It was adorable, and my chest ached. Soon, my face ached, too, with the force of my smiles. He stayed over on Saturday night, but we didn’t have sex again, just cuddled naked in bed together. Somehow, there was something equally intimate about that.
The next morning, I made breakfast for all of us while he fixed a couple things around the apartment that had been driving me nuts since we moved in. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have this forever. I had never had a partner before. To be honest, when Ronny was born, I had almost given up on the idea of it, sure that it would just be me and her for at least as long as it took for her to grow up.
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure that had to be the case. Nor was I sure I had ever wanted for it to be the case. I had just been scared. I wasn’t so scared anymore. Or at least, I was scared in different ways, ones that didn’t seem to matter quite as much.
I was in love with Wes. And what’s more, there was a huge part of me that was screaming that I should just trust him. I might not know where things would lead, and I knew of course there were still tons of things that we were going to have to work out. Like the fact that he was my boss, for one. Or whether or not he had actually forgiven me for keeping Ronny a secret for all these years. We were going to have to find some way to tell Ronny that he was her dad, even if that meant admitting I had been hiding something from her for all these years.
Still, at the end of the day, I knew that Wes was worth fighting for, and if there was anything I could do to convince him to take a chance on me, I was going to do it. I didn’t have a choice; I was endlessly in love with him.
I didn’t want the weekend to end, but as I headed into work on Monday, I found I was still smiling with the promise of what might be in store in the future. We had left things on a good note, and I had a feeling it was only a matter of time before I had Wes over again.
I had to admit, I was a little nervous about the meeting I had that afternoon. It was one of the first meetings I would have with Wes at work since things had really heated up between us. I liked to think we were both of an age and maturity level that we could put our attraction aside for now and focus on the task at hand. Especially since we wouldn’t be alone in the meeting and Devin would be joining us.
On the other hand, when had I ever been able to turn off my attraction to Wes? We were both going to have to be careful not to do anything that might betray our personal attachments to the company’s latest investor. I didn’t want to think about what could happen if Devin realized Wes and I had slept together, or that we were sort-of-dating.
Wes was running late to the meeting, and I couldn’t help but feel a little relieved at that. If I could just settle into the work thing before he got there, chat with Devin as though everything was normal, I had a feeling I could hold it together once Wes arrived as well.
“How is your daughter?” Devin asked immediately when he came in. “Wes told me she was in the hospital and that was why you needed to leave? I didn’t even realize you had a daughter!”
I laughed nervously. I had expected the question but wasn’t really sure how to explain things to him. I couldn’t tell him why I had been so set on keeping Ronny a secret, so I had to hope he would buy the excuse I gave: “I try really hard to keep my personal life separate from my professional life. As a female in this field, things can get a little tricky sometimes.”
“I’m very sorry if that’s an experience you’ve had in the past,” Devin said, looking and sounding sincere. “I can assure you that that isn’t the experience you’ll have working with our company. I couldn’t care less what biological parts you have as long as you get the job done. And in fact, I think your femininity could be an asset. You think in different ways. Especially as a mother. We need that sort of creativity and that access to a broader demographic.”
There was a part of me that resented the way he said that. Like the only reason I was good at my job was because I had “access to a broader demographic.” I knew he didn’t mean it that way, though. And besides, I should be grateful that he seemed to accept my little lie.
So instead of chewing him out, I just said, “Anyway, thank you for asking, but Ronny is doing okay. She broke her arm, but it could have been a lot worse. You can’t keep her spirits down, and she’s already back in school.” I rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days I came home to find out that somehow she got the mayor himself to sign her cast; she’s got that much charisma.”
Devin chuckled. “She gets it from her mom, I’m sure,” he said.
I barely stopped myself from saying, “Or her dad.” The last thing I needed was to open that can of worms. For obvious reasons, I wasn’t about to tell Devin who her dad was—that he would be joining us in the meeting room soon, hopefully—but at the same time, I didn’t want to lie to him any more than I had to.
It was a tricky situation.
“So, we’ve got quite a bit of work to do,” I said, steering the conversation toward the purpose of the meeting.
“When will Wes be joining us anyway?” Devin asked curiously. “Wouldn’t want to make any of the important decisions without him.”
I grinned and glanced at my phone, but there were no new messages there. “He was out at George’s place—the founder of the company. Wes has taken over as CEO lately, but George is still technically in charge. I think they were talking about George’s ideas for the product line as well. Basically getting his blessing on everything.”
“Fair enough,” Devin said. “Well, let’s get to work. We can catch him up when he gets here.”
“Sure,” I said easily. We fell into an easy discussion that soon turned excited, with both of us standing at the boardroom’s whiteboard writing out different ideas as we brainstormed and bounced ideas back and forth.
“That’s perfect!” Devin said as we hit on a brilliant solution to one of our biggest problems with the line. He reached out for a high five and pulled me into a quick hug. I grinned at him as we pulled apart, but I practically jumped out of my skin as Wes cleared his throat at the doorway.
