Page 115 of Fierce- Royce

“I understand that, but I couldn’t wait. This is my life. This part of it. I couldn’t wait any longer and I needed to do it alone. I don’t always need you to stand in front of me.”

This was part of the reason she did what she had. It’s not like she wasn’t going to give him the information she found out.

If she thought afterward this made her selfish, she didn’t care. It was one of those things she just had to decide on and did.

“If it’s going to affect our child I’m damn well going to stand in front of you. And since you are carrying her you don’t need to be stressed either.”

She let out a sigh. She wanted to argue with him but couldn’t. “Sit down and we’ll talk. I’ll tell you what she said to me.”

“Did you get a name?” he asked.

“I did. No one you know or I even know, but you’ll understand when I explain the situation.”

“I’m listening,” he said.

“Can we talk and eat?” she asked. “I’m hungry and dinner is almost done.”

She could see he was hesitating but finally said, “I’ll go take a shower first, then we’ll talk and eat.”

“Thanks for that. I’m not hiding anything from you. I wouldn’t do that. I’m gathering my thoughts.”

He nodded his head and then went to take a shower and she finished with the pasta that was cooking, draining it out and then putting the sauce and meatballs over it. A simple dinner, but she wanted a lot of pasta lately for some reason.

“Anything I can help you with?” he asked, coming in.

“No, I’ve got it. It’s all set.”

He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and came and sat, the two of them filling their plates. “When we are done talking about this, I thought we could talk about the nursery. I’ve been looking at things too.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Yes. I guess I didn’t get much work done. Everyone was talking to me and Jade was showing me things she was doing for her daughter’s nursery. Ryder showed me pictures of Riley’s room.”

“Are you thinking pink?”

“No,” she said. “At least not for the whole room. I’ll show you things when we are done. I’ll tell you about Emily’s call first.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “Take your time.”

“His name means nothing at the moment. Jason Henry. He was thirty-four years old and married. He was an attorney at the law firm that Emily’s mother worked at.”

“Wow,” he said. “Definitely knows better from a legal standpoint. How did he meet Emily? How did her mother not even know this?”

“Emily was working there that summer. That is how she met him. He flirted with her and one thing led to another. I didn’t ask and don’t care about those facts. Emily knew he was married and he said he was going to leave his wife.”

“Grown women fall for that, I’m sure a sixteen-year-old just ate it up,” he said.

“She did. She regrets it. He wanted her to have an abortion. She didn’t obviously. But she never told him she wasn’t going to. He paid her money to keep her quiet on top of the money for the abortion. You know those things. A few months later he moved out of the area.”

“Sounds like running to me,” he said.

“Could be. Emily said she was hurt and didn’t want to hear his name let alone look into him. There was no reason to ask about him. She tried to wipe it all from her mind.”

It hurt to hear those things. But Chloe told herself she couldn’t feel that way. She’d come to terms with her life and how it played out.

She’d been happy for years and she wasn’t going to let something that happened to her years ago bring her down now. She had no control then, but she could continue things going forward.

“It had to be hard for her.”

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