Page 7 of A Baby Surprise For My Billionaire Boss

“I will, but give me a few minutes to get caught up here.”

“I want to go in the water,” Charlie said.

“That’s fine, but stay right on the edge,” Eli said. “Stay where you can sit down and it doesn’t go over your head, okay? And right in front of me, so I’ll be able to see you.”

“I want to go out deeper than that, Dad.”

“No. Absolutely not. If you go past where I’m telling you, we’re going to turn around and go back home.”

Charlie scowled. “Katie would have gone into the water with me.”

“Katie isn’t here. Look, just stay on the shore. It’s not safe for you to go into the water by yourself.”

Charlie scowled, turned, and stormed off down the beach.

Eli sighed. Even though he had gone out of his way to try to do something special for his son, it already seemed to be backfiring on him. Now he was going to struggle to get his work done, and he wouldn’t even get the benefit of Charlie being happy with him for it. It was deeply frustrating.

This is why I need to have a nanny. He was going to have to hire someone as soon as possible, and he knew it. But he didn’t want to cut corners and hire someone subpar because hewas in a hurry. He had to make sure that whoever he found was competent to take care of Charlie. Eli knew that he wasn’t the most involved parent in the world, but that didn’t mean he neglected his responsibility to his son. Charlie would always have the best.

He opened his email inbox, and it was as he’d feared — emails from clients had come pouring in, just in the few minutes he’d been distracted. Most of the emails were things that could wait, but one of his clients was angry that her copy of the software wasn’t working properly and was threatening to cancel and demanding refunds. Eli wished he was in the office so that he could have called the client from a nice quiet environment. He couldn’t do it here, he knew. Waves were crashing, children were shouting — it would be completely unprofessional.

He drafted a quick email offering to come in and personally take a look at the software. He knew he was going to have to bring Charlie with him, most likely, but that was something that could be dealt with. And maybe if he gave himself a few days to prepare, he might be able to find a babysitter. It was possible.

He read the email over, decided it was as good as it was going to get, and hit send. He watched his phone for a moment, wondering if he was going to get a reply, but he knew how unlikely an instant response was. It would make him feel better to hear something back right away, but that didn’t mean he could expect it.

Maybe he ought to walk down to the water and spend a little time with Charlie. It seemed like the least he could do. He tucked his phone into his pocket and got to his feet?—

And frowned.

Charlie wasn’t in front of him. He was nowhere to be seen.

Panic leapt up into Eli’s throat, and he tried his best to control it. He shouldn’t overreact. Charlie was around here somewhere. He wouldn’t have gone far. He knew better than to go out into the water. He had probably wandered down the beach, that was all.

But he had been talking about wanting to go out into deeper water…

No. No, he wouldn’t have.

Eli started jogging down the beach, turning this way and that as he went, aware that he might be running in the wrong direction and moving farther away from his son. “Charlie!” he yelled.

Several people looked at him, but there was no sign of Charlie.

Starting to panic in earnest now, Eli ran to a lifeguard tower. The guard wasn’t there, so he started to climb it, hoping to get a better look at the beach. Maybe he would catch sight of Charlie that way.

“Um, excuse me,” a voice called. “You can’t be up there.”

He looked down, prepared to shout at whoever was daring to interrupt his search for his son, and his knees went weak with relief.

The voice belonged to a sun-bronzed lifeguard with strawberry blond hair that fell in waves down her back. She was looking up at him with a stern expression on her face — but he couldn’t focus on that, because she was also holding Charlie by the hand.

Eli jumped down at once and fell to his knees in the sand. “Charlie, where the hell were you?”

“Swear jar, Dad.”

“I told you to stay right in front of me! Where did you go?”

“I was looking for sand dollars!” Charlie held up his hand so his father could observe the one he had found. “Look, it’s perfect. Not even chipped.”

“You were supposed to stay right in front of me. What were you thinking, wandering off like that?”

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