Page 18 of One More Baby for the Boss

He knocked on Alex’s bedroom door. He could hear her moving around inside. Was it typical for her to still be awake at this hour? It was pretty late, and he wasn’t sure what to think. Was she awake because she was upset about their argument? He couldn’t have had that much of an impact on her, could he? He hoped not, but he couldn’t know for sure.

After a brief pause, the door opened, and Alex poked her head out. She was still dressed in her jean shorts and tank top shirt, but her blond hair was down around her shoulders. For a moment, the sight of her gave him pause, as it always seemed to. It was such a shock to the system to look at a woman and find her attractive again after all this time. He had allowed himself to believe that that part of him had died forever when Stephanie had died, and feeling it again made him feel alive in a way he hadn’t since then.

“Can I speak to you for a minute?” he asked Alex.

Her shoulders fell in what appeared to be resignation. “We’re doing this now?”

“Well, we don’t have to…” He’d thought maybe she would appreciate him coming to her like this, but it seemed like maybe she didn’t, and he wasn’t going to force this conversation on her. “We can talk tomorrow if you’d rather.”

“We might as well get it over with,” she said, and threw the door open. She turned and walked back into the room, and after a moment, Elijah understood that he was being invited in and followed her.

Alex went to the bed. Her suitcase lay open there. His first thought was that she had spent all this time living out of it, without bothering to unpack. Then she picked up a shirt, folded it, and dropped it inside.

“Say what you need to say,” she said, without looking back at him.

“Are you packing?”

She shrugged. “Thought I might as well.”

“Are you… going somewhere?”

“Elijah, just say what you came here to say to me.”

“You can’t quit,” he said. “Please don’t. Jack needs you. I know I’ve been a jerk, but don’t punish Jack for that. He’s loved having you here. It’s made a world of difference to him already.”

“I’m not quitting.” She turned to face him, her eyebrows raised. “You’re firing me, aren’t you?”

“Firing you?” He hadn’t expected anything like that. “Of course I’m not firing you. Why would I do that?”

“After what happened the other night?” She shook her head. “I know you were angry with me.”

“Okay, I was. That doesn’t mean I’m going to fire you. Jack loves you. And even though I was angry, I don’t think I was right to be.”

“I crossed a line,” Alex said. “I overstepped and I know it.”

“There wasn’t anything wrong with what you said.”

“But you have every right not to want an almost-stranger to come along and tell you what to do with your child,” she said.

“I’m not sure I do. I hired you to help me with Jack. And the moment you tried to really help me, I gave you a hard time for it.”

“Iwasjust trying to help,” she agreed. “I meant what I said. I’ve been wondering whether it was a mistake to say those things, and I don’t want to have to leave Jack. I agree with you. I think it’s to his benefit to have someone here with him who understands him.”

Elijah nodded. “I wouldn’t send you away now,” he said. “And I hope you wouldn’t consider quitting because of my behavior.”

“No, you don’t need to worry about that,” she assured him, sitting down on the bed beside the suitcase. “I love Jack. I’m not going to leave him. I’m going to do the best I can for him for as long as you’ll let me do it.”

He sighed. “I am sorry I reacted the way I did when you tried to talk to me about him,” he said. “I appreciate what you were trying to do, coming to me about my son like that. You were telling me things you felt I needed to hear. Maybe I do need tohear them. It’s hard, but maybe I need to consider some of the things you were telling me.”

“I really didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t a good father to him,” Alex said earnestly. “Believe me, that’s the opposite of what I meant. You should hear the way he talks about you. You should see how he looks at you. He thinks you hung the moon. He just wants to be able to spend more time with you, that’s all. It’s because he loves you so much.”

“I know how lucky I am to have him,” Elijah said. “Jack is the best thing in my life, and I just want to be the best father I can to him. Maybe that’s why I let myself get defensive. I want to believe I’m doing a perfect job. Especially since he doesn’t have his mother around anymore.”

“You’re doing a great job, in my opinion,” Alex said. “Nobody is perfect. But Jack is as lucky to have you as you are to have him. He just wants a littlemoreof you, that’s all.”

“I’ve let myself get too caught up in work,” Elijah said. “It was an escape for me after my wife died, but I shouldn’t have let it go as far as I did.”

“It’s understandable,” Alex said gently. “I know what it feels like to lose people. I know the way you’ll latch on to just about anything if it makes you forget about the pain for a while. I think that’s how I got on the path I’m on too. I thought about looking for a place to live after my family died — I’d been about to move out and live on my own anyway. But no place felt like home. Every time I was alone in a room, it felt like the silence was screaming in my ears.”

---