Barren no More: Six Heirs for the CEO

"You're barren, Amy. Just say it out loud. Everyone already knows."Callan didn't even button his shirt when he said it. He stood in the middle of his office with his tie on the floor and red lipstick on his collar.I was still holding the cake box. It was his birthday. I had waited at home until my dinner went cold, then I drove to his office to bring him a slice of his favorite lemon cake.Ten minutes earlier, I had opened that door with a smile."Three years," Brielle said. She sat on his desk, tugging her skirt down. She wasn't even embarrassed. She looked at her nails, like I was a bill she'd pay later. "Three years of marriage and nothing. Poor Callan. What is a man supposed to do?""Sleep with his secretary, apparently," I said. My voice shook. I hated that it shook.Callan laughed. It was the laugh he used on waiters who got his order wrong. "Don't make this about me. My mother says it every Sunday. A wife who can't give her husband a child is not much of a wife."I could see

"Mom, Max says if we don't pay the rent by Friday, we're going to live in a box.""A big box," Max said. "With a door."Noah, the oldest by four minutes, held up a pink paper like it was evidenced in court. "It says Final Notice, Mom. In red. That's the worst color."I took the paper from his hand. I already knew what it said. I've read it six times.Six faces looked up at me from the kitchen table. Three boys with the same messy dark hair. Three girls with the same stubborn chin. They were five years old, almost six, and all of them had the same eyes. I try not to look at those eyes too long. They are his."It's grown-up stuff," I said, in my bright voice. "I'll fix it.""Mr. Finch is selling the bakery," Leo said. He didn't look up from his book. Leo reads like a tired professor. "I heard him tell Dot. That means you lose your job.""Leo.""Sorry. I wasn't trying to listen. The numbers were just loud."Zoe jumped onto her chair. "I'll sell my robot! He's worth a hundred dollars!""H

"Is that blazer from a thrift store? How brave of you." Vivian Cole didn't look up from her screen when she said it. She was the senior analyst on the fortieth floor, with perfect hair and a voice like honey with a knife in it. "It was four dollars," I said. "It fits." "I'm sure it does." Now she looked at me. "Mr. Hale hired you in twenty-five minutes. The rest of us went through three rounds of interviews. Everybody's wondering what you did." "I read a budget." "Of course you did." She dropped a thick folder on my desk. It landed with a thud. "Welcome to Finance. Three years of vendor ledgers. I need every duplicate charge flagged by Friday. Don't worry if it's too much. Some people just aren't built for numbers." Some women just aren't built for it, dear. For a second, I heard Callan's mother. My jaw tightened. "Friday," I said. "No problem." Two desks over, someone whispered bakery girl. Someone else whispered hired on the spot. They didn't say the rest out loud. They did