Page 55 of A Baby Surprise For My Billionaire Boss

“I know,” Tess said. “And I think there’s a part of you that’s holding out hope that he’ll realize how wrong he was and try to set things right.”

“Is that crazy of me?”

“It’s not crazy to want it,” Tess said gently. “But what you can’t do is let yourself keep hoping that it’s going to happen. You need to meet with him, get your affairs in order, and move on with your life. You owe yourself that, Maddie. You can’t live in limbo, waiting for him to realize he made a mistake. You’ve got to allow yourself to move on.”

Maddie sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “But it’s still hard to actually do it. You’re exactly right about what I’m thinking about it, and I didn’t realize it until you said it. I feel like, once we do this, it will cut all the ties between us. I feel like the babyshouldbe this powerful bond, but it isn’t, and so the only thing I have left that connects me to him is the fact that he’s promised me this account.”

“That makes sense,” Tess said encouragingly.

“It’s pathetic, though,” Maddie said. “It’s like breaking up with a boyfriend and not giving him the chance to return your things because once that’s done, there will be no more reason for the two of you to see each other. I’m refusing to let this end because I can’t stand for it to be over, and that’s embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Tess said. “You felt something for him. You still feel something for him.”

“He doesn’t feel anything for me.”

“Then he’s the one who ought to be embarrassed, not you. He’s the one who didn’t realize how good he could have had it. He’s the one who let you and that baby walk out of his life without a second look, and he’s the one who is going to have to live with that mistake forever. Think about it, Maddie. Ten years from now, you’ll know that you did everything you could. You told him about your pregnancy. You invited him to be involved. He could have been a part of this. But whenhethinks back in ten years, all he’s going to be able to think about is the fact that he blew it.”

“I don’t know if I would feel better or worse about it all if I thought he was going to care about that,” Maddie said.

“Oh, he’s going to care, all right. Don’t forget, he has another child. He’ll never be able to stop thinking about this. When his kid graduates from college, gets married, achieves any milestone in life, Eli Sinclair will be stuck wondering about the child he doesn’t know. And he will never know what happened with this one. It’ll haunt him until the day he dies,” Tess assured her. “I don’t know whether that makes you feel better or worse either, and I’m not going to try to tell you what youshouldfeel about it. But I’m confident that it’s the truth. He will always wonder, and he will never know.”

Maddie swallowed hard. Her friend was almost certainly right. Somehow, it made her feel better and worse at the same time. She wouldn’t have thought that was possible, and yet here they were.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go and meet with him. We’ll get this settled once and for all.”

She was sure it would be the last time she ever saw Eli Sinclair.

CHAPTER 21

MADDIE

Maddie’s heart raced as the ride share pulled up in front of the address Eli had given her.

She had never noticed this cafe before, oddly enough. She had certainly been in this part of town plenty of times. In fact, she noticed, the property she had always had her eye on for a dance studio was just across the street. She wondered whether Eli had considered that when he had chosen this place for their meeting — whether it had occurred to him to think about the significance it had to her.

It probably hadn’t, she decided. He had proven so many times that he simply wasn’t thinking about things like that. He didn’t consider other people’s feelings. He would have chosen this location for some practical reason. It was probably the most convenient to him, nothing more.

Still, she couldn’t get the idea out of her head — the thought of him standing on the street and looking at the empty space she dreamed of owning. If he had done that, it would mean that he had — in some sense — envisioned her future. And there was no way for him to do that without thinking about their child.

She wanted him to think about the baby, she realized. What Tess had said was right. Eli would probably always have to think about the fact that he had another child out there somewhere, a child he would never even know. That thought would be nothing but a source of unending questions for him.

Maddie wanted him to live with those questions. He shouldn’t be able to simply shake this off as if nothing had happened. He should have to feel something about it for the rest of his life.

She went into the cafe and took a seat by a window, not bothering to glance around to see whether he was already here. She was determined not to search for him. Let him come and find her.

And a moment later, he did exactly that. She saw the shadow he cast over her table and knew that it was him, and she had to restrain herself from looking up at once.

“Maddie,” he said quietly.

Now she did look up, slowly, careful to compose her face and not betray all the things she was feeling. The anxiety at facing him again, the grief at knowing that it would be the last time, the anger at the fact that he had somehow made her feel all these things in the first place. She couldn’t let him see any of that.

Still, when her eyes met his, it was like a punch in the stomach. All she could think about, all of a sudden, was the way it had felt to lie in his arms and have his hands moving all over her.

She couldn’t wish away that moment. She couldn’t wish away her baby. No matter how much it all plagued her now, she was still glad it had happened, and she held onto that fact. She would always be glad it had happened, even if it hurt.

“Can I sit down?” Eli asked.

She gestured to the chair, indicating that he might as well.

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