Page 50 of One More Baby for the Boss

“How much are they?” Elijah asked.

“Two dollars,” Alex said.

Elijah pulled a five out of his pocket and handed it to Jack. “Go ahead,” he said. “And you can use the change to play that pinball machine in the corner. Ask the person at the counter to give you quarters back so you can play as much as you want.”

“Really?” Jack lit up. “I can use all this money for pinball?”

“Yeah,” Elijah said. “Absolutely. Go nuts.”

They watched as he ran over to the counter to buy his donut and collect his quarters. “You sent him away so we could speak privately, didn’t you?” Alex asked Elijah.

He nodded. “I’ve got to talk to you,” he said. “Now that I found you, I’m not leaving until the two of us have hashed all this out. We need to figure out what went wrong between us. And I’m hoping that we can figure out a way to put it right.”

“Elijah…”

“Please, Alex. It’s a stroke of luck that I was able to find you at all. I didn’t know if I would. Please let me have this.”

Alex swallowed, anxiety welling up in her. How could she possibly have this conversation and not tell him everything?

But she didn’t think she could walk away from him either. Not now.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s talk.”

CHAPTER 24

ELIJAH

“Iowe you an apology,” Elijah said. “I want that to come before anything else.”

She didn’t protest or try to convince him that he didn’t have anything to apologize for. She sat there, arms folded on top of the table, and waited.

He respected it. Hedidowe her this apology, and he hadn’t wanted to have to convince her of that fact. Better that she was ready to accept it from him.

That didn’t make it easy to say what he needed to say, though. He took a breath to steady himself. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did when you talked to me about missing family day at the school,” he said. “The truth is that you were right. I was wrong to miss that. And I knew it at the time. I knew when I came into the house that night that I had some explaining to do, that I’d messed up and I was going to get called out for it. And Alex, you wererightto call me out, and I’m glad you did it.”

She shook her head slowly. “You didn’t like that I did that,” she said. “You got angry at me.”

“But I shouldn’t have. I wasn’t really angry at you. I was just lashing out. The truth is, I was feeling embarrassed and guilty. I was ashamed of myself because I knew that everything you were saying was right. I knew that I should have been there. And Jack has reinforced that to me every day since it happened. I can see how much it hurt him that his father didn’t show up for him. I’ll never make that mistake again — but I’ll also never have the chance to correct it. I can never go back in time and watch him make his first school presentation. The family tree is in our house, but it should be a good memory, and instead it’s just a reminder of a time when I wasn’t there for my son. That’s what it will always be — except that, for Jack, I think it’s a reminder of you.”

“Is that why you came looking for me? Because of Jack?”

Elijah let out a long sigh and raked a hand through his hair. “That’s part of it,” he said. “You know how much you mean to him. I think you knew better than I did. I didn’t know how cut up he would be when you were gone — but you did, didn’t you?”

“I guessed,” she admitted. “It made it so hard to go, knowing that — but I had to do it before we got in even deeper. Before things got worse. Imagine if I had stayed, Elijah. He would have gotten even more attached to me, and eventually I would havehadto leave. It would have crushed him. I couldn’t put him through that. Could you?”

“Why would you have had to leave?” Elijah asked. “You could have stayed with us, Alex.”

“After what happened between you and me—”

“No, I know,” he said. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did, and I don’t blame you for being upset about it. I don’t blameyou for wanting to leave over it, even. But couldn’t we try to put it behind us? I was completely in the wrong. I can admit that. I’ll do better.”

But Alex shook her head. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said. “That was a fight. It wasn’t so serious. You’re right, we could have gotten past that eventually. But when I saywhat happened between us— Elijah, that night with the wine…”

“You told me you didn’t regret it,” he said, wondering if she could read the sadness in his voice.”

“Don’t you regret it?”

“I don’t. I thought I did. I thought we’d made a mistake. But that was only because you left. If you had stayed — if you would come back…”

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