Taboo Boss - Natasha L. Black Page 0,79

words, and I decided to cut in before she could say anything else. If there was a chance to keep her before she made the jump, this was the time.

“Look, I know things are difficult, and you aren’t comfortable working with me right this moment, and I get that. And I know I’m the one who encouraged you to fill out that application. It’s just that, well, I don’t want you to leave your position,” I said.

“I’m pregnant,” she blurted out.

I was halfway through another word when the interruption registered. There were at least a few seconds where I had my mouth open, the word still trying to come out, while my brain registered what the interruption actually was, and what that meant. My eyes instinctively floated to her stomach, then back up to her eyes.

“Pregnant?” I asked.

“I’m pregnant,” she repeated, this time not looking like the words got out without her meaning them to. She straightened up in the seat and looked calm and collected, but I could see her eyes measuring me. Trying to read my reaction.

“Are you sure?” I was able to mumble. It was the only thing I had at the ready. Every other thought and feeling and word was tied up with each other, all fighting their way to my throat.

“I am. Completely,” she said. There was a finality to that. No ambiguity.

“Oh,” I said, cursing my sudden inability to speak.

“So far, the only person that knows besides you and I is Ava,” she said. I turned to look at Ava at the bar, and she kind of half waved at me, then realized that meant she’d been watching us and I saw it and suddenly turned her back to me again.

“Ava,” I said, as if the name was foreign to me. I couldn’t think. I certainly couldn’t speak. Emotions and thoughts were coursing through me at lightning speed, and none of them slowed down long enough for me to concentrate on them. Instead I just looked back to Amanda, who looked like she was getting upset.

“Ava, yes. She is the only person I trusted. I talked to her about it, and she told me about how she hid her pregnancy and how I needed to tell you as soon as possible,” she said. I nodded and stared at the table. A glass was in front of Amanda, and it just registered that it was filled with orange juice. I had never known her to drink orange juice except in the breakfasts that we had in the hotel room just upstairs.

The mornings after we made love.

Upstairs.

Where we made a baby.

“You told Ava,” I repeated, encouraged by the fact that I was able to repeat something rather than immediately begin blurting out the mathematics of how the baby had been conceived and where, like was on my mind. Images of Amanda’s naked, succulent body, wrapped in the bedsheets, and around my hips coursed through my memories. I tried to shake them off.

“Yes. Ava. She is the one who convinced me to come out here. She encouraged me to fly here today. She even arranged it and paid for it,” Amanda said. I noticed something in her voice. It had gotten cold.

“So, you flew back. To tell me you’re pregnant,” I said, my brain finally feeling like it was registering the situation, putting all the blocks into place and getting me back on track to being able to meaningfully contribute again.

Amanda sighed and threw her cloth napkin down on the table in front of her. She grabbed the orange juice and drank the remainder of it in one big gulp, then sat it down and stood up.

“I knew I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said. “This was a mistake.”

Before I could get words out of my mouth, she stomped away and was out the door before I could stand. I looked over to Ava, whose eyes were wide, and she took off after her while I stood there, dumbfounded and speechless.

34

Amanda

I didn’t have time before dinner to check in to the hotel, so I had just left my luggage at the front desk and gone straight to the restaurant. Fighting tears, I crossed the lobby back to the desk. I didn’t want to cry, but the tears were welling up, and I just couldn’t push them back any longer.

All I could hope was that I would manage to get up to my room before they came spilling out. I got up to the desk, and the clerk