Page 85 of Boss's Baby: A Fake Fiance Romance

“And?”

“And for what it’s worth, I can’t imagine being fake married to anyone else.”

I allowed myself a small smile. “Wasn’t all bad, I suppose.”

“Plus my end of the bargain, it’s still there if you want to take me up on it. And I’d understand if you wanted to stick with your decision of never speaking to me again. Might be best for the both of us.”

I clenched my fist and released it, not pleased this was how he was handling the baby situation. But like I’d told myself, one issue at a time, and him not bringing it up told me where he stood. I just needed for this to be over with.

“Let’s find our families and do this.”

“Good call.”

Nothing more to be said to each other. Together we left the tree and made our way through the party. We searched through the house, weaving through the hundreds of guests in attendance, trying our best not to look as preoccupied as we both felt.

However, we searched and searched, but couldn’t find any trace of our families. And the longer we looked, the stranger it seemed. No Katie, no Mom and Dad, no Walter, no Sam. Had they left?

“What’s going on here?” I finally said to Josh. “Where are they?”

He stopped and gave the matter some consideration. “If they’re not here, then they’re all somewhere together.”

“Like where? Decided to have a private party?”

“Maybe they’re talking, trying to smooth things over from the wedding conversation earlier.”

“That makes sense. Where would they go off to for that?”

“Dad usually likes to have his private conversations in his office. Let’s check there.”

I had a bad feeling in the pit of my gut as we made our way up the stairs. I didn’t like this one bit.

Finally, we reached the closed doors of the office. Josh gave them a knock and a voice spoke from inside.

“Come on in.” It was Sam.

Josh and I shared a look, one that suggested we both knew something was very wrong. Then he opened the door to the office. Sure enough, everyone we were looking for was there.

And they didn’t appear happy.

Walter and Mom and Dad and Katie were all seated in the lounge area by the fireplace. Sam stood in front of them as if giving a presentation. And each pair of eyes that fell onto us had the same sentiment of hurt and anger.

I knew right away what was happening.

“Have a seat,” said Sam. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

Chapter 37

JOSH

It was probably around six a.m. on Christmas morning that I realized I wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep. There was something ironic to it—back when I was a kid, Christmas Eve was the hardest night of the year to get to sleep. But that was on account of excitement and wondering what waited for me under the tree. Usual kid stuff.

But there I was, a grown man, having the same problem but for completely different reasons. Namely, that I was fairly certain last night had brought my life crashing down around me.

The conversation, if it could even be called that, was hell. We’d come into the office at exactly the right moment—or wrong moment, depending on how you looked at it. Sam had dropped the bomb only seconds before, letting Dad and Cass’s parents know that we’d been lying to them about everything.

It all broke down after that. There was yelling and tears and stunned silence. As I tried to calm the room, Sam watched the whole thing, the smile on his face suggesting he was more than pleased with how things had turned out.

The little shit had gone back on his word, not even giving me the chance to come clean on my own. Maybe that had been his plan from the beginning, or maybe he’d decided him breaking the news would make me look worse. After all, fessing up had been my one path to possible redemption. Taking that away from me was like twisting the knife.

It all ended with Cass’s family storming out of the party, Sam leaving me with Dad. But the old man didn’t have a word to say to me. I’d been chewed out by him enough times over the years to know that was his standard reaction to me screwing up. However, when he was really mad, and I mean really fucking mad, stony silence followed. That’s what I got.

There hadn’t been anything left to do but suffer through the rest of the party, offering up a lame excuse about a family emergency for anyone who’d noticed the hurry in which Cass and her family had left. Thankfully, Sam had spared me the scandal of telling anyone other than our families. I could only imagine the fallout if the news had gotten out to the rest of the party.

When the party finally ended, I’d been ready to crash. I went up to my old room, hoping the events of the day would be enough to put me out right away. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the case.

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