Little Secrets--Secretly Pregnant

by Andrea Laurence

  She pulled out of his grasp and sat up in bed, tugging the sheets to her chest. “A little. I mean...this is going to sound ridiculous. I’m just not used to all that. I went to Catholic school and got my sex education from nuns. I was raised to be more conservative. Not so conservative as to wait for marriage, obviously, but I’ve never really had the wild kind of nights you’re probably used to.”

  “Were all the guys you dated just that boring?”

  Emma frowned, a crease forming between her eyebrows. “Yes, in a way. But I suppose that was what I was looking for.”

  Now it was Jonah’s turn to sit up. “You were looking for someone boring?” He couldn’t imagine someone like Emma wasting her life with someone like that.

  “Not boring. More like...responsible. Respectable. The kind of man you’d be happy to take home to your parents.”

  “You mean the opposite of me?”

  “No!” she insisted. “Well...not exactly.”

  Jonah tried not to be offended. He knew he wasn’t the clean-cut lawyer or investment banker some parents wanted for their daughter. “Do your parents know you’re having my baby?”

  Emma shook her head. “They don’t even know I’m pregnant yet.”

  “Emma! How could you keep that a secret?”

  “Easy. I assure you that it was far simpler to avoid my parents than to tell them I’m pregnant but don’t know who the father is. And I didn’t until a week ago. Listen, my parents are very overprotective of me. My sister ended up being an embarrassment to the family. I was just a teenager when she died and my mother was constantly on me not to make the same mistakes Cynthia made. So I guess I’ve been more worried about pleasing them than pleasing myself. It wasn’t until my ex said those horrible things that I gave myself permission to rebel for just one night.”

  “And look what happened!” Jonah said jokingly, but he could instantly tell by the pained expression on Emma’s face that she felt exactly that way. He was used to scandal, but he sensed that Emma was out of her element with this entire situation. He opted to change his tactic. “Listen, I’m sorry about all this, Emma. I certainly didn’t expect you to suffer permanent consequences from our night together. At least outside of the tattoo. I know how you feel—”

  “How could you possibly?” she interrupted.

  “Well, you might be surprised to know that my parents were very conservative and very strict. I wasn’t allowed to do anything. Me and my younger brothers got sent to a boarding school in England when my father died. I only had a year or so left, then I returned for college. There, I realized that I could live my life the way I wanted to, and everything changed for me. I think my professional success is due in part to my rebellious management style. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it really worked out for me.”

  “And what does your mother say about how you live your life?”

  “She said plenty at first, when she thought I still cared. Then she realized I was a grown man, a CEO of my own company, and she finally let it go. At least until Thanksgiving rolls around. It wouldn’t be a family holiday without Angelica Flynn putting her two cents in.”

  “I don’t know that it will ever be that easy with my parents. Once they lost Cynthia, I was all they had left. I’ve never wanted to disappoint them.”

  Jonah put his arm around Emma’s shoulders. “I don’t know how you could possibly disappoint anyone.”

  Emma brought her hand to her stomach and rubbed the small bulge there unconsciously as she stared off across the expanse of his loft. “They won’t be happy about the baby. My mother has been waiting years to put together a huge society wedding for me. Cynthia died before she could get married, so I’m her only chance to be the mother of the bride at an outrageous affair at The Plaza Hotel. You don’t have a big affair like that when the bride is obviously pregnant. And there’s no hope of a wedding at The Plaza, or otherwise, when the baby is the result of a one-night stand and they have no intention of marrying.”

  There were a lot of things about Emma’s pregnancy that he really hadn’t taken into consideration until now. He’d only thought about how fatherhood would affect his life, not hers. Not really, and that was stupid and selfish of him. “Will your parents insist you get married?”

  Emma shrugged. “They can try, but they can’t force you into it. My father doesn’t own a shotgun, so you’re safe there. I’m certainly not going to force you into it. The pregnancy was a mistake. I’m not going to compound it by demanding that we add a marriage into the mix.”

  The last few days with Emma had changed a lot of the ways Jonah looked at the world. Once, long before she walked through the doors of FlynnSoft, Jonah told himself that if he ever found his butterfly, he wouldn’t let her go. That hadn’t entirely changed when he realized Emma was his fantasy woman. When he saw her, he saw a future without a line of women outside his door. Yes, he would absolutely stand up and be a father to their child, but for the first time in his life, Emma made him consider more—more than this cold, empty loft, trysts with random actresses and lonely nights working late at the office.

  The idea of coming home after work to a nice, comfortable apartment and spending time with his very own family was suddenly more appealing than it had ever been. Having a family was something he’d never put much thought into, perhaps just because at heart he was still a teenager rebelling against his parents at every turn. As a grown man with a child on the way, things were different.

  But it didn’t sound like a future together held the same appeal for Emma. “You don’t want to marry me?” he asked.

  She turned to look at him with wide green eyes. “No, I don’t.”

  Jonah had never asked a woman if she wanted to marry him before, and although it wasn’t really a proposal, he was a little hurt by her blunt rejection. “Why? Am I not good enough to be your husband?”

