Page 84 of Fierce- Royce

“Emily’s parents are still alive. Her father works for the State doing work on the highway department. Her mother works at a lawyer’s office and has been there for thirty-five years. She’s a paralegal. Again, middle class family.”

“I wonder why they didn’t want to raise me?” she said quietly.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t think that. You don’t know anything other than she was young and her parents wanted her to give you up. Maybe there was more going on back then and until you talk to someone, you have no idea.”

“I know,” she said. “At least it’s nothing bad. And nothing on who my birth father might be?”

“No,” Zander said. “It’s not listed and I’ve got no way of finding out at the moment. This was just a surface check for you.”

“It’s good. I’m glad you found what you did. I appreciate it. At least it helps if I decide to reach out. There is a lot of curiosity now, but I have to decide if I want this in my life or not.”

“Just like Dane said, you can’t close the box, but that doesn’t mean you have to open it wide either,” Royce said.

“No,” she said. “And no reason to talk about it anymore tonight. Let’s at least get some notes on your office space, Zander, and then you can tell me what Royce was like as a teen.”

He grinned. “Or not,” Royce said.

“I’d love to do that,” Zander said. “He’s a lot smoother now than he was back then if he landed you.”

“I’d like to think we landed each other,” she said.

“Yeah,” Royce said. “That sounds much better.”

30

Let Him Know

Her relationship with Royce wasn’t the only secret she had to worry about over two weeks later.

The bun in the oven she hadn’t been paying attention to was going to be drawing some eyes to her at some point.

Between the stress of Emily’s letter, then talking to Zander and waiting on information, she hadn’t realized she’d been two weeks late with her period. But now two weeks after she found out what she had about Emily, she really couldn’t put it off any longer.

She had a pregnancy test in her bag and she was going to talk to Royce when he woke up. She was lying in bed with a full bladder next to him and knew she should go take it now, but there was part of her that said she needed to let him know.

What started out as fun and games had turned into so much more and she was thrilled with the way things were going.

It was almost like he was perfect for her. She knew he hated all the time he spent working and not with her, but she was fine with it. It allowed her to have the best of both worlds. Did she think that was selfish, hearing her mother’s words in her ear? Yeah, she did.

Too bad. It was working for them.

Not letting too many know about their relationship wasn’t a big deal in her eyes. At least it hadn’t been.

But once she found out the results of her test, it was going to be interesting to tell her family she was having a baby when they didn’t even know she had a boyfriend.

Here she’d been all embarrassed and worried about what some might think of her having a friends with benefits relationship with Royce and now...well, this might be worse in terms of bad decisions or embarrassment.

What was it her mother said to her over a month ago? Emily had made a mistake getting pregnant at sixteen.

Here she was wondering if history was repeating itself.

No, she shouldn’t think that.

She wasn’t some naive sixteen-year-old girl that couldn’t support herself or her child. She used birth control every single time, but shit happens.

Not only that, she had a guy in her life that she not only had fun with and respected but was slowly falling in love with.

Neither one of them signed up for love and romance though and she hadn’t wanted to bring it up, liking what they had and the slow pace they were going.

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