“Wes!” I said, trying not to sound too surprised. Did he think that I sounded guilty? Nothing had happened; it was just a quick hug between friends. But it was clear from Wes’s expression that he wasn’t thrilled by the scene he had walked in on, and I couldn’t help but feel bad even though I knew that it wasn’t my fault.
I’d talk to him about it later, I resolved. Still, I couldn’t help feeling a little frustrated as the rest of the meeting proceeded awkwardly, with Wes acting strange.
Nothing had happened. Didn’t he trust me? What did he think was going to happen, that I was going to jump Devin right here in the middle of the office, where anyone could walk in on us? When Wes and I had a kid together and were sort-of-dating? I would never do something like that.
He might not have forgiven me for having kept Ronny a secret from him for all of those years, but that didn’t give him any right to act like this toward me. Not only that, but the more he acted jealous and possessive, the more likely it was to become obvious to Devin and everyone else that Wes and I had slept together. That our relationship wasn’t strictly professional.
I couldn’t help but feel frustrated with him for blowing the whole hug thing out of proportion. What the hell.
I had a daughter. I couldn’t get caught up in drama like this. I didn’t want to lose him because of something stupid like this. If a hug was all it took for him to mistrust me, then maybe this wasn’t a good idea.
I could feel myself growing more and more agitated as the meeting wore on. Maybe I should talk to him. But at the end of the day, if he had a problem, it was his problem to deal with. I didn’t have to be part of this. So when the meeting ended, I said an easy goodbye to Devin, giving him another quick hug. I told Wes I had a few things I needed to take care of that afternoon but that he knew where to find me if he needed me.
Maybe it was childish of me. Maybe I was just avoiding having to talk abo
ut the issue. I kept trying to remind myself it wasn’t my issue, but I still felt deflated compared to how I had felt that morning. Maybe this relationship thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Maybe I had been right, after all, to keep Ronny a secret. We didn’t need jealousy or mistrust in our lives.
Telling myself that didn’t make me feel any better, though.
“Whoa, what happened in there?” Angie asked as I headed back to my office.
I shook my head. “Just a lot to think about,” I told her tersely. I shut myself in my office without saying more to her, hoping she didn’t think that I was upset at her. I just didn’t know what to say right now, not having told her about the weekend I’d had with Wes.
Maybe it had been wrong to keep that a secret from her. Suddenly, I was so sick of secrets. But what could I do about it, really? I couldn’t risk my job, and in any case, there was no point risking it if Wes and I were going nowhere in our relationship. There was no winning either way.
Chapter 25
Wes
I knew I needed to focus on work during this meeting. Devin was an important client, and the last thing I needed was for him to realize anything was off between me and Rian. At the same time, though, it was hard to put my personal feelings aside in light of the scene I had walked in on.
I wanted to give Rian the benefit of the doubt. No, more than that—I didn’t want to feel like I was giving her the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to know she didn’t feel anything for Devin. That the hug had been innocent, and that she hadn’t initiated it. I was sure that even if she did think Devin was attractive, she wouldn’t start something with him right there in the workplace, not when she had a kid with me, and not when things were already so stressful and out of line with the whole work thing.
If she and I weren’t supposed to be doing anything there, then it would be even worse if she had a kid with me and then decided to start something with one of our most important clients.
That said, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if maybe I was being an idiot. Just because Rian had my baby, it didn’t mean that we were destined to have a future together. After all, she hadn’t even wanted me to know about Ronny. It was just a coincidence that I had found out about her. Maybe Rian had been hoping, for all these years, to find something more.
I couldn’t stop myself from feeling jealous. I didn’t like the fact that Devin was touching her, and I didn’t like the fact that Rian looked so comfortable there.
I wanted to trust her, that was the thing. But she had kept such a major secret from me, for seven whole years. What if Ronny wasn’t the only secret she had been keeping?
The worst part of it all was that I could tell from the looks Rian kept giving me that she knew exactly what was going through my mind. Not only that, but she was pissed about it. What could I say, though? I couldn’t help feeling jealous. Besides, it wasn’t like we had really worked through our problems yet. I had wanted to do that the other night, when I told her that I wanted to be part of Ronny’s life. Instead, we had ended up having sex.
Not that I was complaining about that, but we should probably have cooled the jets a bit and talked things through a little more before we just jumped into things like that. Now, all I could focus on were the unknowns. Maybe Rian didn’t really want me in her life long-term. I knew better than to wonder whether Ronny was even mine; she looked too much like me not to be.
At the end of the day, though, that wasn’t enough to mean that Rian and I could put together a relationship. There were reasons that she had kept my daughter from me for all of those years, and I was still just starting to understand what those reasons were.
“All right, what’s going on?” Devin asked after Rian all but ran out of there.
I looked at him in surprise, even though I knew that my distractions must have been obvious. I shook my head. Devin and I might be on pretty good terms, but this wasn’t the kind of thing I could tell him about. Even if I didn’t get the feeling that he might be interested in Rian, there would be nothing professional about telling him that I had banged her a few times (and oh yeah, knocked her up with a kid back in college).
