A Secretive Deal with My Billionaire Boss (by Gregory Ellington) novel Chapter 457

Alexander

I pulled her against my chest, holding her tight while she cried. Her tears soaked into my skin, hot and accusatory. I deserved every one of them.

"I'm sorry," I said again. "I'm so sorry, baby. I'd take it all back if I could. Every stupid decision. Every moment I didn't fight for us."

"You can't take it back." She fisted her hands in my skin. "It already happened."

"I know. But I can do better now. I can be better." I stroked her hair, trying to soothe her. "I can be the man you and Ethan deserve. The father he needs. The partner you should have had from the start."

"How do I know you won't leave us again?" Her voice was muffled against my chest. "How do I know you won't wake up one day and decide this is too hard or too complicated?"

"Because I won't." I tilted her face up, wishing I could see her eyes clearly. "I'm not going anywhere. You're stuck with me now. Both of you."

"That's not a real answer."

"It's the only answer I have." I brushed my thumb across her cheekbone, feeling the dampness of tears. "I can't prove it with words. I can only show you through my actions. Through being here every single day. Through choosing you and Ethan over everything else."

She sniffled. "You promise?"

"I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die."

"That's so dramatic."

"You like drama." I kissed her forehead. "You were just watching that terrible romantic movie and got invested in the dramatic rain scene."

She laughed, the sound watery but genuine. "Shut up. I hate that I love it." She pressed her face back against my chest. "I hate that I still want you after everything. That I can't just move on and find someone normal who doesn't come with all this baggage."

"But you do want me."

"Unfortunately."

I smiled in the darkness. "Say it properly."

"Say what?"

"That you want me. That you love me too." I stroked her back in slow circles. "I laid it all out there. Your turn."

"That's not fair."

"Life's not fair. Say it anyway."

She was quiet for so long, I thought she might refuse. Then her voice came, soft and honest. "I love you. I've loved you since before I even realized what it meant. And I hate it because you hurt me so badly, but I can't stop."

Something in my chest cracked open. "Madison."

"Don't." She pushed against me slightly. "Don't say anything romantic or sweet right now. I'm still mad at you."

"You just said you love me."

"I can love you and be mad at you simultaneously. Women are multifaceted like that."

I laughed, the sound coming from deep in my chest. "Multifaceted. Got it."

"Mock me, and I'll knee you in the balls."

"Noted. No mocking the multifaceted woman."

She huffed but settled back against me, her body relaxing into mine. We lay there in silence for a while, just breathing together in the darkness. Her hand over my heart, my arms around her, our legs tangled together under the covers.

"Alexander?"

"Yeah?"

"What happens now?" Her voice was small. "With us. With everything."

"Now we figure it out together." I kissed the top of her head. "We take it one day at a time. I prove to you that I'm not going anywhere. You let yourself trust me again. We raise our son and build a life together."

"Just like that?"

"Realistic."

She shifted against me, and I felt the change immediately. Her body went from relaxed to tense, like she'd just remembered something that pissed her off.

"Realistic. You want to talk about realistic?" Her voice went sharp. "Let's talk about how realistic it was when I sent you that message telling you I was pregnant. When I was terrified and alone and desperate for any kind of response. And you just... nothing. Complete silence. Like I didn't even exist."

Fuck. Here we go.

"Madison, I never saw that message. I told you already."

"I know what you told me." She pushed against my chest, creating space between us. "But do you have any idea what that was like? Waiting for you to respond? Checking my phone every five minutes, hoping you'd call or text or show some sign you gave a shit?"

"I didn't see it because I was unconscious."

"But back then, I had no idea." Her voice cracked. "I thought you saw it and just didn't care. That you'd decided we weren't worth the trouble."

"Baby."

"Don't." She pulled further away. "Don't 'baby' me right now. I'm still processing this. The fact that Katherine probably deleted it. That you never even knew. It doesn't change the fact that I went through hell thinking you'd abandoned us."

I reached for her, pulling her back against me despite her resistance. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry you went through that."

"Sorry doesn't fix it." But she didn't pull away this time. "Sorry doesn't give me back those months of thinking you'd rejected our child."

"You're right. It doesn't."

"I cried myself to sleep so many nights. Wondering what I'd done wrong. Why didn't you want us?" Her fingers curled into my chest, gripping tight. "I was pregnant and hormonal and scared out of my mind. And I thought you had just thrown me away like garbage."

Jesus Christ. The image of her alone and pregnant, crying over a message I'd never even seen, made me want to punch something. Preferably, my own face for being such a fucking idiot.

"That's the only reason I'm giving you a discount on the madness and anger right now," she continued, her voice going quieter. "Because I believe that you genuinely didn't see it. That it wasn't intentional abandonment. Otherwise, I'd have made your life absolute hell for what you put me through."

"A discount?"