Chapter 61: The Love of a Child
Moana
“It’s your baby!” I blurted out. Edrick fell silent, his eyes wide with disbelief. Beside me, Selina gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. Even I was shocked by my own candidness.
“I– I’ll leave you two alone,” Selina muttered. I didn’t break my gaze from Edrick, but I heard the sound of her feet scurrying toward the door followed by the sound of the door closing.
Edrick was silent for the longest time before he finally spoke. “Is this true?” His voice was so low it was almost a whisper, a stark contrast from how angrily he was speaking to me before.
“Yes,” I replied, nodding solemnly. “It’s yours. Five weeks along — six, now, actually.”
Edrick went silent again. He seemed to be calculating. I just hoped that he trusted me enough to believe me. Finally, he nodded and I felt my heart rate go back down in relief. I watched as he sat down on the armchair across from my bed and sank down into it, holding his hand on his forehead as he stared at the floor.
Finally, he said something. “Are you going to keep it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I guess I want to, but I think that you should have a say in it, too.”
He nodded, then finally removed his hand from in front of his face and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking at me with a somber expression. “It’s your choice,” he said. “If you want to keep it, then it’s up to you.”
I wanted to be relieved, but there was still the looming question of whether or not the baby would have a father in its life, as well as whether I would keep my job.
“Do you still want me out within the month?” I asked, my voice quivering slightly as I tried to calm my anxiety.
“Of course not,” Edrick said, much to my surprise. “Ella is too attached to you for me to send you away, and above all else, I want what’s best for her.”
I let out a small sigh of relief. “So you accept the baby as your own, then?”
Once again, Edrick was silent. The longer he didn’t speak, the more I felt as though my heart was going to pound out of my chest. My anxieties only increased when his face, which had softened temporarily when I told him about my pregnancy, suddenly hardened again. He stood and crossed over to the window, looking out over the city below.
“I accept the baby as my own,” he said finally. I let out another sigh of relief, but he wasn’t finished. “But not publicly. And I hope you understand that I will never marry you, so if all of this was some sort of twisted scheme to marry a rich man, then maybe you should abort the pregnancy after all and save the child the same heartache that–”
He stopped suddenly in the middle of his sentence. I furrowed my brow and c****d my head for a moment, wondering what he was going to say, but I was more concerned by how he mentioned that he would never marry me. Not only that, but he also seriously thought that I would come up with a twisted plan like that.
“I would never use a child for some sort of sick ulterior motive.” I said.
“Good.”
He turned around, his expression cold and emotionless, and started to head toward the door before pausing and turning back to face me with that steely gray gaze I had become so familiar with.
“Like I said, the choice is yours. If you want to keep the baby, I’ll provide the necessary financial support to ensure that the child leads a good life, just like Ella. But keep in mind as you make your decision that you will never get a marriage out of this. We will be co-parents and nothing more.”
His voice was steady and matter-of-fact, as though he were simply giving a financial report to his business colleagues and not speaking to the mother of his second child.
I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes at the Alpha billionaire’s cold demeanor. To him, it seemed that discovering that he was potentially going to have another child was just another business transaction. Regardless, I swallowed my emotions and nodded, averting my gaze to the floor.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
Edrick nodded as well. Then, without another word, he left the room.
Almost as soon as I was alone once more, the tears began to flow. Because of my low social status as a human nanny, not only was I undeserving of respect, but my child was also undeserving of parents that were in a committed, loving marriage. It sickened me to my core, and as I began to sob, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that this really would not be a healthy situation to bring a child into. Any child deserved to be accepted and loved unconditionally by both parents.
“I don’t know what to do, Mina,” I said out loud, not thinking what the implications could be if someone overheard me. I just needed guidance and support.
She didn’t respond. In fact, I hardly felt her presence at all. Even though her presence had always been sporadic since the first dream I had about her, I could tell that this pregnancy and the heartache surrounding it was weakening her. If I went through with the pregnancy before she emerged, would she ever be able to emerge at all?
As I realized that even my own wolf wasn’t there to comfort me, a choked sob escaped my throat. I curled up on my bed in the fetal position and cried uncontrollably into my pillow, clutching at the sheets like the earth would simply tip over and I would fall into a void. I was crying so intensely, in fact, that I never noticed the sound of my door opening and never heard the sound of small, bare feet padding up to the side of my bed.
My crying only ceased when I felt a tiny hand stroking my hair. I suddenly halted my sobs and opened my eyes to see Ella standing beside my bed with a worried expression on her sleepy face.
“Are you okay, Moana?” she asked.
I stifled another sob and managed a smile as I wiped the tears away from my hot face with my hand.
“I’m okay now,” I said, reaching out and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Thank you for checking on me.”
“I heard you crying from my room. Did you have a bad dream?”
I nodded, relieved that she only thought I had a bad dream instead of hearing the conversation between her father and I.
Ella paused, then yawned. “I can sleep with you if you’re scared,” she said.
My heart skipped a beat. Even when the world felt cruel and cold, the warmth and generosity of small children was always a comfort. I smiled, ignoring the feeling of more tears streaming down my cheeks, and held the blanket up for her to climb in. When she did, I wrapped my arms around her and felt her nuzzle down into my chest like a small kitten. I kissed the top of her head, and she was asleep within minutes.
That night, I slept peacefully for the first time in weeks
