Boss of Me

inhales a big bite of tuna salad. “You hired Angel to head up our West Coast division…”

“It just made sense. She’s in LA, and she’s wonderful.” I take a bite of my delicious corned turkey with cole slaw on rye.

“Dean left, and you hired Suzy to be our receptionist…”

“She’s Dean’s roommate. He recommended her.”

“Then you hired Debra to be our social media manager…” He takes another big bite.

“She has her own website and an Instagram account with more than twenty-thousand followers. Now we have an Instagram account with more than twenty-thousand followers. And she found the security breach that let Jerry access everyone’s private accounts.”

“It wasn’t a security breach. He stole the system access key.”

“Still, she found his digital fingerprints everywhere.”

“Everywhere on my files. That jackass.”

I trace a finger down the side of his collar. “And now he’s selling timeshares in Tempe.”

“We should watch that YouTube video again.”

My lips press together, but a short laugh escapes. “Is it wrong that I love it when you punch him in the face?”

He slants an eye, and I grin, shaking my head. I’ve learned to pick my battles with this stubborn man. He did finally stop smoking, which was my biggest worry.

Taking another spoonful of soup, I decide to gently bring up something new. “Hank would like to do a feature on us for Nashville Notes.” I cringe, anticipating his response.

“No.” He sits back abruptly, wiping his mouth with the paper napkin.

“Patton.” I put my hand on his rock-hard thigh under the table.

“Rocky…” The warning tone in his voice fans the tingles in my stomach. To think it used to terrify me. Now it just makes me want to rip his clothes off… Or maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones.

“He ran a retraction of that story the very next week. He’s apologized profusely and has printed nothing but glowing reports on Fletcher-Morgan ever since.”

“He almost destroyed us.”

“That’s an overstatement. In the time it took me to drive from Savannah to Nashville, you’d all but resolved the crisis.”

“After twenty-four hours of hell.” He polishes off the other half of his sandwich and leans back. Looking to the side he shakes his head as if remembering something distasteful. “My dad called us tacky.”

My lip goes between my teeth. I know that pissed him off more than anything. Still… “NABI wants us to be their inaugural Nashville Power Couple for next year. It’s a fun new feature with a photo spread…”

“Sounds like bullshit.”

Sliding my plate away, I trace my finger over the sexy bump where the muscle moves in his square jaw. “Stop grinding. I think it would be great publicity.”

He takes out his wallet, placing three twenties on the table. “Let’s get on the road. I’m ready to be in Savannah.”

I get another kiss on the lips before he slides out of the blue vinyl booth, holding a hand to help me up. I’m about the size of a whale, and while I straighten my clothes, his hand automatically rubs my baby bump. He does it all the time. Sometimes he’ll lean down and kiss it, and I confess, it’s incredibly endearing.

“You feel okay?” So much concern is in his pretty brown eyes. He’s changed so much since that first day in the office.

“Yep. Just thinking how happy I am.” He kisses me again and leads me out to the car.

We didn’t plan to get pregnant so fast. After a relatively small wedding on Tybee Island, we took our honeymoon trip to Sardinia, Italy.

He kept the whole trip a total secret from me—even his new best friend Renée didn’t know where we were going. I asked repeatedly… The first day we were there, he took me to Sella del Diavolo, or the Devil’s Saddle in the Gulf of Cagliari, which he thought was hilarious. Sexy Devil…