Page 48 of Grumpy Boss's Secret

Ian was sick for almost a week. It knocked him out badly, and the entire office suffered. He did his best to answer emails and phone calls from home, but things felt restless. Leaderless. We were like a ship without a captain. Larry led one of our meetings. I'd never heard so many dad jokes in an hour before.

Ian didn’t post on Instagram. Kirk didn’t email me back. Ian didn’t text me. I was feeling worried. Anxious. The hot, icky, writhing like-there’s-a-snake-in-your-gut feeling. If he loved me, why would he leave me hanging like this? I tried not to think about him too much. But I did anyway. When he finally returned to work, however, he immediately knocked on my door.

"Hey," I said as he pushed the door open.

God, it was good to see his face again. He looked tired, though. Almost haggard. There were circles under his eyes, and his skin was pale. His eyes looked a little bloodshot.

“You look terrible,” I said, not without sympathy.

“Thanks,” he grimaced. “I can’t stay. I just wanted to say good morning.”

Enigma.

“Good morning,” I said, smiling at him. I wanted to beg him to stay. To come in here and hold me.

“You still contagious?” I asked, hinting.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling tiredly. “I mean, only if you got really close.”

“Might be worth it,” I said, flirting shamelessly.

“No,” he said. “You don’t want this thing. It’s been nasty.” There was a brief pause before he said, “Besides, I’ve got so much work to catch up on. I’m going to be insanely busy. I wanted to tell you that too.”

He made eye contact for a moment, and I nodded.

“Sure,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. Can I bring you chicken soup for lunch?”

“I’ll just order something,” he said, smiling. “But thanks.”

Keeping his eyes lingering on me, he stepped back through the doorway and closed the door.

“Don’t leave,” I murmured.

It wouldn't have been so bad if that had been all that happened. Even if he'd suddenly stopped talking to me and stopped trying to see me, I could have at least gone on hoping that he loved me and slowly moved on from my attachment to him. Or maybe I would have said the right words and gotten him to say what I needed to hear in response.

That wasn’t all that happened, however. What happened next felt simultaneously like my life’s greatest disaster and my heart’s greatest miracle.

I was pregnant.

Chapter Twenty-One

It had been two weeks since Ian and I had hooked up in his office. I was a few days late for my period. It didn’t scare me. When I was a week late, it scared me. I was on birth control. But maybe I was in that tiny little percentage…you know, of people who got pregnant anyway.

I went to the drugstore after work and picked up a pregnancy test. I blushed as the sales clerk cooed and gushed at me over my purchase as if I was a wife happily attempting to conceive, and it was something to celebrate.

I smiled weakly at her, not wanting to contradict her. Not wanting to say, "Well, actually, it's my boss's. And we're not even dating. I've believed he loves me, but I'm not sure he does.” Try saying that aloud and not sounding beyond naïve to everyone, especially yourself.

I walked home, shivering, even though it was a balmy evening. I walked upstairs, trying to tell myself that it would all be okay. I wasn't pregnant. It was just a false alarm. A fluctuation in hormones. Caused by stress. I wasn’t pregnant.

I took the test. I was pregnant. I stood there, staring at the two pink lines, my heart hammering so violently I could hear my blood rushing in my ears. I didn't move for at least a minute. Then I slowly set the test on the bathroom counter and sat on the floor. I took a few deep breaths. I put my hand on my stomach.

“You sneaky bastard,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in there?”

I closed my eyes. I felt something I’d never expected to feel under the circumstances. Happy. It was as if I’d just been handed a whole world. And granted, I did not feel equipped to handle that world. The weight of it threatened to crush me. I could hardly breathe.

But, it was my world. I’d never had something like this before. I sat there, my hand on my stomach, my thumb running up and down. I wasn't sure who I was stroking, myself or the baby. Maybe both of us. A kind of wild, reckless euphoria was coursing through me. Potato stuck her head into the bathroom. She meowed at me, telling me to get out of her room.

"And I thought you were excited," I said to her.

---