Page 20 of Kidnapped By the Boss

Then we ended up discussing the kind of person we thought our son was going to grow into.

“Couldn’t stand my father, but he was smart. Obstinate, but smart. I do hope he gets my father’s brain, or something like it,” I explained. “We’ll just teach him to be more open-minded.”

“I kind of hope he’s a little like his namesake,” Katya said. “My brother, despite his job, had a kind spirit and was the perfect big brother. I hope that our son is that kind of big brother.”

A frown crossed my face. “What?”

“What?” she said with a smile.

“Is Sascha going to be a big brother?” I asked.

Katya shrugged. “I don’t know. We didn’t really know Sascha was coming, did we?” She tilted her head. “Are you saying you don’t want more kids?”

“I guess I haven’t given it much thought,” I replied. “Then again, I didn’t really give much thought to having one child, but now he’s my whole world.”

“Well, give it some thought,” Katya said. “You love Sascha so much. What if I did end up pregnant again? How would you feel about having a daughter or another son?”

I let the idea fill my brain for a little bit. I imagined Sascha, four or five, excitedly poking at Katya’s rounded belly. Us decorating another bedroom, maybe this time in pink or purple. I thought about a little girl running around that had my mother’s eyes and Katya’s smile and a grin rose to my face.

“You know… I think I’d be okay with that.”

A smile crossed Katya’s face too. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Suddenly, my heart clenched and I looked down. “Wait, you’re not…”

“Vince, I’m three mimosas in. You think I’d be drinking if I knew I was pregnant?” she responded.

I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Wow. That wassogood, I’m stuffed,” Katya said, leaning back in her chair.

“Hopefully not too stuffed, because we gotta catch our flight,” I told her.

Katya lifted her eyebrows and the smile faded from her face again. “Flight? I thought we were staying here?”

I tilted my head. “What do you mean? How else would we get to Barbados without a flight?”

“I thought we were already there?” Katya said, looking around, then she pointed at the pool. “Right here by the beach. All the palm trees.”

“What? No. This is breakfast at our layover in Florida,” I explained. “Our flight for Barbados is leaving now. We should hurry so we don’t miss it.”

Katya gave me a confused look, but I just laughed and stood up. I held out my hand for Katya and she took it and stood up as well, and let me lead her back to the pool house. If everything had gone as I planned, then when we opened the door…

“Oh my god,” Katya said, cracking a huge smile. “You’re so cheesy.”

Now centered in the pool house’s main room where our room was for the night, I’d had some of our staff set up a really lame airplane backdrop and cart in a row of seats that I managed to locate at a junkyard as soon as I woke up. Thank god that I’d woken up as early as I did, and that Katya had taken to sleeping late since becoming a mom, otherwise I might not have been able to pull all this off.

Well that, and money…

“After you,” I said, gesturing forward. Katya walked over to the airplane seats and sat down in one of them, and I sat down in the other. I actually made her put her seatbelt on, then I took her hand and explained, “I actually considered subjecting one of our poor staff members to being the flight attendant, but I figured that might be going a little too far.”

Katya leaned her head against my shoulder. “That stuff is boring anyway.”

“Agreed.”

“I’m honestly surprised you felt the need to simulate the flight. Isn’tthatthe boring stuff?” she said.

“Mostly, there is just one thing about the flight that I didn’t want to miss,” I said.