Page 48 of A Baby Surprise For My Billionaire Boss

If only she didn’t have to tell him.

But she did. It had been a surprisingly quick decision, once she’d begun to think about it. It would be wrong to keep this from him. If the shoe had been on the other foot — not that a shoe like this evercouldbe on the other foot, of course, but if it had been — she would consider it the ultimate betrayal if someone was having her baby and didn’t bother to tell her about it. It would be far worse than anything he hadeverdone to her.

And she wanted to give him a chance to do the right thing. She wanted to give him a chance to realize that this baby — this family — needed him to thrive, and that he needed them in order to be his best self.

Maybe she would tell him what had happened and it would change everything. She knew it was a long shot. But if it was even possible…

She took a deep breath and said the words. “I’m pregnant, Eli.”

She watched his face as understanding dawned slowly. At first, he didn’t seem to quite process what she’d said. He looked confused — his eyebrows pulled together, and he frowned — as if he understood the words, but maybe not the reason she was choosing to tell him about it.

She waited for it to sink in.

His eyes widened, and then she knew that he had it. Her stomach churned. Waiting for his response seemed to take a lifetime.

“Pregnant?” he said at last. “You’re pregnant?”

“I just found out earlier today.”

“How—” He shook his head, dismissing the question he had clearly been about to ask, for which Maddie was grateful — they both knewhowit had happened, of course.

He swallowed hard.

He hadn’t asked her if he was the father. She was grateful for that too. In her imaginings, the worst-case scenario had always been that that might be the first thing out of his mouth. She could tell him honestly that she knew he was the father — there were no other candidates — but it felt like such an ugly conversation to need to have. She was glad he had intuited that information.

He drew a deep breath. “All right,” he said.

Now it was Maddie’s turn to try to synthesize the information at her disposal. “All right?” she repeated.

“You’re going to need… what? An expense account, I suppose. To provide for the baby. I’ll set it up. You’ll be fully covered — everything you and the baby need.”

“That’s what you have to say? You’re going to start a bank account?”

Maddie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It wasn’t the worst thing she had imagined — it was somehow even worse than that. He was throwing money at the problem? He wastreating her as if she was one of his clients, as if she had some kind of business complaint.

The future was suddenly abundantly clear to Maddie — this was probably the last conversation the two of them would ever have about this child. If they spoke again, it would only be about the finances. She would reach out to him when she needed money for a doctor’s appointment, for school supplies or a college fund. She saw it all as if she had already lived it, and she could hardly believe she had dared to hope for anything better. Of course this was the man he was. He had never tried to hide his character from her. He had never suggested that he might be anyone else.

She got to her feet.

He watched her. “You’re going?”

“You’re going to start a bank account,” she repeated. Was there more to say? “I suppose you’ll let me know when that’s done so that I can start using it.”

He looked a little taken aback, possibly by her quick acceptance of the situation. “I’ll make sure you get a bank card and all the account information, yes,” he said.

“Great. Perfect. Then I don’t think we have anything else to talk about here.”

Eli had the decency to look a little uncomfortable. “Maddie, maybe we should discuss this.”

For a moment she was tempted to sit back down, to give him a second chance — but she resisted the temptation. It wouldn’t change anything. He would tell her again that he intended to provide for her — he would try to frame it in a way that made him feel as if he was doing the right thing. He wanted to keeptalking for the sake of his own guilt about the situation, but that wasn’t Maddie’s job, and she didn’t think she could stand to continue this conversation for another moment.

No one had ever broken her heart quite like this.

If Eli didn’t want to be with her, that was fine. She could accept that. But how could the man reject his own child?

She wanted nothing more to do with him.

“I think it’s best if I leave,” she said.

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