Miranda Lee - The Boss's Baby

‘Please don’t, Olivia. God, I can’t bear to see you like this.’

‘I...I’m sorry,’ she blubbered.

‘It’s not you who should be apologising.’

Olivia heard his guilt and felt terrible. With a great effort of will she pulled herself together and rolled over to face him. ‘But it wasn’t your fault, Lewis.’

‘Yeah, right.’

His eyes dropped from hers, his shoulders sagging.

Olivia took the glass of water he was holding and drank deeply, using the time it took to empty the glass to collect herself, and her thoughts. She supposed she could keep indulging herself and totally fall apart. Or she could face what she’d done, honestly and without melodrama, and try to go on from there.

The temptation to just throw in the towel was strong, she had to admit. After all, what was the point in going on? The future she’d been working for and planning towards had no hope of being revived. Yvette had seen to that Olivia knew it would take ages before she could trust her heart to another man. If ever.

Olivia was a very careful person.

When she was sober, that was.

Olivia gulped down the last of the water and came to a decision. Lewis didn’t deserve her adding to his guilt in this matter. She could at least pretend she was all right for now, even if it wasn’t so.

There was no doubt in her mind, however, that she would have to resign. How could she possibly face Lewis day after day in this very office? How could she stop the memory of this afternoon from undermining both her own self-respect and the respect her boss once had for her?

Still...the resigning could wait till after the Christmas break. Frankly, she was far too fragile to do anything at the moment except go back to her flat and go to bed.

Alone.

But first she had to make Lewis feel better about his part in all this.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, and handed him back the empty glass.

His eyes lifted to search her face. ‘Are you going to be all right, Olivia?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, although her smile was small and wan. ‘I’m just being a typical woman.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You’re far from being a typical woman.’

Olivia blushed fiercely and Lewis groaned. ‘That’s not what I meant, damn it! Hell, I can’t seem to do anything right.’

‘I think you’ve done a lot of things right, Lewis. Not many men would be as considerate or caring in the same circumstances. Believe me when I say I don’t blame you for a single thing.’

‘That’s because you’re not in my body.’

Olivia decided to leave that one well and truly alone. ‘What’s done is done,’ she said wearily. ‘I think we’re both being far too hard on ourselves.’

The corner of Lewis’s mouth lifted in a wry expression. ‘Naturally. We’re human beings. But perhaps you’re right. Enough is enough. I’d better take you home now. You still look a little green around the gills.’

Olivia didn’t doubt it. She felt dreadful. Alcohol poisoning, probably. Either that or some of the seafood she’d devoured with gay abandon on her champagne high might have harboured some gut-raising bacteria.

‘I’ll bring the car round to the side door,’ Lewis offered, ‘and meet you there in... say... five minutes?’

Olivia was grateful for the opportunity to retrieve her underwear in private, although the action of gulling them on sent her back to that unbelievable moment when she’d taken them off. Had that really been her, that incredibly bold and sexy woman who’d held Lewis in thrall? He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, hadn’t been able to stop himself from wanting her.

Olivia shuddered violently. She still could not believe what she’d done. Looking back, it was as if it had been some other person saying and doing those things.

Shaking her head, she leant against the desk while she angled her feet back into her shoes then stuffed the ends of her blouse back into her skirt. When she walked out to her own office the first thing she saw was the black bow she’d so recklessly pulled out of her hair all those hours earlier. Groaning, she shoved the painful reminder into her handbag, swept up her jacket from the back of her chair and hurried out of the room.

Lewis was waiting for her by the side door, sitting behind the wheel of his sleek navy Fairlane Ghia. Spotting her, he was out of the car in a flash.

‘I was keeping the air-conditioning running,’ he said as he steered her gently over to the passenger door. ‘You might have to give me directions. I know you live in Gladesville somewhere, but I’m not sure of the address.’

‘Just head down Victoria Road,’ she said wretchedly while he settled her in the passenger seat and buckled the seat belt for her. When his arm twice brushed across her still aching breasts she flinched, then froze. ‘I...I’ll tell you where to turn,’ she said stiffly.

Thank God it was only about a fifteen-minute drive at this time of day. The thought of going anywhere in a car with her dangerously rolling stomach was horrendous, the thought of having to bear much more of Lewis’s solicitous attentions even worse.

The urge to scream at him was intense. Yet why should she want to do that? It was Nicholas she should be screaming at. He was the bastard, not her boss.

Somehow she got through the next quarter of an hour, but when the Fairlane slid quietly into the kerb outside her block of flats she exhaled deeply, which brought a sharp sideways glance from Lewis.

‘I’m coming up with you,’ he announced baldly.

Her head whipped round, her expression pained. ‘Oh, no, Lewis, please don’t. I...I just want to be alone.’

‘I don’t want any arguments, Olivia.’

Groaning, she closed her eyes. Olivia knew her boss could be stubborn. And quite forceful at times. She could admire such qualities at work, but not here, and not now.

Time for a little forcefulness of her own.

