Knocked Up By The Boss: A Secret Baby Romance

by Lauren Wood

  It was the only way that I was going to be able to work with him and stay with the company. Making a nice place for me and Emily was always the plan. Just because I found Chris against all odds didn't mean that it was destiny or something like that. It was just coincidence, and finding out he was engaged should have been all of the information that I needed. He couldn't be mine when he was already somebody else’s.

  The rest of the week I was able to keep my distance as much as possible. He still came down to the PR room a few times asking questions about one thing or another. It didn't seem important enough to elicit a response from him, but I knew that I was probably just being paranoid. This was his business after all and to make it as successful as he had, I was sure that he had to make sure everything was going like it was supposed to. Whatever that meant.

  Even though he came to the PR room, I tried to keep myself busy each time. If I kept myself away from him, if I wasn’t looking in his eyes or listening to his jokes, then maybe I wouldn't be so hard pressed to get this feeling inside of me that I couldn't shake. I just had to ignore it, plain and simple. I'm sure that people had been doing it for years with someone they couldn't be with. It was a tale as old as time after all, unrequited love.

  I almost made it through the week without any big run-ins with Chris, and I was seriously considering it a good thing. Keeping my distance from him had made it easier to keep my mind in check. I was shocked to find how much I thought about him in the past.

  The whole time I was pregnant, I thought about Chris and what he would think if he knew. And then for a few days, I thought about what would happen if the two of us got back together. Now, though, none of those what-ifs were there. Now, I was just trying to focus on what was and what is.

  I heard a knock at the office door, and I looked up. The office was a small room with over ten cubicles jammed together, so it wasn't just me in there. I looked up to find that it was Chris standing there. There was nobody else in the room because everybody else had left. I was still trying to focus on the few things that I could control, which was a little bit of work that I wanted to finish before I left.

  I was nervous that he was next to me. What was he doing here and why was he looking at me so intently?

  “Can I help you with something? You look lost.”

  He waved me off. “No, I was actually looking for you.”

  “Oh?”

  I couldn't imagine what he would want with me. The weekend was here, and it was time for me to go. Everybody else had left after all.

  “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “I am alone this weekend and I wanted to know if you wanted to go out for dinner tonight. I really hate to eat alone, and I was thinking since you were so new to the city, that maybe you would like some company as well.”

  I was rather shocked with the offer, seeing as he was engaged to another woman. I didn't think that the woman I met earlier in the day would want her boyfriend out with another woman. I know that I sure wouldn't want that.

  “I don't think that your fiancée would be very happy with that. You would probably be better off eating alone and not making her mad.”

  Chris looked at me like it hadn't even occurred to him that he was engaged. He kind of had this sappy smile on his face, and I tried my best to ignore it. It was looks like that, that had always been my downfall. I think that was how he got me the last time we were together. Chris had made me do something so out of character. He had brought out the wild side in me, and I’d had a really good time. But that time had come with consequences.

  “My fiancée won't care. I don't really think that Cynthia is that way.”

  I scoffed before I could stop myself.

  “What?”

  “You must not know women very well.”

  “I've actually been told the very opposite.”

  “Well, they lied to you. No woman would ever not care. When you get engaged to somebody, you might as well put the collar on, because that's that.”

  He chuckled at me and told me that I was funny. The truth was, that I wasn't trying to be funny. I was being truthful. There was no way that any woman would be okay with her fiancé going out to dinner with someone else. With that in mind, not only did that give me a reason to say no, but it also helped me to realize that I might have to at some point tell him about Emily. It was certainly not a conversation that I wanted to have.

  “It is just a work thing. Cynthia knows that I have to keep good relations with my employees. The way to get the best results is to know who works for me. You have a very important function in the business.”

  “You have tens of thousands of employees. You would never be able to know them all that intimately.”

  He sighed and then smiled. “You are not making it easy on me, you know that, right?”

  “I just don't want to make this job complicated. I haven't been in the city long, but I've been here long enough to know that good jobs are hard to come by.”

  “I didn't mean anything by it really.”

  He paused for a moment and I could tell that he was frustrated. Had I said something wrong?

  “Look, I'm not trying to sway you one way or another. I'd never...”

  It looked like Chris was having trouble getting his thoughts across. I waited for him to explain his meaning, because honestly, I was confused.

  “Let me start over. I was just going to ask if you wanted to go out to dinner. I completely understand if you don't want to go, and there is no obligation to go. Your job will be here whether you say yes or no to me.”

  I smiled then; I knew by the wording that he was trying to be a gentleman about it. He quickly realized that he was my boss and the way he asked me out mattered. I don't think it was because of that specifically that made me say yes, more like I just wanted to go. I kept thinking to myself if we were around each other a little bit more, then maybe he would remember. I mean, how could he not? We had spent several hours together, and they'd been pretty intense. I had to believe that he would remember me eventually, just like I remembered him.

