Page 41 of A Baby Surprise For My Billionaire Boss

No one in Eli’s company was earning minimum wage, but it didn’t seem like the time to split hairs. “Tell me what I can do to make this right.”

“There’s nothing you can do. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll be taking my business elsewhere. I’m not going to risk putting my firm through this kind of thing again just because you wanted a second chance,” Harrison said. “This is over, Sinclair.”

“Don’t cancel the contract because of one bad experience. Give us the chance to correct it.”

“I’m not going to continue this phone call,” Harrison said. “There’s nothing more to say. If you had been available when the crisis first happened, we might have been able to set things right, but we’ve been dealing with this for hours. I already have meetings scheduled with two different security software companies to see what they can offer me. You’ll be hearing from my legal team about the data breach. Have a good day.”

The line went dead.

Eli stood frozen in the kitchen, staring at the phone in his hand. The sound of the coffee dripping into the cup he had set up felt almost hypnotic.

He couldn’t believe this was happening. This couldn’t be happening.

Except, of course, that it could be. Because it was. And if he was perfectly honest with himself, he should have seen it coming.

What had he thought would happen? That he could go on neglecting work in favor of spending time at home, and that there would be no consequences? Of course it had caught up with him in the end. And how ironic that it had happened on an evening when he hadn’t been taking care of Charlie at all. Charlie hadn’t even been in the house. There wasnogood reason he shouldn’t have turned his attention back to work. There was no excuse for his having missed those emails.

It was negligence, and now his company was going to pay the price.

The coffee was done, but Eli had no time to sit around and drink it — no time for the blissful morning he had hoped just fifteen minutes ago that he and Maddie might be about to spend together. The thought of it seemed hopelessly naive now. How could he ever have believed that was an acceptable use of his time?

He went back to the bedroom.

Maddie was sitting up in bed. She’d put on a T-shirt, but it was thin and he could make out the shape of her body through the fabric. He forced himself to look away. Looking at her would do him no good.

“I’ve got to go into the office,” he told her.

She frowned. “What about Charlie?”

“You’re going to have to handle that. He’s going to be dropped off in a couple of hours.”

“Eli—”

“It won’t be a problem, will it?”

“No, of course it’s not a problem,” she said. “That’s my job. But I thought we were going to have breakfast together. What’s changed?”

“Something came up with a client of mine.” Anex-client, he thought with a bitter pang. It was going to be a big deal, trying to cope with the loss of Harrison Duncan. They had been one of his biggest clients, representing millions of dollars in profit for the company. “We’re going to need all hands on deck.”

“I suppose you’d better go, then,” Maddie agreed, and Eli could tell that she was trying to be accommodating. “Will you be back for dinner tonight?”

“I wouldn’t count on that, no.”

“All right. Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure everything is taken care of, and I suppose I’ll just… see you late tonight?”

Eli nodded.

It killed him not to be able to offer her anything more than that, especially after the night the two of them had just spent together. She deserved something more. But he had always known that to get too deeply involved here would be a mistake. He’d allowed himself to forget that to his own cost. Until he was able to right the ship professionally, he was going to have to pull way back on the indulging he had been doing in his personal life.

Whatever this thing was with Maddie — whatever potential it might have had — it was just going to have to end now. There was nothing more to be said about it.

He dressed quickly and left the room, his thoughts already returning to Harrison Duncan, trying to figure out if there was anything he could do to save the contract. Jack Harrison had seemed determined to go. If he really was going to lose them, he would have to think of some way to recoup the losses. The one thing he knew he couldn’t do was to allow the people who worked for him to suffer financially because he had taken his eye off the ball.

That was the reason all of this was happening, after all.

If he hadn’t let his head be turned by Maddie Foster, everything would still be fine.

CHAPTER 16

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