Sunny
The house had fallen eerily quiet after Liam left her room.
His retreating footsteps echoed down the hallway, each one driving a small splinter into her heart.
The wounded confusion in his eyes when he had discovered her packing haunted her.
But she couldn’t tell him — not yet, not until she knew for certain.
You’re just being paranoid, a small voice whispered in her head. Stress can delay periods. So can travel. And emotional upheaval. God knows you’ve had plenty of that lately.
Yet the other symptoms couldn’t be so easily dismissed.
The persistent nausea that had plagued her since their return from the Caribbean, which she had initially attributed to travel fatigue.
The unusual tenderness in her breasts. The bone-deep exhaustion that crashed over her in waves throughout the day.
The heightened emotions that had her tearing up at the slightest provocation, making her want to flee the house.
And most damning of all was the night after their confrontation with Morgan. They had been so lost in each other, so desperate for connection, that protection had become an afterthought.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She had purchased the test in the morning while picking up groceries. Slipping down the family planning aisle, her heart racing as if she were committing a crime, she had grabbed the most expensive brand, hoping a higher price meant greater accuracy.
Now, hours later, the innocuous white plastic remained sealed in its box, hidden within the crumpled pharmacy bag like a ticking bomb.
Sunny inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the lavender-scented air from the diffuser she kept by her bed.
Her eyes drifted to the half-packed duffel bag — evidence of her panicked impulse to flee.
The rational part of her brain, the part not clouded by terror, knew that running wasn’t the answer.
But rational thought was becoming increasingly elusive.
“This is ridiculous,” she whispered to the empty room. “Just take the test, idiot. Then you’ll know.”
With trembling fingers, she reached for the bag, the paper crinkling accusingly in the quiet space.
She slipped into her private bathroom, locking the door behind her even though she was alone.
The fluorescent light buzzed to life, harsh and unforgiving as it illuminated her pallid face in the mirror.
Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her usually rosy lips were pale and cracked from nervous chewing. She barely recognized herself.
“Get it over with,” she murmured to her reflection.
She tore open the box with mechanical movements, extracting the plastic-wrapped test and unfolding the instruction pamphlet.
The clinical language — “urinate on the absorbent tip for 5 seconds” — made the whole process seem surreally ordinary, as if her entire future didn’t hinge on whether lines appeared in a tiny window.
Following the instructions precisely, Sunny set her phone timer for three minutes and placed the test flat on the counter. Then she began to pace the small confines of the bathroom, taking five steps in one direction before turning and walking five steps back.
Memories flooded back unbidden, washing over her in vivid detail.
Liam’s calloused hands, roughened from years of gripping hockey sticks, yet impossibly gentle on her skin.
The way he’d whispered her name like a prayer against her collarbone, his breath hot and desperate.
The feeling of completeness when they were joined, as if they had both found something they hadn’t realized they were missing.
It had been reckless, impulsive — everything Sunny usually wasn’t. But in that moment, with emotions running high after Morgan’s vitriolic attack, they had sought solace in each other without thought of consequences.
Her timer buzzed, the cheerful melody jarring against her fraught nerves. Sunny gasped, nearly dropping her phone as she fumbled to silence it. For several heartbeats, she stood frozen, unable to look at the small plastic stick that held her future.
With leaden limbs, she approached the counter, forcing herself to pick up the test.
Two pink lines stared back at her, unmistakable in their clarity.
Positive.
Sunny’s knees buckled beneath her, and she slid down the wall to the cold tile floor. The test clattered from her numb fingers. A strange ringing filled her ears as the world seemed to tilt on its axis.
Pregnant.
The word echoed in her mind, alien and terrifying. She was pregnant with Liam Anderson’s child. The nanny, pregnant with her employer’s baby. It was the stuff of tawdry tabloid headlines — exactly the kind already circulating about them.
Her hand drifted to her lower abdomen, resting lightly over the flat plane where, impossibly, new life had taken root. Beneath her palm, cells were dividing, a heart would soon begin to beat, and an entirely new person was forming. The sheer miracle of it momentarily overrode her panic.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, the first tears spilling over. They weren’t entirely tears of fear or despair. Amid the maelstrom of emotions — shock, panic, disbelief — there was an unexpected flicker of something else. Something that felt dangerously like… joy.
That realization brought fresh tears, and once they started, Sunny couldn’t stop them. She curled into herself, one hand still protectively cradling her abdomen as she wept — for the chaos she’d created, for the impossible situation, for the tiny life now depending on her.
Through her tears, fragmented memories surfaced — snapshots from a childhood marked by transience and loss.
The sterile smell of the social services office where her birth mother had surrendered her rights, declaring herself “too young” to be saddled with a child.