  “Fine, but no funny business. We're just going out for some dinner and that's it, right?”

  “Of course. We're just getting to know each other better, that's all.”

  I agreed, but I couldn't help finding the whole situation pretty ironic. Here he was talking about getting to know each other better; however, we knew each other pretty damn intimately already. I’d had his child. I don't know how much closer two people could be.

  “When? Are you going to let me get ready or should I just go with you like this, since it’s a ‘work’ thing?”

  He grinned mischievously and told me that I looked great the way I was.

  “Now I know you're full of it. Come on and let's go, before somebody realizes that we're leaving together.”

  As much as I was curious about the situation and how everything was going to work out, there was still a big part of me that was nervous as hell. What if he actually did find out who I was and remember me all of a sudden? Then what would happen?

  Even as I agreed that I would go out with him, I was already considering it another mistake.

  10

  Chris

  “I'm glad that you decided to come out with me. I'm sorry if my intention came out the wrong way. I seem to fall over myself and my words when I'm talking to you. There must be something about you that makes it hard for me to come across as clear as I would like to.”

  “I think you come across pretty clear, Chris.”

  “Is that so?”

  She agreed that it was.

  “So, what is it that you see me coming across as?”

  “Well, you obviously don't seem to be too enthused about the sanctity of marriage.”

  It wasn't exactly what she said, but how she said it. Her expression made it clear to me that she was not too excited with the idea of me trying to get anything out of her. With me engaged to Cynthia, I was pretty much off limits to her.

  �
�My marriage to Cynthia is, let's just say, a complicated thing.”

  “You guys aren't even married yet and you're already making excuses about it? I have a feeling that you're starting off on the wrong foot.”

  “You very well could be right. I actually have no desire to get married. I wouldn't say that I'm being forced or anything, but it has been brought to my attention that marrying Cynthia is the right thing to do for the company. It's half the reason that I hired more people for my PR staff.”

  “Really? How so?”

  I wasn't supposed to even talk about this. The buy-out or the divorce afterwards, was all supposed to be hush-hush. Nobody in the PR department was supposed to know anything about it until the news got wind of it. Then, they would be responsible for getting ahold of the narrative. Not before. Before would make it even worse, because then it would be something that was planned and would seem far more devious than it already was.

  “Let's just say that my marriage and my divorce are going to be quite public affairs. We will need people around, extra people, to put a good spin on it. That's where you and the rest will come in. You are going to have to put all those smooth-talking skills to the test.”

  That made Madeline smile and she told me that she liked a challenge. She didn't say anything else about me having to get married, and I guess that was a good thing. When we had talked about it, it hadn't been good anyway.

  Madeline was unlike any other woman that I had been on a date with. She was certainly so different than Cynthia, which I had spent an increasingly high amount of time with. While everything about Cynthia aggravated me, and she never had anything good to say, Madeline was different. She seemed to not even like talking about herself, which was already strange to begin with. When I asked her questions directly, she wouldn't exactly put me off, but she wasn't forthcoming at all either. It was clear that Madeline wanted to keep some things to herself.

  Part of me wanted to respect her privacy and the other part of me wanted to find out every last thing that I could about her. It wasn't every day that some random woman came in off the streets and made me look twice. This was actually the first time that it had ever happened, and my curiosity was piqued. I couldn't help it. I wanted to know what the hell was so special about her and why I felt so drawn to a woman that I had never even met before.

  “You really don't like to talk about yourself, do you?”

  She shook her head and agreed. “Not really. I'm sure that my life is pretty boring compared to yours.”

  It was another answer without an answer. I was starting to realize that she was very good at it.

  “Well, at least tell me something. Tell me where you grew up.”

  That was such an easy question that I thought there was no way she would find it problematic. But this look came over her face, and I would have given about anything to figure out what was going through her mind. It was obviously something important.

  “I come from a small town about a hundred miles from here.”

  “What's the name of the town?”

  She waved me off and told me that I would have probably never heard of it.

  “You never know, I have done quite a bit of traveling.”

  “Well, if you're going to my hometown, you probably would realize pretty quickly that you made a wrong turn somewhere.”

  Madeline was joking and laughing, but it was very clear that she was ignoring my question. That made me curious of course, but again I didn't want to push it. Madeline was so unlike any other woman I’d ever met, and I didn't want to upset her unknowingly. I already felt like I was lucky that she had even agreed to go out with me. That was something that I never felt before. I was used to having my way pretty much all the time. I was also used to not being told no. No was not a part of my vocabulary.

  “So, if you don’t want to tell me where you're from, tell me something about you that I don't already know?”

  Again, I thought it was a pretty easy question, and she almost immediately answered, but she must have thought against it, because she shut her mouth again and then thought about it for a moment.

