It was good to know that she was happy to see me.

  “You are hurt, Mom. I am pretty sure that you’re supposed to stay still. I definitely know that you’re not supposed to be fighting with the nurses.”

  She waved me off, said she was fine and of course, wanted a hug. I could have refused her, but I genuinely didn't want to. I had been away for too long and I’d missed her more than I thought I would.

  “You didn't have to come back, Madeline. I would have figured something out.”

  I shook my head and told her that there was nothing to talk about. I wasn't going to let her hobble around the way she was. Besides, who was going to take care of Emily?

  “This is what was supposed to happen. I quit my job and I'm back now. There's nothing else to talk about.”

  Her mother gave me one of those looks that said she wasn't done talking about the conversation. But I was. I didn't want to go over all of the bumps and bruises that I'd gotten along the way and how much I didn't want to leave the city. I finally felt like I was starting to make it and everything was going to work out. Obviously, that was not the case.

  “What about...”

  “It is what it is. I actually wrote him an email and that's how I quit. I guess I didn't have the guts to tell him in person.”

  “Did you tell him about Emily?”

  She had a look that said she didn't think I had, but I had, and there was shock on her face when I announced it. I was still a bit surprised as well. It wasn’t something that I’d seen coming.

  “That is what
you wrote in the email?”

  I agreed. It wasn't my brightest moment, but that was exactly what I had done. I didn't know how to say it any other way, so I had just written it down in a few short paragraphs. Hopefully, he didn’t hate me forever for doing it that way.

  Mom still wanted to argue with me about coming back home, but I wasn't going to hear it. This was where I was supposed to be. That much I knew for certain.

  After I got my mom home, I went over to Eve’s house and got Emily. She was half asleep when I got there, but she was about as happy to see me as I was happy to see her. She held me so long that for a while I didn't think that she was going to ever let go.

  Holding her made me realize that I didn't need to live in the city or to have a nice apartment that was perfect for her. I just needed to be there, and it was going to take me a while before I would even think about leaving her to even go to the store alone. I had missed her so much.

  When we got home, it was weird to be back living with my mother again. It was all these same familiar sounds and smells. The neighbors were still the same, and they still had the same arguments.

  “I see that Mrs. Gillespie finally got Mr. Wallace to trim his hedges.”

  Mom smiled. “That actually took an act of God. Half of them were destroyed when that tree came down during a microburst. You should have seen how happy Margaret was about it. You would have thought that she had won the lottery or something.”

  I smiled and just kind of shook my head. This is what I was used to. The small town where I grew up had all the interesting drama that I needed. I didn't need the city for that.

  As much as I tried to convince myself that everything was better this way, there was definitely one person in particular that I was going to miss. Chris was on my mind all night, and even though I enjoyed being home, it didn't mean that I wasn't going to think about him. Obviously, it was going to take more for me to forget him.

  When Emily finally went to bed, it was pretty late, but it had been a pretty big day for her. I wanted to go to bed myself, but my mom wanted to stay up and talk. She wasn’t going to let me just slide in without an explanation.

  “So, are you going to tell me what in the world happened between you and Emily's father?”

  “Chris. Mom, his name is Chris.”

  “Fine, Chris. What happened between you and him? Is that why you came back here because something went wrong?”

  That was of course how my mother thought. Everything was negative and I told her emphatically that it had nothing to do with me and him. It had everything to do with her. I was there to take care of her and make sure she was safe. Why was that so hard to understand?

  “There is nothing that happened between us. I got the call that you were in the hospital and I came home. It’s just as simple as that. Not everything is a big conspiracy.”

  “You didn't have to quit your job. You could have worked something out.”

  “Mom I just started, and I never even got to do much. I was sleeping with the…”

  She stopped in the midst of taking a sip of her tea and wanted me to continue. Of course, she had heard that and now I was going to have to repeat it, which was going to make it even worse.

  “Why don't you finish that sentence, Madeline.”

  “Well, I was messing around with the boss, you know, Chris, and it was just going to get complicated anyway. He was about to get married and there's nothing I can do about it. He says it is nothing serious, just something that he asked to do for a business deal, but I don't believe it. And even if I did, there is still Emily and all of the lies between us. It was never going to work out.”

  “You had a bit more trust in it working the last time I talked to you. What changed?”

  “Did I?”

  “You did. Something happened that I want to know about.”

  “His fiancée walked in on us fooling around, okay? It’s a little embarrassing.”

  “So, what happened? Did she see you?”

