Not the Boss's Baby

Still, there was something that felt like a homecoming, walking into Lou’s Diner. Shelia Chase had worked here for the better part of thirty years, pulling whatever shift she could get. Lou had died and the diner had changed hands a few times, but her mom had always stuck with it. Serena didn’t think she knew how to do anything else.

Either that, or she was afraid to try.

It’d been nine days since Serena had walked out of Chadwick’s office. Nine long, anxious days that she’d tried to fill by keeping busy planning her new life.

She’d given her notice to her landlord. In two weeks, she was going to be moving into a new place out in Aurora, a good forty minutes away from the brewery. It wasn’t a radically different apartment—two bedrooms, because she was sure she would need the space once the baby started crawling—but it wasn’t infused with reminders of Neil. Or of Chadwick, for that matter. The rent was almost double what she was paying now, but if she bought her baby things used and continued to clip coupons, she had enough to live on for a year, maybe more.

She’d applied for ten jobs—office manager at an insurance firm, administrative assistant at a hospital, that sort of thing. She’d even sent her resume to the food bank. She knew the director had been pleased with her work and that the bank was newly flush with Beaumont cash. They could afford to pay her a modest salary—but health insurance...well, she was covered by a federal insurance extension plan. It wasn’t cheap, but it would do. She couldn’t go without.

She hadn’t had any calls for interviews yet, but it was still early. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself. Now was not the time to panic.

Except that, as she slid into a booth that was older than she was, the plastic crackling under her growing weight, the old fear of being reduced to grocery shopping in food pantries gripped her.

Breathe, she heard Chadwick say in her head. Even though she knew he wasn’t here, it still felt...comforting.

Flo, another old-timer waitress with a smoker’s voice, came by. “’Rena, honey, you look good,” she said in a voice so gravelly it was practically a baritone. She poured Serena a cup of coffee. “Shelia’s waiting on that big table. She’ll be over in a bit.”

So just the thought of being back in this place that had barely kept her family above water was enough to make breathing hard. There was still something comforting about the familiar—Flo and her scratchy voice, Mom waiting tables. Serena’s world might have been turned completely on its ear in the last few weeks, but some things never changed.

She smiled at Flo. “Thanks. How are the grandkids?”

“Oh, just adorable,” Flo said, beaming. “My daughter got a good job at Super-Mart stocking shelves, so I watch the kids at night after I get off work. They sleep like angels for me.”

As Flo went to make her coffee rounds, Serena pushed back a new wave of panic. A good job stocking shelves? Having her mom watch the kids while she worked the night shift?

Yes, a job was better than no job, but this?

She’d thought that she could never be a part of Chadwick’s world and he could never be a part of hers—they were just too different. But now, sitting here and watching her mother carry a huge tray of food over to a party of ten, Serena realized how much her world had really and truly changed. Once upon a time, when she was in college, a night job stocking shelves would have been a good job. It would have paid the rent and the grocery bills, and that was all she would have needed.

But now?

She needed more. No, she didn’t need the five-thousand-dollar dresses that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to pack up and return to the store. But now that she’d had a different kind of life for so long—a life that didn’t exist in the spaces between paychecks—she knew she couldn’t go back to one of menial labor and night shifts.

A picture of Chadwick floated before her eyes. Not the Chadwick she saw every day sitting behind his desk, his eyes glued to his computer, but the Chadwick who had stood across from her in a deserted gallery. He had been trying just as hard as she was to make things work—even if those “things” were radically different for each of them. He had been a man hanging on to his sanity by the tips of his fingers, terrified of what would happen if he let go.

In that moment, Chadwick hadn’t just been a handsome or thoughtful boss. He’d been a man she understood on a fundamental level.

A man who’d understood her.

But then Helen Beaumont had come in and reminded Serena exactly how far apart her world and Chadwick’s really were.

Deep down, Serena had known she couldn’t carry on with Chadwick while she worked for him. An affair with her boss—no matter how passionate or torrid—wasn’t who she was. But hearing how Chadwick had neglected his wife in favor of his company?

It’d been like a knife in the back. Were she and Chadwick only involved because they’d spent more time together in the past seven years than he’d ever spent with his wife—because, as Chadwick’s employee, she was the only woman he spent any time with at all?

What if he was only with her because she was available? Hadn’t she stayed with Neil for far too long for the exact same reason—because that was the path of least resistance?

No. She would not be the default anymore. Stability wasn’t the safest route. That’s what had kept her mother chained to this diner for her entire life—it was a guaranteed job. Why risk a bird in the hand when two in the bush was no sure thing?

If whatever was going on between Chadwick and Serena was more than just an affair of convenience, it would withstand her not being his executive assistant. She was sure of it.

Except for one small thing. He hadn’t called. Hadn’t even texted.

She hadn’t really expected him to, but part of her was still disappointed. Okay, devastated. He’d said all those lovely things about how he was going to change, how she made him a better person—words that she had longed to hear—but actions spoke so much louder. And he hadn’t done anything but watch her go.

She might love Chadwick. The odds were actually really good. But she couldn’t know for sure while she worked for him. More than anything else, she didn’t want to feel like he held all the cards in their relationship. She didn’t want to feel like she owed everything to him—that he controlled her financial well-being.

That was why, as painful as it had been, she’d walked away from his promise to take care of her. Even though she wanted nothing more than to know that the man she loved would be there for her and that she’d never have to worry about sliding back into poverty again, she couldn’t bank on that.

She was in control of her life, her fate. She had to secure her future by herself.

Serena Chase depended on no one.

Which was a surprisingly lonely way to look at the rest of her life.

Her head swimming, Serena was blinking back tears when her mother came to her table. “Sweetie, look at you! What’s wrong?”

Serena smiled as best she could. Her mother was not many things, but she’d always loved her sweetie. Serena couldn’t hide her emotional state from her mom.

“Hi, Mom. I hadn’t talked to you for a while. Thought I’d drop in.”

“I’m kinda busy right now. Can you sit tight until the rush clears out? Oh, I know—I’ll have Willy make you some fried chicken, mashed potatoes and a chocolate shake—your favorite!”