Steeling her still queasy stomach, she faced him with an equally stubborn expression. ‘I’m sorry, Lewis, but we’re not at work now, and you’ll just have to take no for an answer. If you’re worried I might do something silly, then don’t I’m made of tougher stuff than that.’

‘We all have moments of weakness, Olivia,’ he said quietly, and she wondered if he was talking about what had happened earlier, or how he had felt when his wife left him. ‘It’s not good to be alone,’ he added tellingly, ‘when you’re this unhappy.’

‘I won’t be alone,’ she told him. ‘At least...not for long. I’m going home tomorrow for the entire Christmas break.’

‘Where’s home?’ he asked, then shook his head in exasperation. ‘God, I don’t even know that, do I? I don’t know much about you at all. You’ve been my private and personal secretary for eighteen months and I know no more about you than I would a temp. Why is that, Olivia? Is that your fault, or mine?’

She shrugged. ‘If you recall, when you hired me I was warned not to dress too flashily and not to be too familiar in my manner towards you. Your wife didn’t care for your last secretary’s forwardness, remember?’

‘Yes, I remember,’ he said ruefully.

‘That’s the only reason I told you about my relationship with Nicholas—because I thought it might put Dinah’s mind at rest about any possible intentions she might think I secretly harboured towards you.’

‘And why you never do yourself up much for work, perhaps?’

‘In a way.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It actually suits me to dress the way I do,’ she told him with a tight, dry little smile. ‘It’s cheap.’

Lewis frowned. ‘Cheap?’

Olivia almost laughed. ‘That’s something you should have worked out about me, Lewis. I’m cheap. Oh, not in the way I was cheap today, though God knows that was cheap to end all cheaps. But cheap meaning money. In other words, I’m tight-fisted. Stingy. Penny-pinching. I have a penchant for budgets, you see. And savings. And lists. Oh, yes, I’m a great list-maker.

‘But my worst sin of all,’ she swept on, ‘is that I’m boring. According to my recently defunct fiancé, I don’t have a spontaneous, impulsive bone in my body. That’s why he left me in favour of a fantastic, funloving free spirit named Yvette who does all sorts of exciting things to him, things boring old Olivia would never do in a million years!

‘But he was wrong, wasn’t he?’ She flashed Lewis a sickly smile, near hysteria hiding behind its savage sweetness. ‘I can do those things. And in an office, no less. Nicholas would have been surprised, don’t you think?’

‘I think you should forget about Nicholas,’ Lewis advised.

‘Oh, I will. In time. I’m going in now, Lewis. Alone. Sorry I didn’t get you anything for Christmas. I meant to buy something today, but today didn’t turn out quite like I’d planned. Nothing lately is turning out quite like I planned. Do have a happy Christmas and a well deserved break. Not that you will. I know you’ll spend the next five weeks in your laboratory, inventing more marvellous new products for your All Woman line. But that’s not work to you, is it? That’s your pleasure. I’m rattling on, aren’t I? Sorry. I’m fine. Truly. This time tomorrow I’ll be on the train home. Funnily enough, I’m almost looking forward to it. Didn’t think I ever would. Christmas at home is always a madhouse. Maybe this year I’ll fit right in.

‘See you in five weeks, boss,’ she added as she scrambled out of the car.

Olivia waved him off with a plastic smile on her face. Yes, she would see him again in five weeks. With her resignation letter in tow. Her conscience demanded she stay on for the four weeks’ notice required in her contract, but that was as much as she could cope with.

It would be difficult to face him every day, but she would manage. And she would find Lewis a replacement who wouldn’t give him any trouble, a nice, efficient, sensible, mature woman. Married, preferably. Happily married.

Poor Lewis hadn’t had much luck with his secretaries lately. First, an oversexed blonde trying to catch herself a meal-ticket for life, then an undersexed brunette trying to prove she could be a right raver when required.

The right raver felt anything but as she made her way on glass legs up the stairs of the plain red-brick building to her ancient and tiny second-floor flat. Her head was pounding and her stomach on the roll again. She just made it to the bathroom before being sick once more.

After her stomach was well and truly empty, she stripped and stood under the shower for ages, trying to wash the various smells from her body.

Feeling only marginally better but a lot cleaner, she finally emerged, dried herself, dragged on an oversized T-shirt then lay down on top of her bed. After half an hour she abandoned the idea of sleep in the claustrophobic and stuffy room, and rose to throw open the windows then make herself some black coffee. Pain tablets didn’t seem like a good idea on her heaving stomach, despite the throbbing in her temples. An ice-pack helped a little.

By seven, she’d managed a little Vegemite toast, washed down with some more strong black coffee. Afterwards, she tried to pack, but in the end abandoned the idea in favour of television. Watching an episode of Cracker made her feel marginally better, her messed-up life seeming quite normal compared to the twisted, tortured lives in that show.

It also took her mind off things. It was eleven by the time she turned off the television and faced sleep once more. She was lying there, staring blankly up at the ceiling, when she remembered her pill.