Page 43 of A Baby Surprise For My Billionaire Boss

“I’m at work, Maddie. I have a job to do. It isn’t because of you.” He shook his head. “Not everything is about you, you know.”

“Don’t you do that. I’m not making this about me when I shouldn’t,” she said. “I know not everything is about me. But I think this is. And if you tell me I’ve got it wrong, I’ll honestly be more relieved than I can tell you.”

“You’ve got it wrong.” He started past her.

“Don’t walk off.”

“There’s nothing to talk about here.”

“No?” She got to her feet. “Because you were staying at home so much more. You know that, don’t you? You recognize that everything changed — and then changed again?”

He sighed. “It’s late. Do we need to do this right now?”

“When do you want to do it? I’d happily talk to you at a more reasonable hour if you were ever around,but you’re not. I have to take what I can get when I can get it.”

“Fine,” he said. “Say what you have to say, then. I want to shower and get to bed.”

“You’ve been treating me like… like an employee.” She blushed, knowing how foolish she sounded.

“You are my employee,” he said quietly.

“Damn it, Eli — you know what I’m saying. We should be more to each other than that. Wearemore to each other than that! We’ve become?—”

“What? What did you think we were?”

“Well, friends, certainly.”

“Friends?”

“I know I work for you. I also know we transcended that the first time you poured me a glass of wine. The first time I gave you advice about Charlie and you took it. We’ve been more than employer and employee for a very long time, Eli. And then, a week ago, when Charlie was away — that night…”

“I know what happened.”

“You won’t even look at me. I’m supposed to pretend that isn’t the reason you’re staying away now?”

“It isn’t.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe me or don’t. I’m telling you the truth.”

“Eli, I’m not stupid. I know that was the moment everything changed. You were pouring time into Charlie. You were so happy with me that you built me a ballet studio. And then that night happened, and it’s like we’re strangers again.”

“It’s like we’re employer and employee. It always should have been like that. I know you know that every bit as well as I do.”

“But I don’t understand it. What changed? We were so close. You gave me that ballet studio. And the morning after — we were talking about how neither of us regretted what happened, and I swear, you were telling the truth. But then you left, and it’s like you never came back. It’s like we never finished that conversation.”

“We shouldn’t have done what we did.”

Maddie felt as if she’d been punched. “Do you mean that? You were so intent on making sure I had no regrets. Are you telling me that the whole time, you regretted it?”

“It’s not that I regret… being with you.”

“Then what? Make me understand this.”

“Maddie, my company lost millions of dollars that night.”

“What?” It was the last thing in the world she’d expected him to say.

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