Page 20 of Surprise! I'm Engaged To My Boss
“Whyme?”
“Because someone filmed us on Friday night, going to the hotel room together, and leaving on Saturday morning.”
She put her hands to her head, looking worried.
“What do you mean they filmed it? Are they going to put it on the internet? My God, if this gets to my grandmother...”
What did her grandmother have to do with anything?
I didn't want to be selfish, but... gosh, the focus here was onme.
Okay, maybe it sounded a bit selfish when I said it like that. That's why I suppressed that thought. The attribute of 'selfishness' was part of the bad reputation that I needed to clean up at any cost.
“No one is going to send anything to your grandmother. Your grandmother has no relevance whatsoever.”
She pointed her index finger at me again, furious. I guess I had made a poor choice of words.
“Repeat that one more time and I'll leave here straight to a police station to report you for harassment and for trying to bribe me.”
For God's sake, the last thing I needed was a complaint against me.
I took a deep breath, trying to get my own ideas in order. I had started this whole thing off in a bad way, and I needed to fix it.
“Please, Camila, let's sit down and I'll explain everything to you.”
“Explain what? None of this makes any sense. You know what? I quit. I’m grabbing my stuff and walking out of here before you say something worse and we end up with a much bigger problem.”
She turned, starting to walk towards the elevator.
But I couldn’t let her walk away. Things were already bad enough for me, and they’d only get worse if the woman I’d been caught heading to a hotel room with after a night of drinking—who also happened to be my employee—ended up quitting on the first business day after it all happened. I could already imagine the kind of argument those bloodthirsty hellhound lawyers would use against me.
I needed to make Collins understand how serious and important this all was.
She was already reaching the elevator when I declared, practically shouting, “I have a daughter.”
And I thanked the heavens that my statement had made her stop.
Chapter Nine
MICHAEL
After she stopped, Camila Collins took a few seconds to turn to face me. Then, she asked, in a curious tone:
“And what does a daughter have to do with this strange proposal you made to me?”
I pointed to the armchairs again and asked:
“Please come back and sit down, I promise I'll explain everything to you.”
She still hesitated for a few moments, while I looked at her with the best expression of despair I could muster – after all, that was how I really felt.
Until finally, she walked back toward me, slowly, still eyeing me with suspicion.
But to my relief, she sat down. I did the same in the armchair beside hers and began to explain:
“I only found out about Alice—my daughter—when she was already three months old. Her mother, Leah, sent me an email with some pictures of her. We arranged to meet the next day so I could finally see the baby, but… Leah was in a car accident that same night. She didn’t make it. Her parents didn’t want me anywhere near the baby. I went to court and won the right to get a DNA test. Once it came back positive, I was finally able to put my name on her birth certificate. Now, I’ve filed a new case to get full custody.”
“So that's why you said you're trying to change your public image?”
