Carting a cup of terrible coffee back to my desk, I bump into Jane. “Oh, honey, you look exhausted!”
“Nick was sick so I had to stay up with him.”
“So that’s where you were yesterday.”
“Were you looking for me?”
Jane glances over her shoulder a couple of times, then peers past me to check the corridor is empty. “Girl, I was terrified you’d been fired.”
“Fired?”
“Mmhmm. Jimmy was on some rampage about the pointlessness of our department, how he hates wasting stock on people too dumb to go to the stores, and how our subscription service is an insult to the gems. I thought he was going to choke on his own tongue with how angry he was, so I came to look for you and you weren’t here, so I thought he’d fired you in his rage!”
“Oh, my God.” I clutch lightly at her shoulder and smile. “You know me, Jane. I won’t go down without a fight. As far as I know, everything is fine.”
“Are you sure?” She squints at me, and underneath her usual cheery demeanor, I see her worry. “You don’t think we’ll get axed, do you?”
“Don’t listen to rumors. If you think about it, Elijah is here on quality control, right? So what say would he even have in how this company is run?”
She nods once, then again but stronger. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
“Trust me. Nothing will happen. We make far too much money.”
“Yeah, we do.” Jane’s bright smile returns and she bounces on the balls of her feet. “I’m glad you’re okay. Sorry about Nick.”
“It’s all good.”
“You should get his dad to watch him next time so I don’t get scared!” With a soft laugh, she steps away and hurries down the corridor back to work.
His dad.
Just like that, Elijah is back in my thoughts.
Keeping Nick a secret was fueled by my hatred for Elijah and what Ithoughthe had done. What am I supposed to do now? It’s not like I can just walk up to him and blurt out that he has a son who is about to turn six in a few weeks and that I kept him a secret because I was angry over something that’s now turned out to be a lie.
Maybe I could?
I play that scenario over in my mind as I return to my office and slump down at my desk in front of the catalog. Each time I play it out, though, it goes badly. From Nick being uninterested to Elijah being horrified at being a parent and rushing for the fight flight back to New York.
It’s too much to anticipate. On one hand, Elijah is entitled to know about his son, and Nick is getting to that age where he’s asking questions because everyone else at school has someone who shows up for the Father’s Day races.
I want Nick to have someone.
But on the other hand, my old crush on Elijah doesn’t mean he’ll be good for Nick. Sure, he’s his father, but can I really risk introducing him to Nick’s life when there’s a chance he could make it worse or just break Nick’s heart by deciding he doesn’t want to be a part of it?
All of that’s assuming Elijah isn’t utterly furious with me. He could use his money and infinite power to sue for custody and take Nick away from me. I could never fight someone like him. I’d try and I’d definitely lose. The thought makes me sick, so the rest of my terrible coffee ends up dumped in the potted fern by the window.
Elijah doesn’t strike me as a vindictive person, but at the end of the day, my feelings mean nothing when compared to Nick’s safety and well-being.
“Fuck,” I groan, sinking down onto my desk and causing my computer to scream at me when I hit the keyboard. “What am I supposed to do?”
Will I end up the bad guy? Nick might end up seeing me as the monster who hid his daddy from him, or the disruption might affect his development and schooling.
There’s far too much to think about and no matter what scenario I concoct, there’s a hundred reasons it’s bad just waiting around the corner.
Despair swells in my gut as I lift my head and focus on the toothless, beaming version of Nick resting inside the photo frame on my desk. “What do you want?” I ask it. “Do you want to know the truth? Do you want to meet your dad? Will you be mad at me? Will you stay with me even if it goes wrong?”
The silent picture holds no answers and only creates a sudden, overwhelming urge to see my son. Something I can't do for another few hours, but it’s enough fuel to return my focus to work. I’m ten more pages into the catalog when knuckles rap against the door and Jane’s head peeks around.
