Page 54 of Silver Fox's Secret Baby

“Of course.” I mixed butter into my baked potato, trying to deal with the growing ulcer in my gut. Pax was growing attached to Henry. Pax had no real father figure, and perhaps Henry was filling that void for Pax. And if I were honest with myself, I knew Henry would make an incredible father to Pax if he only knew the truth.

“Will you join us?” Henry asked. “I could put in a good word with the boss.”

“Who’s the boss?” Pax asked.

Henry laughed. “I am.”

Pax’s brows drew together as if he didn’t quite get what Henry was saying. “If you’re the boss, then you don’t have to ask.”

“That’s right.”

I was here to do a job, not play hooky with my boss. “I’ll think about it.”

Henry’s amused expression faltered, and I wondered if he was disappointed. "Could you pass the salt, please?"

"Here you go." The casual exchange did nothing to alleviate the tension building inside me. The answer was to come clean to Henry, but I was a coward.

The next day,I was pleased that the work with the team was still going well. They were coming up with great ideas, some of which I planned to share with other platforms.

“I like the idea of user-generated news shorts,” I said in answer to a suggestion by a team member. “We do need to have a system to vet the shorts to avoid problematic content.” We’d already gone over the new content policy I’d created, but I referred to it again, telling them to develop a plan to review user-generated content before posting on the newspaper’s website or social feeds.

At lunch time, Henry appeared. “Let’s grab lunch.”

I studied him, noting that he didn’t ask or invite me. It wasn’t necessarily an order, but it was definitely expected that I would go to lunch. Since I was hungry, it was no big deal except for the usual stress that being around Henry brought me.

We walked down the street to a Mexican restaurant.

“This place has the best authentic Mexican food I’ve ever had,” Henry said. “Whenever I’m in Southern California, I always make time to come here.”

“Sounds delicious.”

We ordered our food, and Henry asked me how things were going. It felt more like chatting than wanting a report, but I filled him in as his employee. He nodded along, telling me he felt good about the work the team and I were doing.

“I wanted to let you know that we’re having dinner tonight with the COO, Larry Stillson.”

“We?”

“I’d like you to be there to let him know the plans for the website and social media. He’s not as bad as Alan, but he has some questions. But more importantly, Larry is well connected and it could help your business if you impress him as much as you’ve impressed me and the team at the network.”

Giddiness bubbled in my belly. This would be another opportunity to prove myself and set my business up for success. “Of course. I’ll be there. I just need to let Marie know.”

Our lunch arrived, and I dug into the food. Henry was right. It was excellent.

“How are plans for your business coming along?” Henry asked.

“Slow but sure,” I said between bites.

“If you need any feedback or guidance—”

“I was hoping Tori would mentor me.”

Henry looked down. “Of course.”

Oh, hell. I’d hurt his feelings. “I mean... you’re already helping me in that department.”

He nodded, but I still got the feeling I’d said the wrong thing.

When I got backto the office, I contacted Marie to let her know I’d be home late and then continued to work with the team. The tech team had joined us as we discussed changes to the website.

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