My Boss, My Babydaddy

Chapter 49

Jocelyn’s POV

The hospice room smells like lavender and dying.

They try to mask it—the antiseptic, the decay, the chemical warfare happening inside Natasha's body. But underneath the essential oils and fresh flowers, death has already claimed territory and is settling in for the final occupation.

Natasha lies propped against pillows that make her look smaller than physics should allow. Her skin has that translucent quality that comes right before the end, veins visible like road maps to nowhere.

But her eyes are clear when we enter, sharp, present.

"Eli." Her voice is paper-thin.

He freezes in the doorway, clutching that stuffed tiger like armor. Eight years old, staring at his mother dying, trying to be brave while his entire world collapses.

"It's okay, baby." Natasha's hand trembles, reaching for him. "Come here."

He moves slowly, each step costs him something.

When he reaches the bed, he climbs up carefully—so careful not to jostle her, not to cause pain—and curls against her side the way he probably did when he was small enough to fit in the crook of her arm.

"I don't want you to go," he whispers.

"I know." She strokes his hair with fingers that shake. "I don't want to go either."

Zayden stands near the window, jaw locked tight, watching a woman he paid to disappear now disappearing permanently. I can see the guilt eating him alive—every check he wrote, every year he missed, every choice that led here.

"Mom?" Eli's voice cracks. "Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore. They're giving me good medicine." Natasha kisses the top of his head. "I just feel tired. Like I could sleep for a hundred years."

"Like Sleeping Beauty?"

"Exactly like that." Her lips tremble into a smile. "But different circumstances. Where the prince charming turns out to be a father who's going to take very good care of you."

Her eyes find Zayden—steady, unflinching. A command disguised as a dying wish.

"He's trying," Eli says quietly. "He's not as good at it as you, but he's trying."

The statement breaks something in Zayden's expression. He moves to the bed, sits on the opposite side.

"I'm sorry," he says. "For all of it. For not being there, for the money instead of presence, for making you raise him alone."

Natasha's gaze is steady despite her labored breathing. "I was angry for a long time, built entire revenge fantasies. But anger takes energy I don't have anymore."

"What do you have?"

"Gratitude." She looks at Eli. "That I got eight years with the best thing I ever made. That he'll have you now, that he won't be alone."

She turns to me. "Jocelyn. Can we talk? Privately?"

Zayden starts to object, but I'm already nodding. "Of course."

He takes Eli's hand. "Come on, buddy. Let's get some water."

Eli doesn't want to leave, but he goes. Casting backward glances like he's afraid she'll vanish if he looks away too long.

When the door closes, Natasha's composure cracks slightly.

"I need you to promise me something."

"Anything."

"Eli." Her breathing is getting harder. "He's going to need more than survival, more than food and shelter and a father learning how to parent eight years too late."

"What does he need?"

"Love." The word comes out fierce. "Real love. Not obligation, not guilt—the kind that makes you check on him at night just to make sure he's breathing. The kind that remembers his favorite foods and fights for his happiness like it's your own."

My throat constricts. "Natasha…"

"I saw how you looked at him. At the school. At the penthouse." Tears slide down her temples. "You already love him. I just need you to promise you won't stop when this gets hard. When Zayden's lies pile up, when staying would be easier if Eli wasn't part of the equation."

"He's part of my family now."

"Then say it. Promise me." Her grip tightens with surprising strength. "That you'll love my son. Really love him, even when it costs you something."

The promise forms before I can think about what it means, what I'm committing to. How loving Eli means staying entangled with Zayden's mess.

"I promise. I'll love him like he's mine."

Natasha's face crumbles with relief. "Thank you. God, thank you."

She releases my hand, sinks back into pillows. "You can send them back in now."

Eli climbs back onto the bed, curls into her side. Zayden sits in the chair by the window and doesn't move.

I stand in the doorway watching all three of them, and something shifts in my chest—a low, animal certainty that this is the last night.

I've felt it before, with Mia's worst days during treatment. The way the air changes when a body is preparing to let go. The way silence develops weight.

Natasha dies at 3:47 AM.

Eli is sleeping in the chair beside her bed when it happens. Zayden and I are in the hallway, getting coffee neither of us wants, when the machines start screaming.

By the time we reach the room, it's over.

She looks peaceful, finally free from the pain that's been eating her alive for months.

Eli stands beside the bed, holding her hand, not crying. Just staring like he's trying to memorize her face before she becomes a memory instead of a person.

"She's gone," he says. Flat. Empty.

Zayden pulls him into a hug. Eli doesn't resist, doesn't react. Just stands there like a statue while his father holds him and I watch two people trying to comfort each other through grief that has no comfort.

***

The funeral is small.

Natasha didn't have much family—just a sister who looks like her ghost and a handful of friends from before the cancer consumed everything.

Eli stands between us in a suit Zayden bought yesterday. Too big in the shoulders, too long in the sleeves. But he insisted on wearing it, said his mom would want him to look grown-up.

Eight years old in a too-big suit, burying his mother.

The service is mercifully brief. Generic platitudes about heaven and peace and being in a better place. Eli doesn't cry until they lower the casket. Then the sobs come—ugly, broken, the sound of a child realizing his mother isn't coming back.

I hold him while he falls apart, Zayden's hand rests on his back. We stand there like a broken family trying to hold each other together through shared devastation.

People file past offering condolences that mean nothing. I smile, nod, accept their sympathy while counting down minutes until we can leave.

Then I see him.

A man in an expensive suit, standing at the cemetery edge. Watching. Not approaching, not paying respects—just observing with the professional detachment of someone cataloging information.

When our eyes meet, he smiles. Moves closer with measured steps, hands in pockets, casual as someone taking a stroll through peaceful grounds instead of a graveyard.

He stops beside me, close enough to whisper.

"Soon."

The word slides into my ear like ice water.

"What?"

But he's already walking away, disappearing between headstones while my heart hammers against my ribs.

Friday. The transaction. Dante's deadline.

"Jocelyn?" Zayden's voice pulls me back. "You okay?"

I look at him, at Eli still crying into my shoulder, at the fresh grave holding a woman who extracted a promise I don't know how to keep.

"No," I say honestly. "But we need to leave. Now."

Because Dante's watching. Sending reminders that Friday is coming and nothing—not grief, not death, not a child losing his mother—will stop what happens next.