Page 38 of Baby Bombshell for the Boss

She swallowed hard, unwilling to give voice to those thoughts. “I just want to make sure you don’t start to resent me,” she said. “I don’t want to be a drain on you.”

“Oh, that won’t happen,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

“If things ever come to that point?—”

“If I remotely feel that way, I’ll let you know so that we can change things. But I’m confident it won’t happen, Ivy. I don’t want you to worry about that.”

She nodded slowly. “All right,” she agreed. “You can increase the amount in my account. By a little,” she added quickly, lest he think it would be appropriate to double it or something crazy like that. “And I’ll work on your house.”

“I can hardly wait to see what you come up with,” he told her, smiling warmly.

Ivy closed her eyes and nodded. With every step she took deeper into this thing, she couldn’t help wondering if she was about to be swept away altogether.

CHAPTER 17

IVY

“You’ve been home every night this week,” Ivy noticed one evening. Actually, Elliot had been home every night since she had moved in, and she was beginning to feel curious about it. “Do you ever go out?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “I usually have a poker game on Thursdays.”

“Today is Thursday. Shouldn’t you go?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’d hate to leave you all alone at the house.”

“I mean, I don’t want you to feel like you have to stop living your life just because I’m here,” she said. “I know I’m technically your guest, but because it’s a long-term thing, it’s probably not helpful for you to think about me in those terms. You should consider me someone who rents a room, not a guest you need to entertain.”

“It’s okay,” Elliot said. “I’d rather stay home than go to poker tonight, I think.”

“Aren’t your friends going to start wondering about you if you never go out and socialize with them?”

“Oh, probably. They’re pretty curious. But knowing them — and knowing that they know me — they’ll just assume I’m spending all my time at work or something.”

Ivy nodded slowly. Another thought had just occurred to her. “Are you planning on telling them about this?” she asked. “I mean, about me, and about the baby?”

“I guess I’ll have to tell everyone sometime,” he said.

“I’m not trying to put pressure on you,” she said quickly. “I haven’t told everyone in my life about it yet. But I know you’re kind of a public figure. I mean… there are pictures of you on the internet.”

“You searched me on the internet?” He grinned.

Ivy refused to be embarrassed. “My sister did,” she said. “She searches everyone on the internet, so it’s not that big a deal. But she found some paparazzi photos of you, and that was concerning. I’m not saying I need you to tell everyone everything right away. Not at all. But I don’t want to be a story in some gossip rag a year from now. I don’t want some money-hungry journalist to crack the story of our lives in a stupid magazine. You should tell people before it comes to that.”

Elliot nodded. “I will,” he said. “I’ll make a public announcement at some point. Do you want me to name you as the mother when I do?”

“I guess you have to, or the journalists will go rabid trying to figure it out,” she said. “Just warn me before you do it, so I can make sure none of my family or friends find out about this in some gross way.”

He nodded. “I can do that. We’ll have a conversation about it before I go to the press and make sure we’re on the same page. I’ll make an announcement via a press release, so hopefully it’ll get buried in the news cycle more than it would if I went live or something, but at the same time, it won’t leave any room for mystery. No one will be able to dig for additional information about us, because there won’t be anything to look for.”

“Thank you,” Ivy said. “I really appreciate that. I know it’s not going to be easy for you, going public.”

“It’ll be all right,” he said. “And it’s the best thing for all three of us.”

Her heart warmed a little at that. She couldn’t help it. All three of us, he had said — as if the three of them were a united front. As if they were some kind of family. They weren’t of course, but it felt good to imagine that they were united anyway. It felt good to think that they were in this thing together.

“So,” Elliot said, “I thought maybe we could work on turning my office into a nursery.”

Ivy was startled. “Can you spare your office?”

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