She's Having the Boss's Baby Read Online Free PDF Page B

with her. Rather than give any love or attention to her own children, their mother had kept it all inside, saving it up, just in case their father ever returned. Except he never did. He didn’t want anything to do with them. He had moved on, found another woman to marry, a woman who gave birth to children he cared for much more than he had ever cared about his first two daughters.
    But Ellie’s mother never gave up on him, never stopped loving him or chasing him, never stopped pretending that he would come back one day. She was always ready, always perfectly dressed and coifed in case he showed up at the door. She insisted that the girls be ready, too. And in her own subtle way, their mother never stopped blaming Ellie and Brenna for causing him to leave. That is, when she managed to remember that she had two children who needed her.
    One day, when the girls and their mother were enjoying a rare moment of fun at a local hamburger stand, their mother thought she spied their father walking down the sidewalk. She raced outside to catch him, saw the man cross the street and blindly dashed after him. She was struck and killed by a city bus.
    It was one of many lessons that Ellie took with her into adulthood. She would never, ever cling to or chase after a man who didn’t love her. Ellie wouldn’t do to her own child what her mother had done to Ellie and Brenna.
    After all, she didn’t want to get hit by a bus.
    More than that, she refused to allow her self-esteem to be shattered as her mother’s had been. Her mother had made a fool of herself over and over again. She had deluded herself for years and, slowly but surely, the delusions had replaced reality. Ellie would never allow that to happen to her.
    She carried her teacup over to the sink and rinsed it out. As the water ran, she thought about the tiny creature in her sister’s ultrasound photo, silently waiting to be born into a loving family that couldn’t wait to greet their newest little member.
    Ellie was so excited for Brenna. The two of them had basically raised themselves after their mother died, staying under the radar so that the county wouldn’t send Ellie into foster care. How they’d managed it, they still didn’t know. But it meant that they were fiercely loyal to each other. Brenna had taught Ellie so much more about life and real love than she’d ever learned from her mother.
    One thing Brenna always wished for herself and Ellie was that someday they would each have their own big, boisterous families to love. She imagined how Christmas mornings would be, with their children staring in awe at all the colorful packages under the tree. It would be a noisy, busy, frenzied moment when they all ripped into their presents and shouted out their joy and excitement.
    Ellie smiled at the memory. Now that Brenna’s dream had come true, now that she had Brian and a wonderful family of her own, Ellie couldn’t be happier. They were her family, too.
    Brenna always told Ellie that someday it would happen for her, too. She would meet a man who would love her and want to start a family with her. Ellie had thought she could wait for that day. But five days ago, Blake broke up with her—probably a good thing—and the very next day, her sister announced she was having another baby by way of sending the ultrasound photo.
    “You’re going to be an auntie again!” the email subject line announced gaily.
    Gazing at the fuzzy outline of Brenna’s third child, Ellie had realized that someday might never come for her. She might always be an auntie, never a mom. That’s when she’d impulsively made the decision to do something about it. She would go it alone. And she would do it right away, before she could think about it too much and pick apart all the reasons why she shouldn’t do it. She phoned the Atlanta fertility clinic that very minute and made the appointment.
    So that was done. Now she just had to deal with one more wrinkle in her plan.
    Aidan.
    As Ellie