Page 84 of Boss's Baby: A Fake Fiance Romance

Josh stepped to my side, his eyes fixed on the tree. “These things get bigger and bigger every year.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Anger flowed through me at Josh’s presence, the memory of how he reacted to the news of the baby still fresh in my mind. So, I said nothing for fear of saying something cruel. Maybe he deserved it.

“I think it was Dad’s way of coping with what happened with Mom. She loved Christmas, and he always felt like she went over the top in decorating and making the house a cheerful place for the holidays. But when she was gone and we had that first year without decorations, anything she did to make the holiday special, he must’ve had a change of heart.”

I wasn’t sure why he was telling me this. But I continued to say nothing.

“And it makes me think about how we can’t risk our relationships with our families, with the ones we love. This fake fiancée plan—it was wrong. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.”

“Wrong.” I repeated the word, feeling its truth. “We should’ve never done it.”

He nodded. “We were careless with our families. We got so wrapped up in this plan and how it could work out for us that we didn’t realize what kind of toll it would take on them.”

Josh was right, of course. And I felt like I could finally speak. “It’s been tearing me up inside. The last few days of looking them in the eye and lying to them, watching them get so excited about what they think is going to happen…”

“And it’s not only that. Sure, us splitting up is part of it. But that still means the lie is going to be there. For the rest of our lives, we’d have to keep this buried inside. I thought I could do it, but I don’t know if I can.”

His words were what I wanted to hear. Or, at least, part of what I wanted to hear. It still remained to be seen whether or not he realized how much he’d hurt me by reacting to the pregnancy the way he had.

He took a deep breath and went on. “And Sam knows.”

My heart skipped a beat. “What? How did he find out?”

“He overheard the conversation we had about…” He trailed off, as if the subject of the baby was too much for him to even mention. “It’s funny, all the lengths we went to with keeping this hidden, and being careless for a minute is what screwed it up.”

“It was screwed up from the start, to be honest.”

He smiled faintly. “No doubt.”

“Well, you’re not the only one who has a sibling who knows what’s going on.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Katie?”

“Mm-hmm. I couldn’t keep it inside anymore. Not after what I found out yesterday.” And there I was, having trouble with the word “baby” myself. Silly.

“How’d she take it?”

“She’s not happy, but she hasn’t disowned me yet. And she wants me to come clean with the rest of our families.”

“Sam had a different reaction.”

“I can only imagine.”

“He’s giving me the option to break off the marriage now and tell my dad that I don’t want to be CEO anymore. Give up the company, hand it over to Sam.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“It’s tempting. Breaking things off would cause the smallest amount of scandal possible. But we’d still be living with a lie.”

“And if you don’t?”

“He reveals what we did. One way or another, this is ending tonight.”

While I despised the way Sam had been scheming, secretly I was relieved to have more justification for putting the matter to rest.

I squared my shoulders, certain in what I was going to say next. “We need to end this. And I want to end it on our terms.”

“You want to announce that we’re calling off the marriage?”

“I want to announce that it’s a lie. I want to come clean. We get our families together and tell them the truth. I don’t want this to go on for another hour.”

He nodded. “Then that’ll be the end of it. And not only with the plan, but with us. There’s no way our families will want anything to do with each other once they learn what we’ve been doing.”

Still no mention of the baby. But his lack of bringing up the topic was really all the answer I needed. Fine. One issue at a time.

“You ask me, there’s no other option. Let’s tell the truth and try to salvage what we can from the holidays—and the relationships with our families.”

“Then it’s settled? We tell them now?”

“We tell them right now.”

Another nod, followed by a long silence, the Christmas music a cheery contrast to the way we both felt.

“OK. Let’s round them up and do what needs to be done. And…”

---