  “I have a fascination with paranormal things.”

  The answer came out of the blue and it took me a moment. “You mean like ghosts and stuff?”

  She smiled. “Yeah, something like that.”

  I'm surprised that it didn't make me look at her any differently. It didn't change the way I thought about her, but there was a glimpse of a moment in time from long ago that came to me, but it was immediately gone again. It was probably one of the nights that I had too much to drink.

  “I can't say that I know much about it, but it always makes for a good movie.”

  She agreed and again it felt like she wanted to say something but was held back. What was holding her back, I had no idea. What she wanted to tell me, I equally had no clue about it. For a dinner that was supposed to help us get to know each other, it was basically giving me more and more questions. Who was Madeline and where did she come from?

  And why was it that every time I was around her, I felt like I knew her from somewhere else?

  11

  Madeline

  I felt like Hansel and Gretel, leaving cookie crumbs that did not get followed. I almost burst it out, the name of my hometown. Then I quickly realized that maybe I didn't want him to remember me. Not now.

  I didn't want him to forget me, but if he was going to, then fine. I wasn’t going to push it. Maybe it was for the best. But then he kept asking me questions, and I just had to come out with the paranormal stuff. Maybe it was a part of me that was trying to jolt his memory still. If he couldn't remember me, then surely, he would remember the weird girl that had taken him to a haunted house. Was that not out of the ordinary enough for him to remember?

  He hadn’t, though, so I hadn't said another word. I was a bit gob smacked really. I had never thought of myself as very forgettable. No woman wanted to think that way about themselves.

  The dinner went over well, although I was thankfully not asked so many questions. He had been a complete gentleman and did not hit on me at all. That was just as well, since he had a fiancée. Cynthia was perfect for him. She was from his world, where I wasn’t.

  The biggest difference was, I had his child. I was in his life before this other woman came along. It was all pretty sketchy, and me even thinking about another woman’s fiancée didn’t make me feel very good.

  He dropped me back off at the office, and I walked to the subway from there. It all seemed a bit surreal, but one thing good had come out of it. I was warming up to the idea of maybe telling him one day about Emily. He had a right to know after all.

  I still wasn't sure if he would want to know, but I felt guilty that I kept it from him for so long. He wasn't really just a smooth talker that I had met in the bar. He genuinely seemed to be a good guy. Being around him was nice, getting to know him better, but I was still hesitant on the rest. Was I really ready to introduce him to Emily?

  That weekend I drove home and spent as much time as I could with my daughter. I missed her so much that there were several moments through the visit that I didn't want to leave. Maybe going into the city wasn’t a better life like I wanted to think it was. Maybe staying with her for just a little bit longer was a better idea then what I was currently doing. I can't really say for certain that I was doing the right thing. When I was holding my daughter in my arms, it was really hard to believe that anything that took me away from her was the right decision.

  By the end of the weekend, I was back to being a complete emotional mess. My mom tried to talk some sense into me and remind me that it was only temporary, but it didn't feel temporary. At the moment, it felt like forever.

  “You need to tell me what is really going on, Madeline. I'm your mother and I know that there has to be something going on. You never act like this, and I don't think I remember you ever being this emotional. What is going on? For as long as I can remember, you wanted to live in the city and now
you got the job you were looking for and everything is finally starting to go your way. What changed?”

  For several moments, I had to debate what I wanted to say. There was a big part of me that just wanted to spill my guts to somebody and it didn’t necessarily matter who. I had been trying to get ahold of Eve, but she had been out of town for several weeks now and was not available. If I wanted to talk to anybody about it, mom was the best option left to me. She was judgmental and could stress me out even more about it, but I felt like if I didn't say something soon, I was going to burst inside.

  “Things are just a bit more complicated than I thought they would be. The job is good, but it’s complicated. It’s all harder there. Everything.”

  “What's going on?”

  Concern was all over face and I waved her off, quickly telling her that everything was fine. I didn't need her to start worrying about how I was managing in the city. I was doing fine with that.

  “Nothing, the city is fine.”

  “Then what is it that has you so upset? And don't you tell me that there's nothing going on, because I know there is. I know you, Madeline.”

  “I'm going to tell you; I'm just trying to find the best way to tell you is all.”

  “That's easy, just spit it out. You know that you can always come to me with anything.”

  That was true enough and I finally got up the nerve. The only way I was going to be able to say it, though, was to just say it quickly and then hope for the best. It was childish I know, but lately my emotions had really been running wild.

  “The problem is that I know the boss very well.”

  She looked at me weird. “What do you mean?”

  “We were together once before, a long time ago.”

  “Oh. That must be awkward.”

  I agreed that it was, but of course I wasn't done. It was about to get a whole lot more awkward.