Page 54 of A Baby Surprise For My Billionaire Boss

“Why not? Don’t you want to get the account?”

“Yeah, but can’t I get it over text? I’m sure he can text me the information.”

“You want him to send you bank information by text? Come on, Maddie, you know that’s not a good idea. That actually sounds like somethingImight come up with, and then you would tell me how stupid I was being.”

“I wouldn’t call you stupid.”

“You know what I mean, though. It makes sense that he wants to meet with you,” Tess said. “It’s probably about being safe with the information. And it’s like you said — he might need you to sign some documents, too.”

“Hmm. Should I have a lawyer look them over first?”

“Do you think that’s necessary? I mean, ordinarily I would say yes, but he’s a CEO. He probably has lawyers on staff who looked at the papers.”

“And you don’t think I need my own lawyer?”

“If you want, but I don’t think he’s trying to deceive you here. Even I don’t believe that. If you get there and he has papers for you, if you’re not comfortable with what you’re looking at, tell him you want them looked at before you’ll sign. That shouldn’t be such a big deal to him.”

“You’re right,” Maddie agreed.

“And in the meantime, go to this meeting. Maybe none of this lawyer business will even feel necessary to you once you get there. The sooner you can get access to this money, the better, right?”

“I don’t know,” Maddie said. “I mean, I know I should.”

“Come on, Maddie. Not wanting him to provide anything for you personally is one thing, but heshouldbe taking care of your baby. That’s only right, and you know it.”

Maddie sighed. “I want to do it without his help,” she said. “I know I should get over that.”

“You should absolutely get over that. You can’t let your pride get in the way of doing the right thing for your baby.”

“But do I really need to meet with him? Surely he could just email me the account details, even if he doesn’t think texting is secure. Email ought to be safe enough.”

“I’m not going to pretend that I know what he’s thinking,” Tess said. “But if he wants to meet with you, you might have to do that. You might have to do this on his terms.”

“I can’t stand the idea of him setting terms.”

“Yeah, I bet not. But all you really need to do is get through this lunch, right? Then you’ll have the money he promised you, and you’ll be ready to start getting ready for your baby. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but actually, the sooner you get this sorted out with him, the sooner you can get him out of your life for good. And that will definitely be an improvement, right?”

Maddie was quiet.

“Oh,” Tess said, her eyebrows lifting. “Oh, I get it.”

“What do you get?”

“You know that this meeting will be the one where you cut ties with him — and you don’t want that to happen,” Tess said. “That’s why you’re hesitating. It isn’t because you don’t want to accept his money — at least, it isn’t only that. You also want to put this off as long as possible because you know that once the money is settled, there will be no reason for the two of you to see each other again.”

“That’s not what I was thinking,” Maddie protested.

“You might not have been thinking it, but itisthe truth,” Tess said. “I know you pretty well, Maddie, and I know how you act when you’re afraid.”

“Afraid? Okay, I’m definitely not afraid of him.”

“Notofhim. Afraid that this is the last time you two will see each other. You’re afraid of the way you feel about him. I think you’ve been afraid of that from the very start. You know that you stand to get hurt here.” Tess reached out and put her hand on top of Maddie’s. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Maddie admitted softly. “I hate to think so. I don’t want you to be."

“Sure. I get it. It would be much easier if you could walk away from all this without having to feel anything. It would be easier if he didn’t matter to you, right? But you wouldn’t be in this situation if you didn’t have feelings for him, Maddie. You wouldn’t have slept with your boss if there weren’t feelings there. You’re too smart to do something like that for no reason. I know how hard you tried to avoid it. You tried to keep it from happening. The fact that you weren’t able to do that means youhave feelings for him that were too big and too powerful for you to ignore.”

“Even if that’s true… it doesn’t matter, Tess. Eli doesn’t feel anything for me. If he did, he couldn’t have treated me like he did. I mean, there’s no way I could have treated him like that.”

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