Aidan pushed away from the desk and stood to pace the floor for a full minute. Finally he looked at her. “Okay, I’m not going to think about your being gone for three months. We’ll just deal with these upcoming three weeks.”
“That might be best,” she murmured.
“I can’t stand in the way of you going, but what will we do without you for three weeks? It might not sound like a lot of time to you, but we’ve never gone that long without you before. And right now we’re swamped with work and no one else is qualified to fill your shoes.”
She smiled because she’d already made a point of finding solutions to those particular problems, thanks to her best friend, Serena, the catering manager.
“Serena and her secretary have agreed to assist the sales force with the convention work. And my secretary will take care of making sure the day-to-day office work gets done. I’ll be available by phone if there are any questions.”
“Damn, Ellie.”
She stood and met him face-to-face. “Look, Aidan. I wouldn’t leave if there was a doctor on the island who specialized in fertilization. But there isn’t, so I’m going to Atlanta.”
“But what if you go through all this and it doesn’t…” He seemed to weigh his words and decided not to finish that sentence. Probably smart of him.
She finished the thought for him. “What if the procedure doesn’t work?” She’d considered that possibility, too. “I’ll try again in a few months.”
He gritted his teeth. “Okay, I understand what you want to do and it’s not like I have a say in your decision, but I still think you’re jumping the gun here. You’re so young. What are you? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”
“Thirty.”
“That’s young,” he insisted. “You still have plenty of time to do it the—”
“Yes, yes, the old-fashioned way. You’ve mentioned it several times already.”
“It bears repeating,” he said amiably.
She quickly looked down at her tablet to avoid his knowing gaze. Was it getting hot in here? All this conversation about babies and “doing it the old-fashioned way” was stirring up feelings for Aidan that she’d long ago squelched. And not just emotional feelings, but an actual physical attraction to him. And that had to stop right now. “You realize this is absolutely none of your business, right?”
He had the nerve to grin. “Yeah.”
She sighed again. “Look, even if I do have plenty of time, I don’t have a partner. You know, someone who’s interested in providing the necessary equipment to get the job done.”
Could she make it any clearer than that?
“Oh. Right.” Aidan seemed to ponder that for a moment. “But what about that guy you were dating? Aren’t you still seeing him? What’s his name?”
“You know very well what his name is,” she said drily. “You introduced us, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said snidely. “Brad.”
“Blake,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Blake Farrell.”
“Right. What about Blake?”
Self-conscious now, Ellie avoided eye contact. “What about Blake for what?”
Aidan raised one eyebrow, but said nothing.
“Oh, fine,” she said, exasperated. She knew exactly what he was referring to. Sex. “If you must know, I’m not seeing Blake anymore.”
His mouth opened, then closed. After a pause, he said, “Ah. Sorry it didn’t work out.”
“You don’t sound sorry at all.”
“You’re right.” He grinned wolfishly. “I’m not. He wasn’t the guy for you.”
“But you introduced me to him.”
“You were both standing there,” he said with a shrug. “I was just being polite. I never expected you to start dating him. I’m glad you broke up. You can do a lot better than him.”
“Now you tell me,” she muttered. “After I already asked him to…” She stopped talking, but it was too late.
Aidan’s eyes narrowed in on her. “You asked him to be the father of your child?”
“I think this conversation has gone far enough.” She grabbed her tablet off the chair and turned to leave.
“Funny, I think it’s just getting started.” He circled around to meet her face-to-face, effectively preventing her from dashing out of his office. “Ellie, I introduced you to Blake three weeks ago. Are you saying that after three weeks of dating, you asked him to—”
“Yes. Yes, I did.” She began pacing again, but couldn’t get far with him standing right in front her. “I don’t know what I was thinking. But in my defense, we were going out every weekend, having a great time, getting to know each other. So one night at dinner he asked me where I saw myself in five years and I told him.”
“You told him what, exactly?”
She wanted to bury herself somewhere. Instead, she drew in a breath and said, “I told him that in five years I saw myself living on Alleria, working for Sutherland Corporation, and taking care of my adorable four-year-old child.”
She watched Aidan’s eyes widen. His lips quivered. He tried to bite back a grin, but it was useless. He finally began to laugh. “Let me get this straight. You basically told a guy you’ve been dating for three weeks that you’re looking for him to be your baby daddy?”
“Not exactly,” she said. But it was no use. His laughter was justified. “Okay, he might’ve interpreted it that way.”
“You think?”
“Stop laughing. What do I know? Blake was the first date I’ve had in three years.”
“Three years?” He looked her up and down. “What’s wrong with the guys you know?”
“It’s not them, it’s me.” Oh, dear lord. Could she sound like a bigger loser? She had to get out of there.
But Aidan grabbed her shoulders to keep her there and tilted his head to meet her gaze. “Honey, trust me. It’s not you. You’re smart, funny, beautiful. Any man would…well…” He faltered, frowning as he let go of her.
She blinked up at him, then frowned, too. “Well, what?”
He scowled as he walked back to his desk. “Just trust me. You’re not the problem.”
Ellie appreciated his words, but they didn’t really help right now. It wasn’t much fun admitting that she was a total loser when it came to men. Especially to admit it to Aidan Sutherland, who was not only her boss but also the man she had been crushing on for almost four years.
Not