  “Of course you’re good enough,” she chided. “It has nothing to do with that. Despite the fact that we’re having a child together, we hardly know each other, Jonah. That’s why. We agreed to give the relationship time to develop and see what—if anything—happened, and I’m fine with that. If one day, you decide you’re truly in love with me and want to marry me that will be completely different. But I’m not going to rush things because of an artificial ticking time bomb that ends with this kid entering the world. My mother and her dreams of a big Plaza wedding will have to just be dreams.”

  * * *

  Emma had hoped that the weekend would clear her mind and she could return to work Monday ready to wrap up this project at FlynnSoft. Instead she found herself just as baffled by the discrepancy in the financials as she was the week before. If her calculations were correct, and she’d checked them three times, someone had taken out three million dollars without logging the expense properly. The money had been transferred to an offshore account she couldn’t find any record of, nor did it have any relation to the corporation that she could find. It looked very fishy. And yet who would be foolish enough to steal such a large amount? Someone was bound to notice it.

  This was the part of Emma’s job that she didn’t like. She had to tell the CEO that someone was stealing from him. Then she had to hope the finger didn’t point back at Jonah himself. He had that right, she supposed—it was his company, after all—but it wouldn’t look good. Then, worst of all, she had to report it back to Game Town, where the stodgy owner would likely pass on the contract. This wasn’t going to end well for anyone but the creep who made off with three million.

  With a heavy sigh, Emma picked up her phone to call Mark, one of her coworkers at the firm. She needed some advice on how to handle this so she could make certain she wasn’t letting her relationship with Jonah cloud the issue. Mark had been doing this job for twenty years and had seen it all. He would know what to do.

  “Hey there, Emma,” Mark said as he answered. “How’r
e the crazy kids over there at FlynnSoft?”

  “It’s definitely a different kind of company,” Emma admitted. “Listen, I’m about to wrap up but I’ve come across something questionable that I wanted to run by you.” She went through everything she found as briefly as she could. “Do you think I should speak to the CEO before I make my report?” she asked when she was done.

  “You can. And I would. It’s possible he can find an explanation and documentation for it that you haven’t thought of. But if there’s the slightest whisper of funds mismanagement, you need to report it back to Game Town. It’s not your job to protect FlynnSoft from themselves.”

  Emma’s stomach sank. “Of course. I just wanted a second opinion. Thanks for your time, Mark.”

  She hung up the phone and gathered some of her papers to take upstairs to Jonah’s office. She hadn’t seen him yet this morning. She tried not to think about what that meant. He’d said a lot about a potential future for the two of them, but she didn’t believe it. Not really. It sounded good; it was the right thing to say, but would he follow through? Or would he chase the next shiny thing that caught his eye?

  His secretary, Pam, wasn’t at her desk when she came upstairs, so Emma went ahead and knocked on his door.

  “Come in,” she heard him yell from inside.

  Emma pushed the heavy door open and slipped into his office. The moment he laid eyes on her, his eyes brightened and he smiled. Jonah leaped up from his seat behind his desk and rushed over to her. Before she could stop him, he swept her up in his arms and pulled her into a passionate good-morning kiss.

  Emma tried to untangle herself as delicately as she could. “Jonah, please,” she fussed, straightening up her paperwork and taking a step back.

  “No one can see into my office, butterfly.”

  “Don’t call me that at work, Jonah. And someone could walk in and catch us together at any time.”

  Jonah frowned and leaned back against his desk. “I guess. But what if you worked here?” he asked. “Would you still worry all the time?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Well,” he explained, “I told you before that I need a new financial director. From everything I’ve seen of your work thus far, I think you’d be great for the job. And besides that, if you worked for me instead of this pesky third party, you wouldn’t have to worry about the impropriety of it all.”

  It was a little more complicated than just that. She’d thought he was only joking when he’d mentioned the job last week. “No, I’d only have to worry about people saying I slept with the boss instead.”

  “Well, to be fair you did sleep with the boss,” Jonah said with an impish grin. He leaned in and whispered “multiple times,” like he was sharing a secret.

  Emma shook her head. It seemed like everything was a joke to Jonah sometimes. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I,” he countered. “I need a finance director and I want you to take the job.”

  “I’m not taking the job, Jonah. I don’t like the way it would look.”

  “My brother works here. He collects a paycheck and doesn’t do a damn thing. Everyone knows that and no one cares. Nepotism is alive and well in the corporate world.”

  “Yes, but if we continue to date, if everyone finds out I’m having your baby... I just don’t like it. You know how I feel about that sort of thing. Reputations are important to me.”

  Jonah sighed. “Okay, fine. You won’t kiss me. You don’t want to work for me. I suppose that means you won’t give yourself to me on the conference room table. So tell me what it is that brings you here today, Miss Dempsey.”

  Emma ignored his sexual comments and tried not to bristle at his sudden use of her formal name. A week ago she would’ve preferred it, but now things were different. Now she knew he was only doing it to get a rise out of her because he was irritated.

  She clutched the paperwork tight to her chest and tried to focus on what she needed to say instead of the dark blue eyes that were watching her curiously. “I’m finished with my audit.”

  “Oh, excellent. You’re very efficient, considering how much I distracted you. Does that mean you’ll be free to be seen with me in public? Or do we have to wait for the Game Town deal to go through?”

  “Well, the Game Town deal is what I came to talk to you about. I’ve found a significant discrepancy in the books.”

  The curiosity on his face instantly faded. His brow drew together with a serious expression of concern that seemed out of place on his face. “What did you find?”

  Emma took the pages over to him where she’d highlighted the withdrawal. “Exactly three million has been taken out and wired to this offshore account in the Caymans. I haven’t been able to figure out who it belongs to, but I can’t make any connection to a legitimate business expense or account.”

  Jonah nodded, his face unusually blank of its usual emotion or amusement. His gaze simply flicked over the pages as she spoke without really seeming to take in the data. She wasn’t sure what to think, so she continued to nervously prattle on.

  “Do you know anything about this? I was hoping you might have some kind of insight that would keep it from looking as bad as it does right now.”

  Jonah turned his gaze to her and he nodded curtly. “I do have some insight, but unfortunately, it won’t improve the circumstances. Please have a seat.”

  He returned to his desk chair and Emma lowered slowly into the guest seat where she’d first met the infamous Jonah Flynn a week ago. So much had changed and yet she was just as anxious talking to him now as she was then. “Am I missing something?” she asked. “Is this some kind of third world charity outreach in the Caribbean?”

  Jonah shook his head. “I’m pretty sure we document our charity funds appropriately. You haven’t missed anything, and I didn’t think you would. The truth of the matter is that my younger brother Noah is a vice president here, as I mentioned earlier. He transferred the money out to one of his private accounts—an unauthorized loan of sorts. A member of the finance department brought it to my attention the day you arrived to conduct the audit. Had I known about it earlier, I would’ve disclosed the issue, but instead, I hoped that perhaps I could resolve it. I spoke with Noah last week and confirmed my suspicions.”

  Emma’s stomach felt like the baby was flittering around with butterflies. Unauthorized loan? That was a nice way to say stealing. She’d never even met Jonah’s brothers and now she was learning that one of them was a thief. Her baby’s uncle was a thief. As though her parents weren’t already going to have a meltdown over this.

  “And?” she pressed.

  “And, he’s returning it all. I can’t tell you what he needed the money for—I didn’t ask—but he swore he would return it when he got back into the States. At the moment, he’s in Southeast Asia. In the meantime, I have deposited enough money to cover the withdrawal. The accounts should register it as of this morning. Since this is a privately owned company with no board of directors to answer to, I’ve covered the loss and opted not to publicize the theft outside of the company.”

  “You still have the president of Game Town to answer to,” Emma pointed out. “When I disclose this, I’m pretty sure Carl Bailey is going to back out of the partnership deal with FlynnSoft. He was suspicious enough of your company and its unorthodox methods going into it. I don’t see him as the kind of man that would want to do business with a company that could potentially lose money it’s handling on his behalf.”

  “We won’t lose Game Town’s money. I guarantee it.”

  “How can you do that?” she asked. Was he willing to use his own money to replace every dime his brother or anyone else decided they could take?

  “I can guarantee it because I intend to make my brother’s life so miserable he’d sooner stab himself in the eye with a butter knife than touch a pen
ny of this company’s funds again. When I’m done making an example of him, neither he, nor anyone else in this company, would even consider it.”

  “Well, hopefully when you meet with Game Town, you can convince Carl of that. I’m not the one you need to sell it to.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I need you to understand that this is really a private matter between my brother and I, and I would like to keep it that way. I covered the loss and would do so again if necessary.”

  The unease returned. It all sounded very nice and good, but Emma couldn’t shake the feeling that this was bad news. She believed Jonah and what he said about the money, but the implication was clear. “Are you asking me to leave the stolen money out of the report?”

  Jonah looked her in the eye for a moment, as though he were silently pleading with her. But he didn’t say the words. “I can show you the records of the deposits, Emma. Would that make you feel better?”

  It would. To a point. “I would like to see those records. Then I can and will include in my report that the funds have been reinstated. But I won’t be a party to covering this up. If someone were to find out, I would lose all credibility. I would be fired. I wouldn’t be able to get a job anywhere in my field.” Emma placed a hand protectively over her stomach, which seemed to grow a tiny bit every day now. “As it is, my impartiality will be questioned when the truth about the baby comes out. If anyone were to uncover that I knew about the theft and hid it...”

  “You know you don’t need to work, Emma. I can take care of you and our baby.”

  Emma shook her head adamantly. “Support your child because you want to and it’s the right thing to do. I don’t want it to feel like a kickback. Please don’t ask me to do something that compromises my integrity, Jonah.”

  With a sigh, Jonah set aside the financial paperwork and walked over to her. She reluctantly let him wrap his arms around her and pull her into his protective embrace. “I won’t. Report what you need to report, butterfly. FlynnSoft will recover, no matter what happens with the Game Town deal.”