Page 87 of Gang of Roses: Rebel

Everybody laughed as I looked around the room again, taking it all in.

“Good morning, everybody.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Rain Domingo,” they replied in unison.

I smiled. I was still getting used to hearing Mrs. Domingo.

“I’ll keep this short because I know y’all got deadlines.”

“Actually...” Marcus, my lead software engineer, cut in. “Before you start talking about deadlines and trying to turn this into a meeting, we got something to say.”

I looked over at him. “Yeah?”

“I think I speak for everybody when I say congratulations.”

The room erupted into applause. Laughing, I instinctively rubbed my belly.

“Thank y’all.”

“No, seriously.” Marcus smiled. “You gave a lot of us opportunities nobody else would’ve. You built this company from the ground up, and now we’re one of the fastest-growing tech companies in Vegas. That’s because of you.”

A few heads nodded around the table.

“We appreciate you, boss,” someone added.

“And,” Jasmine, my project manager, said with a grin, “since you kept trying to get out of having a baby shower, we decided to stop asking.”

I glanced around at everything again. “So y’all ambushed me?”

“We sure did.”

“On company time?”

The room burst into laughter.

“You weren’t giving us no other choice,” someone shouted from the other end of the table.

I shook my head, laughing. “Well, just know I’m still coming to work tomorrow.”

Marcus pointed at my feet. “As long as you don’t show up wearing those damn Timbs.”

The room exploded with laughter as I looked down at my boots before shrugging.

“Listen... the Timbs ain’t going nowhere.”

“You six months pregnant!” Jasmine laughed.

“So?”

“You own a multimillion-dollar company now.”

I shrugged. “And?”

“You got money.”

“I do.”

“You could wear heels.”