Page 57 of A Baby Surprise For My Billionaire Boss

“Charlie begged me to bring you back.”

“I can’t come back just for Charlie.”

“He’s the one who made me realize I needed you to come back,” Eli said. He reached across the table and took Maddie’s hand.

Maddie didn’t pull away. She couldn’t. She met his eyes instead, feeling breathless.

“I’m going to scale back my time at work,” Eli said. “I mean it this time. I know you want your child to have a father who’s actually involved. I want that for Charlie, too. And for us — for you, Maddie — I want us to see each other. To have time for each other. I want us to have… a real relationship.”

“You want us to have a relationship?” Even in her daydreams, the fantasies she’d tried to suppress, this was so far beyond anything she had imagined that she could hardly believe she was hearing it.

“I love you,” he said quietly. “I’m a better man because I know you, Maddie. I’m so sorry it took all this for me to realize that. But I would be a fool to let you go. I know I treated you badly, but if there’s even a chance you’d consider coming back to me, I have to beg for your forgiveness and hope you’ll be willing to consider it.”

“Are you really going to have time to step back from work?” Maddie asked him. “I do want this, Eli. What you’re saying — it’s exactly what I want. But I don’t know if I can let myself hope for it again. I believed in you, you know. I believed that things were going to be different when you said they were. That you were going to make a real change and start coming home more often. And you did — for a while.”

“I know. I don’t want you to think you had anything to do with my failure to see it through,” Eli said. “It wasn’t because of the time you and I spent together. It wasn’t because we slept together that night. I have no regrets about that.”

“Not even now?”

“Especially not now. This has shown me what kind of life I want to have moving forward. I’m grateful for this,” he said. “I’m grateful for this child, and for you, and if I’ve lost you through my own carelessness, I don’t know how I’ll ever forgive myself.”

Maddie shook her head. “You haven’t,” she whispered. “You haven’t lost me. If you mean what you’re saying now…”

“I do. Truly.”

“Then of course I want to give this another try,” she said.

She was trembling all over, terrified of her own words, afraid that she would live to regret this moment. And yet, if she didn’taccept what he was saying, she knew for certain that she would regret it. There would never be another chance like the one she was being given right now — a chance to make things right with the father of her child and the man she knew she loved.

He got to his feet. “Come with me.”

“What? Where are we going?”

“I need you to see something,” he said. “Something that I think will make clear to you how serious I am about all this.”

“You don’t have to prove yourself to me.”

“Yes, I do. I know how much my actions have hurt you, Maddie. I do need to show you that I’m going to be a better man now. Come with me.”

She got to her feet and followed him out of the cafe, perplexed. They crossed the road, and even then, Maddie didn’t realize where they were going. It wasn’t until they stopped in front of the empty storefront that she understood.

“I made you a ballet studio once,” he said. “Would you allow me to do it again?”

“You mean… but I can’t afford the rent on a place like this,” she said.

“If I’m going to be stepping back from my company, it might help us to have a second income.”

He didn’t need a second income. She had lived in his house — she had worked for him. That wasn’t what this was about. “What are you saying?”

“I bought this property, Maddie. I own it.” He produced a small silver key. “I’d like us to turn it into your dance studio.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“If that would make you happy.”

“Eli… my God, what if I had said no to all this? You’d have been stuck with this property and nothing to do with it.”

“But you’re not saying no.” He reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder, sending butterflies through her. “I took a chance, Maddie. I owed you that much. Will you take the studio? You can become a dance instructor, just like you wanted, and we can spend our lives together.”

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