Feelings that came quite easily to her now, since four weeks ago when that stick had turned pink and her whole life had been tossed upside down and around like a Tilt-a-Whirl. Before that moment, she had been blithely considering selling her shop and contemplating her feelings toward Ben. She had been wondering if perhaps it was time to stand on her own two feet separate from her parents and their pocketbooks and grow up just a little bit.
That had been four weeks ago.
Now she was going to be a mum.
Ben had gone bye-bye.
And growing up was no longer an option, but a necessity.
She’d sold the shop, receiving an offer much quicker than she had expected, and while her parents had assured her she could keep the capital gains when the closing went through next month, it was still absolutely necessary to get a nine-to-five job. With health insurance.
She wanted this baby badly, despite its unexpected timing. And she wanted to raise her child on her own two feet, without running to Daddy and Mother for help. She wanted her child to have a self-reliant and responsible mother, with a stable income.
“Good. No throwing up allowed. And save the bitter for later. Right now you need to project confidence and intelligence. Remember what I told you—Damien Sharpton is an impatient man, a total workaholic. He doesn’t tolerate weakness.”
Mandy remembered. She remembered every horrible thing that Caroline had said about the man, from the grimace she always gave when she brought up his name, to the fact that he had run through four assistants in the previous year.
“He made his last assistant cry almost every day for two weeks until she quit.”
“Nice guy.” Mandy concentrated on taking little tiny breaths and swallowing slowly. Her fingers quivered as the nausea roseup for one frantic moment, then settled back down again. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
“And don’t forget,” Caroline said as she reached forward and brushed something off the shoulder of Mandy’s black suit jacket, “that you’re not pregnant.”
It was still so incredibly bizarre to think that she was, in fact, pregnant. She didn’t feel maternal, so it shouldn’t be that hard to fake. She felt as though she had a horrific case of the flu, but she couldn’t really fathom there was a baby growing inside her. She touched her stomach, brushing her hands over the button on her blouse.
She was thrilled. She was terrified.
She was going to be sick.
Mandy clamped her lips tightly shut and breathed through her nose.
“Mr. Sharpton won’t hire you if he thinks you’re pregnant. But if he hires you and we hide the pregnancy from him for a while, well, when the truth finally becomes obvious, he won’t be able to fire you without legal issues. And he absolutely hates to think there was something his superior intelligence didn’t pick up on, so he’ll never, ever admit that he didn’t realize you were pregnant when he hired you.”
It sounded all rather complicated to Mandy at the moment, when she was fighting to stay vertical and not slide to the floor like a narcoleptic. She had never been so tired in her entire life. Vampire victims probably had more energy than she did.
“But won’t he be angry when he finds out?” And given how pleasant Mr. Sharpton sounded, Mandy didn’t think that would be a fun day in the office.
“We’ll just act like we told him you were back in the beginning. I told you, he’ll never admit he didn’t know.”
Caroline started walking toward the elevators, and Mandy followed, shuffling in her boots. She had heels in the bag onher shoulder to change into, unwilling to tromp through the slushy March snow in them. Somehow Caroline had managed to stay completely intact on the two-block walk from the subway, whereas Mandy felt rumpled and pimply and swollen. She felt like she was thirteen and facing her mother over the table.
How could you have wrinkled that blouse in the three minutes it takes to walk from your bedroom to the dining room?
“Thanks, Caroline, for getting me this interview. It couldn’t have been easy since I have no marketable skills to speak of.”
Caroline looked outraged. “Mandy! Check that defeatist attitude at the door. You have run your own business for three years. Everything Mr. Sharpton asks you can be answered in some way with that. You have computer experience, employee management experience, and you’ve dealt with distributors and done your own marketing. You are overqualified for this job. Besides, I got you the first interview with HR, but you passed that round and got yourself the actual interview with Sharpton.”
Mandy managed a smile. Caroline, Allison, and Jamie had rallied around her, the true friends that they were, offering support and a shoulder to lean on. Allison and Jamie had staunchly assured her she could stay in their admittedly already crowded apartment after the baby was born, since Caroline was getting married in July and moving out.
And now Caroline was risking her reputation at Launchpoint, where she was a marketing manager, by securing Mandy an appointment with HR, which had led to this interview with Demon Sharpton, her hopefully soon-to-be boss. The fact that he had been given that nickname by the executive assistants on his floor, based on the freaky little boy Damien from the classic horror movieThe Omen,was unimportant. About as frightening as getting caught under a kicking horse, but unimportant. This was her future, and she could do this.
“You’re right, you’re absolutely right. I will project confidence, and I won’t run out screaming or burst into tears unless a jackal pops out from under his desk. Then I’m out of there.”
Caroline laughed as they stepped onto the elevator. “Remember, eighteenth floor. I’m getting off on twelve. HR has screwed up the amount they’re withdrawing on my taxes again.” She shook her head. “I can’t wait to see how long it will take for them to change my name after the wedding.”
“I’m so happy for you, Caroline. I can’t believe it’s only a few months until the wedding.”
“Sixteen weeks. Give or take a day.” Caroline grinned. “Brad and I are booking our honeymoon to Paris tomorrow.”
