My CEO Wants Me In His Bed

Spur Of The Moment

Mara's POV.

The ER receptionist didn't even look up when I came in, as if she was already tired of this job. "Name?"

"Collins. Ethan Collins. He's five. He has a chronic heart condition, his doctor is Dr. Patel in pediatrics, he's been here before and..." I was rushing the words as fast as I could, my heart pounding against my ribcage as I stole a glance at my son's face. The tears of pain had already wet his cheeks, and I hated that I could do nothing to help as his mother.

How about your inurance card?" I knew she recognised me, but she wasn't taking this situation seriously. I was a regular here and...

That didn't matter. It was Ethan's life on the line right now. I slid it across the counter even when I knew what was going to happen next. She swiped it, typed, and her face fell into a frown that made my stomach drop.

"There's a hold on this account." She gave me a forced smile that didn't reach her eyes. "The hospital has flagged that we can't help you with non-emergency procedures because of your outstanding balance."

My heart dropped to my stomach. "I know. I'm on a payment plan. Besides, this is an emergency. My son... He's not responding. He can barely breathe... Please, ma'am, we need to see the doctor. I beg you!."

"The minimum payments haven't been met for the past three months." Her smile was still terse and cold, ignoring the emergency part.

"I've been paying what I can. Please, I swear I have."

"Well, it hasn't reflected here." Her eyes moved between me and Ethan whose head lolled against my shoulders, and I expected some form of sympathy, or for her to see that this was an actual emergency.

My voice cracked but I didn't care. "Look at him, nurse... He's barely breathing."

"It's not what I will flag as an emergency." Her forced sweet smile was back.

"NOT AN EMERGENCY? ARE YOU SICK OUT OF YOUR MIND? LOOK AT HIM!!! JUST TAKE A LOOK AT MY SON! HOW CAN YOU BE SO HEARTLESS?" The rage was already building within me.

"Ma'am, I need you to lower your voice."

"Lower my voice? My son is dying in my arms!"

She looked at me with a face that gave nothing back. "This is a private hospital. We're running losses because some doctors like to play charity. Unless you can pay two hundred dollars minimum, we can't admit him."

"I don't have two hundred dollars."

"Then I can't help you." Her eyes softened, just barely. "Use the palliative methods you've been using while trying to get the money. I think we've helped you enough so far."

"And if he stops breathing before I find it?"

She didn't answer that one. She just slid my insurance card back across the counter and called the next name in line.

*

My manager's face soured the moment she saw me enter the bakery sign Ethan in my arms.

"Mara, you can't bring him here, and you know that!" Her voice was so stern when she came up beside m

"I didn't have a choice. He collapsed this morning and the hospital turned us away." My shoulders had slumped in defeat, and I was trying to hide the tears that fell from my eyes.

"I'm sorry, but if Mrs. Calloway sees him in the back one more time and realizes that he's sick, she will calling the health department on us."

The one customer who never minded her business. Rich snobs like her never knew what it meant to be in our shoes, all they cared was that they got their own way with things and used every available means to show that they had some form of power.

"I'll keep him quiet, Rosa. Please." I forced a smile on my face as I begged my manager.

"Mara..."

"I have nowhere else to put him. I can't leave him alone in the apartment like this." Rosa glanced at Ethan's situation before her eyes softened. "Fine, but you will have him behind the floor bags where no one can actually see him, okay?"

"Thank you." I thanked her profusely.

Customers were already filing in. I laid Ethan down behind the flour bags, hoping that neither our nosy customer, nor the owner of the bakery showed up. And I prayed that Ethan would stay conscious until my shift ended.

He didn't.

By ten, the café was packed and I was splitting myself between tables and the narrow gap in the door where I could see him slumped against the bags, watching for the rise and fall of his chest like it was the only thing keeping me upright too.

The owner found Ethan around noon, but she didn't yell. She just stood over him, arms crossed, before turning to me with a cold look.

"I know you're going through a lot of s**t with your son, Mara, but this cannot happen again! I wouldn't have my bakery shut down because of your inability to take care of a child! If you knew you would be piss poor, I wonder why you spread open your legs for some man to get inside you. Now look at what you have on your hands!"

I had to keep my anger at bay because it wasn't going to do me any good if I screamed at the only person that managed to give me a job after all the places I had applied for. I pressed my lips together and murmured some form of apology that it wouldn't happen again.

"I mean it... Next time, you're gone."

I nodded because there was nothing else to do, and went back to work with my hands shaking on the tray. I needed two hundred dollars by the end of the week, and I needed a new heart for my son by the end of the year. I had neither, and the gap between what I needed and what I had felt wider every single day.

*

The grand patron of the bakery was sitting by the window and reading his newspaper while waiting on his usual order. I felt my heart begin to beat hard against my chest... Everyone on staff whispered about him.

"That's the one Rosa says owns half of Midtown," one of the other waitresses murmured as she passed me with a tray. "His tips are like up to twenty dollars."

"I guess he tips well because it costs him nothing to." I could almost feel the resentment rising within me, and I hated that I felt jealous for some rich successful old man who had nothing to do with money, and would rather burn it than help those who really needed it. Begging him for money wouldn't help my situation.

Which was what all the rich people I encountered ever did. I watched him silently, and more evil thoughts began to fill my head. What if... What if I made him owe me? That would work, right?

I looked back at Ethan, passed out cold against the flour bags, and made up my mind. In my desperation, I wasn't thinking straight anymore.

The pill bottle was already in my apron pocket and I remember reading about beta-blockers when I was doing a research after Ethan's first bout of illness came. Ethan's dosage was small, but a man his age, his build... crushed into hot tea to mask the taste, it would be enough to make him faint. I told myself that over and over as I crushed the pill between my fingers behind the counter...

"You good?" Rosa asked, passing by with a rack of clean mugs.

"Fine. Just tired." I poured the crushed pill into his tea and stared down at the cup, my hand still hovering over it.

What was I doing?

The thought hit me so hard I nearly dropped the cup. This wasn't me. I wasn't a person who hurt other people, no matter how desperate I was, no matter how much I hated the world for putting me here. Ethan needed a mother who could look herself in the mirror, not one who poisoned strangers for money. I could find another way. I would find another way to save my son.

Shaking, I dumped the tea down the drain behind the counter, rinsed the cup twice, and brewed a fresh one from scratch, my hands trembling the whole time. Whatever happened next, Ethan and I were going to survive this, one way or another, without me having to become someone I couldn't live with.

I carried the clean cup to his table, feeling lighter than I had in hours.

"Here you go, Mr. Gerald."

"Thank you, dear." He barely glanced up from his paper.

He took the cup, drank the whole thing, and pushed it back toward me.

"I would like another, Miss."

"Of course. Right away."

Three minutes later, as I was brewing the second cup, he grabbed his chest with a twisted expression on his face and dropped to the floor.