  “She didn't see me, but I was there. He pushed me off, and I had to climb out a window in the bathroom like I was some common whore. It wasn’t my finest hour.”

  “Wow. That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

  “I guess it's just really not something that I am looking forward to going over again. Chris always had a way of making me do things that I never would have done before. I needed to get some space and now I have it. Being around him like that was only messing with my head.”

  “So, you're using my accident to run away from it?”

  Once again, she was really pushing with the guilt trip. I didn't want to argue with her about it, but I knew at the end of the day, she was right. I was running away, in a way. If I had really had any control over myself or any kind of confidence of it turning out well, I would have told him right off the bat about Emily. Hell, I would have told him who the hell I was too. He should remember and maybe he would have, if I would have said something. Or maybe, he would have fired me and told me that he wanted to have nothing to do with our child.

  “Kind of.”

  The uncertainty of how it would end between one or the other and all the other options in between, was the exact reason why I didn't say it to him out loud. I had acted like a coward, sending that kind of information in an email. And now, the waiting was going to be the worst. I would always wonder if he got the email, and if he did get it, was he not answering me back because he didn't care or because of something else? It was quite possible that I was never going to get the answers that I was looking for.

  I tried to think of a scenario where it would work out well, but I honestly couldn't think of one. I let mom play her Debbie-downer routine for a few more minutes, before I told her I was tired and I had to get to bed.

  “We should get you to bed, too, Mom. You just got in a bad accident, remember? You need your sleep, although you look really good.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a few things to do and then I will get some sleep.”

  I didn't want to argue with her, because I really was already tired. Morning was going to come early, and I had a lot of adjusting to do. I was back to my old life.

  16

  Chris

  I went to the PR department, because naturally I wanted to see Madeline. I was still convinced that I would be able to convince her that us being together was a good idea. I could definitely understand her position on it, but that didn't mean that I was going to take it as an answer. Obviously, she didn't know how hard it was for me to take no for an answer.

  When I got there, though, I didn't see her anywhere. I even waited around for almost twenty minutes before I asked her supervisor if they had seen her. I didn't want to get her in trouble if she was taking a few minutes for herself.

  “I haven't seen her all day. I think she might not be here, though I don’t think I got a call this morning from her.”

  Alarm bells went off in my head for some reason. It shouldn't be a big deal, it was just one day. She could have been sick or woke up late. There could have been a million reasons why she didn't come into work, and I shouldn't have been worried about it. I wasn't worried about anybody else coming in, so why was I so worried about her?

  I didn't stick around after that. There was no point. I was there to see Madeline, nobody else. As much as I liked to believe that I had a good handle on things, Madeline was confusing. There was still a familiarity that I didn't quite understand. I know that I didn't know her, but it felt like we knew each other. It felt like for some reason I had known her before. She told me that she didn't know where, but I think that wasn't exactly the truth.

  I was just about to start going through the nightly emails that had come in while I was away from the office, when Cynthia came in. I’d been trying not to show my true feelings toward her, but it was becoming harder and harder to do. As far as I was concerned, she had ruined something great that me and Madeline were in the middle of. It was hard for me not to resent her. It, of course, was kind of funny
when I thought about it, but I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted it to be over, honestly.

  I tried to talk to my father into discussing moving the deal up in the timeline, so that I could go on without having to marry her, but he wasn’t going for it. He was so adamant that it was only going to work the way it was planned out. When I questioned if the deal was that important, he looked at me like I was a traitor. That had ended the conversation, but now I wanted to try one more time to give my side of it. Surely, he would see that doing this was causing unnecessary pain in my life. Maybe if he realized that I might have found love with Madeline, he would see the benefit of ending the engagement that was just one big lie anyway.

  None of that had worked, though, so I still had to deal with Cynthia a little bit longer. If I didn't, I was going to have to go at it with my father and quite honestly, I wasn't ready for that yet. He was not the sort of person to argue with unless I was fully prepared for it. I was not.

  “What can I do for you, Cynthia? You know I'm working right now, so can we make this quick?”

  “Yes, I know you’re working. You're always working. I'm starting to think that maybe you are a workaholic.”

  It was apparently just one more thing that I did wrong, and I kind of just nodded my head and told her that she might be right. I'm not really sure what she expected. It was hard not to feel like everything I did was wrong. I seemed to bother her in one way or another.

  It made me wonder what Cynthia got out of all of this. Her family already had money and it wasn't like she was trying to work the deal. So, what did Cynthia want out of a marriage with me?

  Try as I might to come up with an answer, it had to be an angle that I didn't understand or something that I didn't see. There was obviously a reason.