Devin rolled his eyes, folding his arms across his chest. “Come on,” he said. “When you guys were in New York, you were all excited about this project. What changed? Did you get a better offer? You can tell me, you know. I’d like to think that we’re friends in addition to being business colleagues.”
I sighed. His words made me feel guilty. We were friends. Heck, he had let me drag him off fishing while he was in Nebraska the first time. Yet here I was getting all jealous and bothered because I had a suspicion that he liked Rian. What was worse was that I had a feeling if he knew the whole story, he would have backed off immediately, regardless of his personal feelings.
At the same time, it wasn’t like I could tell him about all of that. I was her boss, and there were some lines that you just weren’t supposed to cross. “I recently got some big news that I guess I’m still sort of processing,” I finally admitted reluctantly, knowing he wasn’t going to give up. He was a good friend, and he just wanted to be there for me.
Fortunately, that vague answer did the trick. Devin clapped me on the shoulder. “You know I’m here for you if you need to talk,” he said sympathetically.
I felt even more like a heel, but I managed a wan smile. “Thanks,” I said.
We parted ways and I headed back to my office. I was surprised when Beth followed me into my office and shut the door behind her. I raised an eyebrow at her, too tired to think of anything to even ask.
Fortunately, I didn’t need to ask anything. Beth was practically overflowing with what she wanted to say. “How was your meeting?” she asked. Without giving me a chance to answer, she continued, “You know, people are really starting to talk about Devin and Rian.”
“What about them?” I asked suspiciously.
“You know, their secret relationship,” Beth said. “I wouldn’t say anything about it to you because I know it’s none of my business, but it would be one thing if she was just trying to marry him for his money or something. But some people think that Rian is trying to get a job at Devin’s firm.” She paused, grinning like the cat that got the cream. “Of course, I know how important she is here, and that we can’t really afford to lose her. Where would we find another innovations manager?”
I stared at her, flabbergasted to hear her voicing the same sorts of suspicions that had been running through my head when I had come into the boardroom to find Devin hugging Rian. Was there maybe a glimmer of truth there? But no, I was sure it was just gossip.
In any case, it was none of Beth’s business. She might have something to gain from the idea that Rian was interested in Devin, since I had a feeling that Beth wanted me and must realize that I was interested in Rian. At the end of the day, though, I didn’t have time for gossip in my workplace, and that was all that this was.
“Don’t they seem awfully friendly?” Beth pressed. That gave me the opening I needed.
“Friendliness isn’t proof of anything,” I said sternly. “Devin and I are friendly as well, but you don’t think that I’m looking to quit my job here, do you?”
Beth raised an eyebrow at me and wordlessly produced a printed-out piece of paper. I stared at it for a moment, wondering what the hell it could be, but it was self-explanatory enough. An email from Rian to Devin, asking about possible openings at his firm.
Maybe there was more proof there than I was letting myself realize.
I felt like I was losing my mind. Here I had been thinking that things were good between me and Rian, and she was just scheming to do whatever she could to move back to New York. To take my daughter away from me again, and to shut me out of her life.
The real question was, how could I have been so naïve? Disappearing in the middle of the night, that was her act. She had done it once, and I knew she would do it again. Hell, she certainly hadn’t stuck around after the first time we had sex when sh
e returned to Nebraska.
All my insecurities from before came back to me. There must have been some real reason that she didn’t tell me about Ronny. She didn’t think I was good enough to be her father, and she didn’t want me around to be her partner either. She was after someone like Devin, someone handsome and charming who had a ton of money.
Did she have to go behind my back to get with him, though? Did she really have to start sleeping with me as a backup option while she was scheming to leave me again?
I knew I should say something to Beth, that I should remind her again that this was none of her business or something. Maybe remind her that if Rian did want to leave, that was her prerogative. Maybe I should even let Beth know that I had expected from the very start that Rian would want to leave sooner rather than later, because that was just what she did.
I didn’t want to talk to Beth now, though. I had too many emotions coursing through me, and the one that bubbled to the surface the most was betrayal. I stalked past Beth and left my office, heading straight for Rian’s.
I shut the door behind me, doing my best not to slam it. “What the hell,” I said, and for a moment, that was all I could say, anger getting the better of me.
Rian frowned at me, folding her arms defensively across her chest and giving me a cool look. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said carefully.
“You didn’t do anything wrong?” I exploded. “Just led me on, let me pretend like you were letting me into your life, when meanwhile you’ve been planning to leave this whole time. I guess New York is too much of a draw for you—is that it? God, I’d almost like to believe that that’s it.”
“What are you even talking about?” Rian asked impatiently.
“I saw the email you wrote to Devin, asking him for a job,” I sneered. “Look, I’m not an idiot. I knew from the moment that you showed up in my office that you weren’t planning on sticking around. I came this close to firing you right then, but I decided to give you a chance. But seriously, using your position here to scheme your way into another one, and meanwhile sleeping with the boss?”
S is for Secret Baby Page 14