Not the Boss's Baby

She glared at him. Maybe it would have been better if Chadwick had still been here. For starters, Neil would have seen that nothing was the same anymore—she wasn’t, anyway. She wasn’t the same frugal executive assistant she’d been when he’d left. She was a woman who went shopping in the finest stores and made small talk with the titans of industry and looked damn good doing it. She was a woman who invited her boss into her apartment and then into her bed. She was pregnant and changing and bringing home her own bacon and frying it up in her own pan, thank you very much.

Neil didn’t notice her look of death. He was staring at the spot where the TV had been before he’d taken that with him. “You haven’t even gotten a new television yet? Geez, Serena. I didn’t realize you were going to take me leaving so hard.”

“I don’t need one. I don’t watch TV.” A fact she would have thought he’d figured out after nine years of cohabitating—or at least figured out after she told him to take the TV when he moved. “Did you come here just to criticize me? Because I can think of a lot better ways to spend a Sunday morning.”

Neil rolled his eyes, but then he sat up straighter. “You know, I’ve been thinking. We had nine good years together. Why did we let that get away from us?”

She could not believe the words coming out of this man’s mouth. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe ‘we’ let that get away from ‘us’ when you started sleeping with groupies at the country club.”

“That was a mistake.” He agreed far more quickly than he had when Serena had found the incriminating text messages. They’d gone out to dinner that night to try and “work things out,” but it’d all fallen apart instead. “I’ve changed, babe. I know what I did was wrong. Let me make it up to you.”

This was Neil “making it up to her”—criticizing her appearance and her apartment?

“I’ll do better. Be better for you.” For a second, he managed to look sincere, but it didn’t last. “I heard that the brewery might get sold. You own stock in the company, right? We could get a bigger place—much nicer than this dump—and start over. It could be really good, babe.”

Oh, for the love of Pete. That’s what this was. He’d gotten wind of the AllBev offer and was looking for a big payout.

“What happened? Your lover go back to her husband?”

The way Neil’s face turned a ruddy red answered the question for her, even though he didn’t. He just went back to staring at the space where the television used to be.

The more she talked to him, the less she could figure out what she had ever seen in him. The petty little criticisms—it wasn’t that those were new, it was just that she’d gotten used to not having her appearance, her housekeeping and her cooking sniped at.

In three months, she’d realized how much she’d settled by staying with Neil. No wonder the passion had long since bled out of their relationship. Hard to be passionate when the man who supposedly loved you was constantly tearing you down.

Chadwick didn’t do that to her. Even before this last week had turned everything upside down, he’d always let her know how much he appreciated her hard work. That had just carried over into her bed. Boy, had he appreciated her hard work.

Serena shook her head. This wasn’t exactly an either/or situation. Just because she didn’t want Neil didn’t necessarily mean her only other option was Chadwick. Even if whatever was going on between her and Chadwick was nothing more than a really satisfying rebound—for both of them—well, that didn’t mean she wanted to throw herself at Neil. She was no longer a scared college girl existing just above the poverty line. She was a grown woman fully capable of taking care of herself.

It was a damn good thing to realize.

“I’m pregnant. You’re the father.” There. She’d gotten it out. “That’s what I needed to talk to you about. And because you were sleeping around, I have to get tested.”

For a moment, Neil was well and truly shocked. His mouth flopped open and his eyes bugged out of his head. “You’re...”

“Pregnant. Have been for three months.”

“Are you sure I’m the father?”

Her blood began to boil. “Of course you’re the father, you idiot. Just because you were sleeping around doesn’t mean I was. I was faithful to you—to us—until the very end. But that wasn’t enough for you. And now you’re not enough for me.”

“I...I...” He seemed stuck.

Well, he could just stick. She was the one that was pregnant. She’d spend the rest of her life raising his—her—baby. But that didn’t mean she had to spend the rest of her life with him. “I thought you should know.”

“I didn’t want—I can’t—” He wasn’t making a lot of progress. “Can’t you just end it?”

“Get out.” The words flew from her mouth. “Get out now.”

“But—”

“This is my child. I don’t need anything from you, and what’s more is I don’t want anything from you. I won’t sue you for child support. I never want to see you again.” She hadn’t said that when he’d left the last time. Maybe because she hadn’t believed the words. But now she did.

Neil’s eyes hadn’t made a lot of progress back into his skull. “You don’t want money? Damn—how much is Beaumont paying you now?”

Was that all she was—a back-up source of funding? “If you’re still here in one minute, I’m calling the police. Goodbye, Neil.”

He got up, looking like she’d smacked him. “Leave your key,” she called after him. She didn’t want any more surprise visits.

He took the key off his key ring and hung it back on the hook.

Then he closed the door on his way out.

And that was that.

She looked around the apartment as if the blinders had suddenly been lifted from her eyes. This wasn’t her place. It had never been hers. This had been their place—hers and Neil’s. She’d wanted to stay here because it was safe.

But Neil would always feel like he was entitled to be there because it had been his apartment before she’d moved in.

She didn’t want to raise her baby in a place that was haunted by unfaithfulness and snide put-downs.

She needed a fresh start.

The thought terrified her.





Twelve


“Ms. Chase, if you could join me in my office.”

Serena tried not to grin as she gathered up her tablet. He was paging her a full forty minutes earlier than their normal meeting time. What a difference a week made. Seven days before, she’d been shell-shocked after realizing she was pregnant. This week? She was sort of her boss’s secret lover.

No, best not to think of it in those terms. Company policy and all that.

She opened the door to Chadwick’s office and shut it behind her. That was what she normally did, but today the action had an air of secrecy about it.

Chadwick was sitting behind his desk, looking as normal as she’d ever seen him. Well, maybe not that normal. He glanced up and his face broke into one huge grin. God, he was so handsome. It almost hurt to look at him, to know that he was so happy because of her.

He didn’t say anything as she walked toward her regular seat. Instead, he got up and met her halfway with the kind of kiss that melted every single part of her body. He pulled her in tight, and his lips explored hers.