Page 52 of The Baby Contract With My Hot Billionaire Boss

She does that quite a bit, but I glance at the papers again and shake my head. Chances are there’s more than what I know going on here. But I’m not concerned about what Emma might be hiding. More like … confused. Why did she think she needed to hide anything?

Should I feel concerned about her financial situation?

Most of me is saying no, but there’s a part of me that wonders if this could be a bigger issue. I mean, she has been hiding it all this time.

Chapter Twenty-Four ~ Emma

There’s only a couple more hours left of the day and I’m looking forward to collapsing in my bed as soon as I get back to the house.

At least, until one of the girls comes up to me as I’m loading a tray with drinks.

“Boss wants to see you.”

“Ethan?” I ask, almost hopefully, but she shakes her head, taking the tray from me. “The big boss. I’ll take this. Table 23, right?”

I give a nod, brush my hands on my skirt and suck in a deep breath before heading upstairs. There’s a chance that it’s nothing. That he’s just interested in another booty call or something. But deep down I know that’s not it.

There’s a serious look on his face and I know that the conversation I’ve been trying to put off is finally coming to pass.

He’s not going to let it go any longer.

“Chris … I … there are some things you need to know.”

“About your financial situation?” he asks and my face goes white.

“How … how did you know?”

“My mother. But I’d rather hear about it all from you.”

I take a deep breath because I’m not really sure if I’m happy he wants to give me a chance to talk or if I would rather he just took what his mother said, because at least then I wouldn’t have to go through this whole thing.

“Okay … um … my family … we’re poor. Extremely poor. Like … we never had enough of anything growing up.” I’m not sure how to talk but once I start, the words seem to pour out of me of their own accord. All while Chris sits there and stares up at me with an unreadable expression on his face. “We were doing okay at first. Me and Mom and Dad and Leann. But then Leann got sick and the medical bills started coming in and Dad ditched and it was just the three of us.”

“But we had to make it work. We had to do everything that we could to take care of Leann and make sure that she was safe and healthy and everything and so that’s what we did. We didn’t give up. And Mom worked pretty much 24/7 and as soon as I was old enough to get a job I did too. And I’ve been waitressing ever since I was about 15. I looked older and so the restaurants would pay me under the table and I just went with it because we needed the money.”

“And now Mom and Leann are still struggling but I’ve been helping them with my money from the club and then when you suggested this, it seemed like it was perfect and I’ve been giving the money that you give me to them so they can buy things and it’s been amazing for them. They have so much more than we did the last decade or more and I’ve been giving them some of the things that you’ve given me, like some of the clothes and blankets and some extra things because they don’t have them and it’s nice for them to have luxuries and they can use the money from selling some of the things.”

When I finally stop my torrent of words I can’t bring myself to look at him. At least, not at first.

Tears are running down my face as I stand there, feeling like a child who’s just broken all of the rules.

He’s still giving me that strange look. The one that I can’t understand and I’m terrified that this is going to ruin everything. That he’s never going to look at me the same way again.

He can’t undo the contract. At least, not the baby part. But the rest: what if he takes my baby and leaves me on my own? What if he continues on with the contract but doesn’t want to actually be around me anymore?

All the ‘what ifs’ are bouncing around in my head and I can’t figure out what I’m going to do. Or how to respond.

He hasn’t said anything. Hasn’t reacted in any way. And that makes it even more difficult for me to know what I should be doing. How do I know how to react or how to fix things if I don’t know what it is that he’s feeling?

“Chris …”

“That’s all I needed to know, Emma. You can return to work now.” His voice is quiet as he says this and there’s still no emotion on his face. But there’s plenty of it on mine.

I know because I can feel the tears tracking down my face.

How am I supposed to go back to work? How am I supposed to just pretend that nothing happened?

But what else can I do? Short of telling him that I want to go home, the only thing I can do is just turn around, stop in the bathroom to blot off my face, and get back to work.

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