Page 65 of Boss's Baby Surprise

“I don’t know if I ever had her number,” I lied. Clarissa had blocked me several weeks ago.

“Right, of course not,” Jenna said with dripping sarcasm. She probably knew there was something going on between us just as Alayna had figured it out.

“Can you just bring me her file?”

With an eye roll and another shrug, Jenna turned and walked away. Within a few minutes, she returned with a file folder.

“This is all I’ve got,” she said as she dropped a manilla file folder on my desk.

I sucked in a breath as I opened the file to learn more about Clarissa than she had ever told me herself. I laughed out loud when I read her address.

All this time, she had lived in Oak Park without telling me. I closed the file and carried it out, handing it back to Jenna as I left the office.

“I guess I’ll come back in a couple of days when everyone has returned from their little vacation.”

Jenna exposed her teeth to me more than smiled. “That would probably be best unless you have a project that requires peace and quiet.”

I left my office uncertain how to proceed. I couldn’t go home because there was a short-term rental in my place for another week or two. I found myself in Oak Park. Somehow, I was able to find that same house Clarissa had shown me back in the early fall. I ended up walking past her apartment building and realized it was only a block from the playground where I had first seen her with our son.

Their absence was an infinite void in my gut. I needed to find them. I needed to fix this.

31

CLARISSA

Starting a new job is always nerve-racking. It didn’t help that Leo chose this morning, of all mornings, to not want to go to school.

“You liked school yesterday,” I reminded him as I helped him to get his coat on.

He whimpered and whined through the whole process.

“I will be there to pick you up after daycare,” I said.

“But I wanna stay with you,” he said as I pulled his hat down around his ears.

“I want to stay with you too,” I said, “but I have to go to work.”

“You didn’t have to go to work yesterday,” he pointed out.

“That’s because Mommy is starting a new job today. I didn’t have that job yesterday.”

“You can’t play with me anymore?” I thought my baby boy was going to start crying. He was miserable. If he started, then we would both be late because I would have to stop everything andcuddle with him until he felt more secure. Leo didn’t dissolve like that much anymore. He was getting to be such a big kid that sometimes, I forgot he was still only five.

I lowered down in a squat until I was at his level. “You know I love you more than anything.”

He nodded and his lower lip quivered. He was breaking my heart.

“How about tonight when I pick you up, you and I go find a pizza place to bring home dinner for Aunt Marci? We can all have pizza for dinner.”

He nodded without much enthusiasm. I knew his reluctance was for leaving me and going to school, but I couldn’t help but think I felt the same way over the prospects of finding a decent pizza in Seattle. We had only been here a few weeks, but I was still in search of something that would remind me of all my years in Chicago and the exceptional pizza I could find anywhere in the city.

With much cajoling and promises of dinosaur movies in the middle of the week, I managed to get Leo out the door.

I was breathless when I arrived at the new office.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said to my new manager and senior architect, Dominic. “My kid didn’t want to go to school this morning.”

“My kids never want to go to school. But they’re in high school.” He laughed. “How old is yours?”

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