Shopping for a CEO's Baby (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 16), стр. 15
Tap tap tap
“Did the peppermint oil help?” asks a woman through the door.
“No,” I say on Amanda's behalf. I have to. She's currently sobbing so hard she can't speak.
“Honey,” the woman says softly. “We can catheterize you if we need to.”
Amanda's face flies up from being buried in her hands, eyes wide. “Catheterize!” she gasps.
What does catheterize mean? I quickly text Gina.
Tube shoved in your bladder to drain it.
Through your abdomen? I ask.
She follows up with a texted image.
“OH GOD NO!” I bellow, nearly dropping my phone.
“Right?” Amanda says, my comment taken as a form of support. “I don't want that!”
“How can we get you to pee?” I ask her.
Bzzzz
Gina says, She needs to do something pleasurable. Something she likes more than anything in the world.
I type the words, Like sex? But before I can press Send, Gina writes back:
And not sex.
Damn.
You need to send me a Cheeto-cini from Grind It Fresh! I text back, smacking my forehead. What the hell am I doing talking about this with my assistant?
She should be fixing it for me.
I can't.
Gina's two-word reply dissolves into a red wall of disbelief.
You what?
I can't, Andrew. I'm occupied.
If you can text me, you can order a Cheeto-cini to be delivered to me.
You'll have to do it. I'm voice texting. Can't use my hands.
“What are you doing?” Amanda gasps, still crying.
“Trying to fix this for you.”
That just makes her cry harder. Amanda's the fixer.
Gina, I'm your boss. This is an order, I type, knowing I've lost the frame the second I hit Send.
Gina's reply is a single photo. It appears to be someone between another person's legs, the only thing I can see knees on a table and a masked person's face between them.
I can't, Gina replies again.
What the hell is that?
I'm getting a lunchtime wax, she replies.
A what?
A Brazilian.
“What the hell is a Brazilian?” I shout, which makes Amanda stop crying, face scrunching in confusion.
“Who's getting a Brazilian right now?” she asks.
“Gina.”
My wife goes red faced, big eyes popping out, brow rising. “Why would she share that intimate detail with you?”
“She's telling me she can't work right now.”
“It would be pretty hard to work when someone's slathering hot wax all over your nether regions so they can – ”
Oh. That kind of Brazilian.
Never mind, I type back quickly, deleting the photo.
Good, Gina responds. Because the next photo was going to make it so we never make eye contact again, Andrew.
What does that mean? I start to type.
Because I really, really don't want to know.
I backspace, trying to think, the moment too much.
And then I remember.
I'm a Fortune 500 CEO. My superpower is focus.
So I close my eyes. I take a deep breath. I go inward. I find the solution.
And I hug my wife.
“I am going to fix this for you. Give me ten minutes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course. But what are you doing, Andrew?”
Before she can finish, I run out of the room and find the stairs. Down, down, down I thump, moving lightly but fast. I've been on the board of directors of this hospital for a long time and I know the layout pretty well.
This practice is in the wing where Amanda and I went to a birthing class, in fact. Back when she still did mystery shops.
I navigate to the cafeteria, finding my first bounty.
Snack-sized Cheetos.
I grab the orange bag and scan the room, spotting the ice cream section, hoping for a smoothie bar.
Score!
A simple orange-vanilla smoothie rests in a cooler as if it's been custom-made for my purposes, victory so close. It even has a spoon taped to the side.
I toss a ten-dollar bill at the cashier and sprint out, clutching my purchases, taking the stairs again. I suddenly appreciate my time with Vince all the more.
When I return, I barrel into the one-person bathroom, Cheetos and smoothie in one hand, the other on the doorknob. I take one step in and the shrieking begins.
“OH MY GOD, GET OUT, GET OUT!” she shouts, the piercing sound turning my eardrums to bleeding shreds.
“Amanda, why are you – ”
I do a double-take.
That woman who's shrieking?
That's not my wife.
“I am SO sorry,” I shout just as a hand–a strong, angry one–grabs the back of my collar and pulls.
Hard.
“Andrew?” the woman squeaks as the door slams shut, yanked by the same beast who has me lifted up off the ground a good inch, which is damn hard, given that I'm well over six feet tall.
How did she know my name?
And who the hell is this?
He twists me, tossing me against the wall as a crowd of white coats and green scrubs turns my peripheral vision to a blur.
But I'm clinging to the Cheetos and the smoothie, no matter what. I may have to turn them into a weapon.
A fist is pulled back, cocked by a bulging arm driven by protective instinct, and it takes my eyes a split second longer than it should to see the threat.
And the face attached to it.
“Gerald?”
Rage turned him into a red marble statue, but then his mind comprehends who I am and his arm lowers, slowly.
“Andrew? Why the hell are you crashing my wife in the bathroom?”
“Suzanne?”
“Hey, Andrew,” says a muffled voice from the other side of the door, followed by the sound of a flush.
“What's going on out there?” Amanda calls out, her voice muted, too.
“Excuse me,” says Dr. Rohrlian with more authority than I expect, her presence sudden and fierce. “This kind of violence is absolutely unacceptable in our office. You two need to stop immediately.”
Gerald releases my shirt.
And rolls his eyes at me, looking at the Cheetos and the smoothie cup, which is now sweating.
But not as much as I am.
“It's a misunderstanding,” I explain to her. “I thought that was my wife's bathroom.”
“We're good,” Gerald says to her. “I didn't know what was happening. We know each