Chapter Three
Sarah
Four Years Later
“Mommy! Mommy! Wake up!”
I groaned and attempted to pull my blanket over my head, but the rambunctious little girl in my bed didn’t allow for that. She just stuck her head under the blanket with me.
“What we doing?” she asked in a whisper.
That startled a laugh out of me, and I opened my eyes to see my favorite face in the whole world just inches in front of my own.
Alexis was the best surprise I ever got in my life. Four years ago, after my first and only one-night stand, I spent the following weeks looking for a new job since I couldn’t stand to work for the woman my ex cheated with. Job hunting proved to be stressful and distracting, so I didn’t notice right away when I missed my period.
It was around the two-month mark, when morning sickness kicked in, that I realized there was a possibility I’d gotten pregnant that night. I knew it couldn’t be Jason’s because the two of us hadn’t been sleeping together at the end of our relationship. At the time, I thought it was just a dry spell, but it turned out that he wasn’t reaching for me in the night because he was getting his pleasure elsewhere.
In the end, I was glad for that. The last thing I wanted was to be tied to that worm for the rest of my life because we shared a child.
Alexis was Dmitri’s child, and she shared his deep brown eyes.
Unfortunately, there was no way for me to share this news with him. I didn’t know anything about the man, not even his last name. All I had to go on was that he owned a construction company, if that was even true.
I didn’t even know if the company was based in New York City. Just because that was where we met, it didn’t necessarily mean he lived here. There was simply no way to find him and tell him, so I decided to devote myself to being a kickass single mom instead.
“I’m hungry,” Alexis said, pulling my mind back to the present.
“I guess we should do something about that,” I said, flinging the blanket off of us. “How about I make you a delicious bowl of spinach?”
“Eww!” she shrieked, and I laughed before tickling her sides. Teasing her like this always put a smile on my face.
“No?” I said while she laughed and squirmed wildly. “Then how about some pancakes?”
“Yes!” Alexis shouted, and I scooped her up into my arms and headed into the kitchen.
She sat on the kitchen floor playing with our long haired white cat, Marshmallow, while I whipped up some pancake batter and made her breakfast. I didn’t usually eat in the mornings, but I sat next to Alexis with my cup of coffee while she demolished her pancakes. She managed to get syrup all over herface and arms, and I was in the process of cleaning her off when I heard the door of my apartment open.
“Good morning,” my mom called out, appearing in the doorway of the kitchen a moment later.
Her eyes took in the sight of her beloved granddaughter covered in the sticky mess of her breakfast and chuckled.
“Let me take care of that,” she said, placing her purse on the kitchen counter and taking the dishcloth from my hands. “You’d better go take a quick shower. You don’t want to be late today.”
She was right. I was usually punctual, but it was especially important today. I was going to ask for a raise, so I needed to make sure I was presenting myself in the best light.
I hadn’t had a raise since I started working at Moss Logistics. I knew things had been tight when Mr. Moss first took me on. We were a new company, and it takes time for business to pick up. I was also out of action for a year on maternity leave—my boss generously paid me half wages for six months. For that reason I’d not brought up the matter of my wages. However, now things had settled, and I’d been working my fulltime hours for well over a year I thought it was time to address the matter. I knew I was good at what I did, so I figured now was the time to shoot my shot.
Going to the bathroom, I hurried through a shower and got dressed in my favorite work outfit—a black blazer over a blue dress that was conservative enough to be considered professional but cut in a way that accentuated my curves and made me feel confident.
By the time I was ready to head out the door, my mom had Alexis in the living room, and they were singing along to a song from one of her favorite Disney movies. Hearing mydaughter’s sweet little voice belting out lyrics about wishing on a star in an adorably off-key tone, I couldn’t help thinking that it was fitting. I was going into the office today with a wish of my own, and I hoped I’d come home with good news. Life as a single mom was expensive, especially when I didn’t even get child support from the father.
“Good luck, sweetie,” Mom said as I rushed out of the apartment after kissing Alexis on the forehead.
I was lucky to have my mom around to help me with Alexis. She was a book editor, which she could do from home, so she brought her laptop to my apartment every day while I was at the office and babysat for me. Without her help, I didn’t know how I would have been able to afford childcare.
I didn’t live too far from the office of Moss Logistics, and the traffic wasn’t too bad, so I arrived a couple of minutes early. The building wasn’t big, just enough to house my boss’s personal office, a large conference room, and a much smaller space that was my own work space.
When I graduated from business school, I didn’t plan to become someone’s personal assistant. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, really, but I imagined I’d work my way into an executive position somewhere, becoming a successful businesswoman and conquering the world.