Page 52 of A Baby Surprise For My Billionaire Boss

“Maybe that’s part of it.”

“But then… why can’t she come back and live with us and just not work for us?” Charlie asked. “She doesn’t have to be my nanny. She can just be our friend who lives here. And then she could be a dance teacher, and we could all still be together.”

“That’s what you’d want if you could have your way about it?”

“Of course,” Charlie said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know, to be perfectly honest with you. And I don’t know if she would either.”

“I think we should ask her,” Charlie said. “We can ask her, right? We shouldn’t have let her move out, Dad. She was special.”

She had been special. Eli was in full agreement with his son about that.

But what could he do? After the way he had responded to the pregnancy news, how could he call Maddie and ask her to come back? Of course she wouldn’t want to. She probably didn’t want to see him ever again, and if he was honest, he couldn’t blame her for that. Looking at it objectively, the way he had treated her was appalling.

Charlie turned his attention back to the handheld video game he was playing, signaling that — for now, at least — he was finished with the conversation.

Talking to his son shouldn’t be this difficult, Eli thought. And the fact that it was — that was just further evidence to add to the pile telling him that Maddie was right. She always had been.

He had focused too much on work and had let his relationship with his son pay the price.

And now he was allowing his relationship with his unborn child to be taken from him too — all because he didn’t trust his own ability to be a good father.

It couldn’t be more clear that something had to change. He had to find a way to turn this around, to become the father that Charlie — and Maddie and her baby — deserved. It was the most important thing he would ever do with his life, and he was messing it up.

What if he hadn’t had Charlie here to point this out, to tell him how important it was to bring Maddie back to the house? Would he ever have made that discovery on his own, or would he have gone the rest of his life believing that sending her away had been the right choice?

That was a terrifying thought.

All he could do now was hope that it wasn’t too late — that he hadn’t blown his chance to have Maddie and the baby in his life. He would do whatever he could to bring them back. It had taken losing them to make him realize how much he needed them, and it wasn’t a mistake he was going to make twice.

It would take a lot, though, to win her back after the mistakes he had made. He didn’t know if he could do it.

What he did know was that he didn’t want to promise his son more than he would be able to deliver. He didn’t want to raiseCharlie’s hopes too high. That was one of the things Maddie had cautioned him about, and he knew he needed to take it seriously.

“Maddie was special,” he agreed. “But we always knew she might be with us for only a short time, Charlie, didn’t we? We always knew that she might move on, and that we needed to be ready for that. That’s what happens with nannies. They stay for a while, and then they have to go — just like Katie.”

“No,” Charlie said firmly. “Maddie wasn’t like Katie, Dad.”

“Tell me why.”

“Because she really loved us,” Charlie said. “Katie just worked here, but Maddie was my friend. If you ask her to come back, she will. I know she will.”

Eli sighed. The trouble was that his son was right — and yet he had no way of knowing whether Maddie really would return.

“I won’t hire another nanny,” he told Charlie. “Not right now, anyway. Maybe we can get by on our own.”

“You mean you’ll work less?”

“I’ll try. But you and I are going to have to work together on this, understand? I still do have to work. If I can work from home, I will. But it’s not going to be like it was when you had a nanny — trips to the ice cream shop and the skate park and the beach whenever you’re not at school. I need you to understand that. If what’s most important is having that kind of fun as much as possible, then we should hire a nanny.”

“No,” Charlie said at once. “I don’t need to do that stuff. I can wait until Maddie comes back.”

Did he understand that Maddie coming back was a long shot? Eli couldn’t be sure. But he had done his best to explain it. Now the priority had to be very simply trying to get her back.

She would come, wouldn’t she?

She wanted what was best for her baby. She would have to come back. She must want her baby’s father involved.

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