Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
“You could let us all help more.”
“I know,” I agreed. “But things are good now. She actually slept for four and a half hours last night. All together. I feel like a new person. And it’s only going to keep getting better. Barring no regression. Sorry. I have to get this,” I said when I saw my boss’s name on my phone screen.
Another client who just wouldn’t work with anyone else, I imagined.
But no.
It was worse.
Much worse.
“We talked about this, Nick,” I said, pacing the kitchen, my hand running through my hair, likely making it greasier by the moment.
Because what the hell?
How could he spring something like this on me so quickly after having a baby? I couldn’t be seen at some fancy event. In a tight dress.
“We talked about you not being at work.” Also known as maternity leave. “We did not discuss you leaving us high and dry at mandatory after-hours work events.”
It had honestly just skipped my mind. With everything else I’d been worried about, I’d forgotten to be worried about the stupid annual client appreciation gala.
“It is a work-adjacent event,” I insisted.
“Imagine how bad it would reflect on you and the company for your clients to look for you and not see you. Not think you appreciate them and their business.”
He was making a case to have an excuse to write me up. To start compiling a file that would allow him eventually to fire me without repercussions.
I had to go.
“Fine,” I said, sighing.
“And bring your significant other,” Nick said, hanging up before I could object.
“Dammit.”
I slammed the phone down on the counter hard enough to make Gracie jolt, then press Adelaide to her shoulder and make her way toward me.
“What’s going on? Did something happen?”
“My boss is making me attend that stupid gala.”
“Oh,” Gracie said, frowning. “That sucks. If you’re worried about the baby, Perish and I can watch her.”
“I’m worried about squeezing into a dress. And having an issue with leaking through it. And needing to find somewhere to pump, since these things go on forever. And, oh, God, having a date. I have to bring a date. Because I made the mistake of letting work think I’m actually with someone.”
“Oh,” Gracie said, wincing. “Yeah, that’s a pickle, huh? Well, okay. Let’s go through this.” She jiggled a fussy Adelaide. “Your body is amazing. I think you’re being too critical. Really, you don’t look much different. Aside from the boobs. Which are fantastic, by the way.”
She probably wasn’t wrong. Any changes I did see in my body were things that only someone who saw me naked would be able to see: stretch marks and squishy bits.
Fully dressed, maybe even with some compression on, I probably wouldn’t look any different.
“And as for the milk, you have a manual pump. I know it takes longer, but you won’t have to worry about the sound, if that’s a concern.”
It was.
There weren’t many places to pump at the event. A couch in the small lounge that led into the ladies’ room. That was it. No privacy and also… no plug. But if we were in hour four or five and my boobs were starting to feel like concrete, I had to have an option for relief. Even an imperfect one like a manual pump.
“I guess,” I agreed. “But the biggest issue persists.”
The worst part was that I’d created this problem myself.
I’d spent months carefully constructing the fiction of a happy relationship because I was afraid of what people at work would think if they knew the truth. And now the lie had grown legs and walked directly into an invitation to a black-tie event.
I couldn’t exactly show up alone and announce that my imaginary significant other was out of town on business, not without rousing suspicion.
And I couldn’t tell my boss the truth.
Not when I’d spent so much time convincing him that I had a partner. Not when I already suspected he was looking for reasons to question my commitment to my job.
I needed a man.
A convincing man.
A man who could stand beside me for an entire evening without making it obvious that we barely knew each other.
“Well, I mean, does it?” Gracie asked. “It’s not like there is any shortage of men in our extended family.”
“I’m not taking a cousin of mine to an event.”
“Okay. But there are guys in our circle who aren’t family.”
“Sure, but do you really think slapping a suit on them would make them work?”
“They are pretty rough-around-the-edges, huh? Well, we could see about—” There was a creak on the steps, making Gracie’s face light up. But before I could beg her not to, she was turning toward my handyman. “Owen!”
“Gracie!” I hissed.
“Heya, Gracie,” Owen said, brows pinching at her enthusiasm, since he’d already greeted her.
“Willa here has a bit of a problem.”
“I don’t. I can take…” I racked my brain for literally anyone in my family who I could convincingly act like was my spouse. But I came up blank.