Everyone Mocks the Pregnant "Nobody," She's Secretly the Boss's Wife novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Check

The chairman offers her a check and a gag form, she refuses the money and takes a job on his floor, and Nolan tells her she should have run.

The elevator to forty was glass on one side, and I watched the lake get smaller.

I had worked in that building for eight months and had never once been above floor nine.

The doors opened on carpet so thick my flat shoes made no sound.

Lionel Tunstall's office took up the whole east corner.

He was standing at the window when I came in, a silver-haired man in a charcoal suit with his hands behind his back.

Imogen sat on the couch with a mug in her lap.

She stood up at once and put the mug in my hands.

"Ginger and honey," she said. "Sit, Avery. Please."

I sat.

Lionel turned around and looked at me for a long moment.

"Ms. Collins," he said. "You made a scene in front of forty employees and my son."

"I didn't raise my voice," I said.

"No," he said. "That was the unusual part."

He crossed to his desk and opened a drawer.

He took out a long envelope and a single sheet of paper and laid both in front of me.

"The check is for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars," he said. "The paper says you have no claim of any kind on this company or anyone in it, and that you will not name the father of your child."

I looked at the number.

It was more money than my father had left behind, my mother's care home included.

"You think the father is someone in this company," I said.

"I think you made a scene over a man at lunch, and I would like to know whose name will be on the birth certificate."

His voice was pleasant, which was the worst part.

"It's private," I said.

"On this floor, nothing is."

I put the paper face down on the desk.

"I'm not signing it."

"Ms. Collins," Imogen said gently, "he's being generous."

She had come around the couch and was crouching by my chair, so that her face was level with mine.

"I know how scary it is when the insurance runs out," she said. "People in your position forget that."

I felt my stomach go tight.

"My insurance runs out?"

"The day you stop working here," Lionel said. "Which, with that sheet unsigned, could be today. You are twenty-five weeks along."

He said it so evenly that it took me a moment to understand it was a threat.

The door opened behind me.

I knew his footsteps before he spoke.

"Dad, leave her alone."

Nolan was in the doorway with his jacket open and his tie pulled loose.

He did not look at me.

"Ah," Lionel said. "My son has an opinion about payroll."

"I have an opinion about you leaning on a pregnant employee."

"Then you'll be glad of my second offer."

Lionel took the check back and slid it into the drawer.

"Ms. Collins will not sign, and she will not leave," he said. "So she will work where I can see her."

He pressed a button on his phone.

"Forty. Outside my son's office. Assistant's desk, double her current salary, full benefits starting today."

Nolan's head snapped around.

"No."

"If the child is yours, I'll see it inside a week," Lionel said. "If it isn't, a girl with a better desk costs me nothing."

"She's a payroll clerk," Nolan said. "She isn't qualified."

"She'll learn. You have a wedding dinner to plan and a vote on Friday, and I want a witness."

I understood then that he did not know about the marriage.

He thought he was setting a trap.

And I understood that Nolan was standing three feet from me and would not say one word in my favor.

Forty was the floor I had spent eight months trying to reach.

I had not expected to be carried up to it by the man I had come to see.

"I'll take the job," I said.

Imogen smiled and squeezed my hand.

"Wonderful. I'll have a welcome basket sent up."

Lionel nodded.

"Tomorrow at eight, Ms. Collins. Bring nothing from downstairs."

"I'll start today," I said. "I'm already here."

Nolan finally looked at me.

His face was gray around the mouth.

I picked up my bag and walked past him into the hall, and he came out after me.

We rode down together alone.

I stood against the glass with the baby kicking at my ribs and he stood at the controls, not touching anything.

At the twentieth floor he spoke without looking at me.

"You should have taken the check and run."

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