Sunny had been four, old enough to understand she was being left behind, yet too young to comprehend why.
Then came the parade of foster homes, some kind but temporary, others cold and overcrowded. The faint hope that bloomed each time a new family took her in, followed inevitably by the crushing disappointment when they decided she wasn’t quite what they wanted. Too quiet, too clingy, too damaged.
Her first adoption at seven had felt like a miracle — a forever family, as they called themselves.
However, everything changed when the couple had a biological child of their own two years later; suddenly, Sunny became an afterthought, then a burden.
On the day they returned her to the system, her foster father awkwardly patted her head, as if she were a puppy being returned to the shelter.
Her stepfather had been the exception — the only person who had ever truly chosen her.
He married her latest foster mother when Sunny was twelve, and when that woman eventually abandoned them both, he legally adopted Sunny rather than sending her back into the system.
“You’re my daughter,” he had said simply. “Nothing changes that.”
His death from cancer left an unhealable void in her, a wound that throbbed anew with each milestone he missed — her college graduation, her first real job.
Now, huddled on the bathroom floor with a positive pregnancy test beside her, Sunny felt his absence like a physical ache. What would he advise her to do? How would he help her navigate this impossible situation?
The irony was not lost on her. All her life, she had yearned for family, for belonging — the very thing now growing inside her.
But instead of complete joy, the discovery also filled her with dread.
Nothing about this was simple. She wasn’t just any woman expecting a baby; she was the nanny involved in a public scandal with her widowed employer, whose young daughters were still healing from the loss of their mother.
A fresh wave of panic crashed over her as the implications sank in.
The scandal that had erupted after their Caribbean trip would pale in comparison to this development.
She could already imagine the vicious headlines and the crass speculation about her motives.
Morgan’s accusations would seem validated — the gold-digging nanny who deliberately got pregnant to trap the wealthy hockey star.
Would Liam believe that? The thought sent ice through her veins.
Would he think she had orchestrated this, used a moment of vulnerability to entrap him?
The Liam she had come to know — the tender, honorable man beneath the gruff exterior — wouldn’t, but people changed when cornered, when their reputations, careers, and families were threatened.
And the girls — sweet Maddie and Hailey, who had already lost one mother. How would they process this? Would they resent the baby, viewing it as competition for their father’s affection? Would Sunny’s presence become a painful reminder of how their family had been fractured once again?
Even if, by some miracle, Liam welcomed the news and they attempted to create a family together, the foundation would be built on quicksand. Their relationship had developed in the hothouse of grief and mutual need. Was that enough to sustain them through parenthood?
Sunny pushed herself up from the floor, her legs unsteady beneath her. The woman in the mirror looked haunted, her complexion ashen except for the red rims around her eyes. Her hand instinctively rested over her abdomen again, a protective gesture that had already become second nature.
“We’ll figure this out,” she whispered, though she had no idea how.
Her thoughts raced in desperate circles as she mechanically washed her face, the cold water doing little to calm her flushed skin.
One path forward crystallized with terrifying clarity.
Leave. Tonight. Before things became more complicated, before the girls grew more attached, before the media circus intensified.
She could disappear, manage this on her own terms, and spare the Anderson family further turmoil.
The decision sparked a frantic energy within her. Sunny returned to her bedroom, grabbing items haphazardly from drawers and shelves. Essentials only — clothes, toiletries, her documents.
Her hands trembled as she stuffed a sweatshirt into her already overflowing duffle bag. On her nightstand, her phone lit up with a notification — a photo memory from her album. Curious despite her panic, Sunny picked it up.
The screen displayed a picture from just two weeks ago: Maddie and Hailey on either side of her on the couch, all three laughing as they made funny faces for the camera. A simple moment of pure joy, captured forever.
Sunny sank onto the bed, the phone clutched in her suddenly shaking hand. How could she just vanish from their lives? After promising Maddie she wouldn’t leave? The girls had already experienced too much loss. Disappearing without explanation would be unforgivably cruel.
And Liam — whatever they were to each other now, he deserved to know about his child. Running away wouldn’t erase the fact of the pregnancy; it would only compound the hurt.
“I can’t just leave,” she whispered, setting down the phone. “Not like this.”
She glanced at her half-packed bag, a wave of shame washing over her.
Running had always been her instinct in the face of rejection.
Foster homes, relationships — whenever things became difficult, she would withdraw before others could push her away.
It was a defense mechanism developed in childhood, now deeply ingrained.
But she wasn’t a child anymore. And she wasn’t alone, not in the way she had been before. This baby — however unexpected and complicated — connected her irrevocably to others. She owed it to herself, to the child, and to the Andersons to face this with courage, with honesty.
She had an idea.