One Fateful Night with My Boss novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Eleven Calls

Nelson swears he called her eleven times; Francine swears no one did; she admits Percy is his and asks for nothing, until his grandfather walks in and sees the boy's chin.

His office was on the fourteenth floor, with a wall of glass and a desk the size of my first apartment.

Percy sat on the leather couch with a juice box from the break room and a stapler he had been told not to touch.

Nelson closed the door and stood with his back against it.

For a while neither of us said anything.

"I called you," he said.

"What?"

"A dozen times. The number you wrote on the hotel notepad."

He said it flatly.

"I called that number once a day for a week, and then every few days until the end of November."

"A dozen calls, Francine. I have the dates."

"Nobody called me," I said.

My voice came out harder than I meant it to.

"I waited by that phone for three weeks. I would have picked up on the first ring."

"A woman picked up," he said. "Every time."

"That's impossible."

"She told me you were back with your ex-boyfriend. She said you didn't want to hear from me."

I stared at him.

My only ex had been my boyfriend in college, and he lived in Dayton now.

I had not spoken to him since the January before that night.

"Then you were told a lie, and you believed it," I said.

"And you left Columbus in the same month without telling anyone, so I would say we have a problem with which of us believes whom."

His jaw went tight, but he didn't argue.

That was the first thing about him I had forgotten and now remembered: he listened, even when it hurt.

He looked at the couch, where my son was building a tower out of paper clips.

"Is he mine?" he asked.

I could have lied.

I had a fast, ugly lie ready, with a boyfriend in it and a bus ticket and a month that did not line up.

It would have saved me everything I was about to lose.

"Yes," I said.

Nelson shut his eyes for exactly one breath.

When he opened them, they were wet, and he did not try to hide it.

"I'm not asking you for anything," I said, before he could speak.

"I want you to hear that first."

"I took this job because it pays well and because I never knew your last name."

"Percy and I have a one-bedroom and a good life, and I can keep it that way."

"I'll work for you, if you let me, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know about him."

"But I will not take more money, and I will not be your problem to fix."

He was quiet for a moment.

"You took it once," he said.

"In a hotel room."

"I did," I said. "I was twenty-three, you were thirty-two, and we were both sober."

"I named my price for one night, you paid it, and it went to my mother's heart."

"That account is closed."

"Eleventh floor," he said, almost gently.

My face went hot, and I looked at the window.

"I'm not going to hide a son, Francine," he said. "I'm not going to hide him from you, or from my board, or from anyone."

"I am asking one thing. I want to know him."

"Not today," I said.

"No," he agreed. "Not today."

I should have felt like I'd won something.

Instead I felt the way you feel after you put down a very heavy suitcase.

Your arms don't know what to do.

"Mr. Holloway?" Percy said from the couch.

We both jumped.

He had stapled three sheets of Nelson's letterhead to the arm of the couch, and he was holding the stapler.

"Do you have a dog?" he asked.

"No," Nelson said, after a very long second.

"Do you have pancakes?"

"I... can get pancakes."

Percy nodded slowly.

"Then you can be my dad," he said, "because Mom says it depends on the pancakes."

"I did not say that."

"You said it at the diner when I was four."

I put my face in my hand.

Nelson made a small sound.

It took me a moment to realize it was a laugh, cracked and surprised.

His left cheek had folded into a dimple.

Percy's folded into the same dimple, a half second later.

Two faces with one dimple, side by side, and nothing I said would ever pull them apart.

The door opened without a knock.

An old man in a tweed jacket leaned on a cane in the doorway.

He had white hair, a pressed shirt and very sharp grey eyes.

He had clearly come to give his grandson a lecture about the lobby.

He looked at Nelson, then at me, and then at the boy on the couch.

The cane slipped from his hand and hit the carpet.

"Grandfather," Nelson said. "This isn't..."

"That," the old man said, in a voice gone rough, "is my wife's chin."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend