Sunny
She had just begun chopping vegetables when she heard Liam’s voice again, this time from the adjacent living room. His tone was hushed but tense, clearly trying to keep the conversation private.
“I know how it looks, Mom, but it’s been blown out of proportion. It was just… we were on vacation, and things got…”
“No, it’s not serious. Just a fling.”
Just a fling.
The words pierced Sunny.
Is that truly how he saw all that had happened between them?
Just a vacation indiscretion, something to minimize and dismiss?
After their passionate night together — what he had called their “ending” — she’d thought perhaps their relationship had meant something more to him. But maybe she was wrong.
Her vision blurred with fresh tears as she resumed chopping with more force than necessary, the rhythmic thunk of the knife against the board a poor outlet for her hurt and confusion.
“We’re handling it,” Liam’s voice continued. “I’m meeting with the team PR tomorrow. They’re concerned about the optics.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“No, I don’t need to fire her. She’s good with the girls.”
Sunny’s hand trembled.
So they had suggested firing her. Of course they had. A flash of their night together — his hands gripping her hips, his mouth hot against her skin, whispered promises in the dark — made the betrayal sting even more sharply. “Just a fling” indeed.
She was so absorbed in eavesdropping that she didn’t notice Hailey pad into the kitchen until the little girl spoke.
“Why are you crying?”
Startled, Sunny quickly wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Just the onions, sweetie. They make my eyes sting.”
Hailey’s gaze dropped to the cutting board. “But those are peppers.”
Before Sunny could formulate a better excuse, Liam appeared in the doorway, his phone call evidently concluded. His eyes narrowed with concern as he took in her reddened eyes and Hailey’s confused expression.
“Hey pumpkin, why don’t you go join your sister with that puzzle?” he suggested gently. “I need to talk to Sunny about grown-up stuff.”
Once Hailey had reluctantly left, Liam approached with cautious steps, as if Sunny were a wounded animal that might bolt. “You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Just a fling?” The words escaped before she could stop them, laced with hurt. “Is that really all this was to you?”
Liam ran a hand through his hair, a gesture she’d come to recognize as a sign of his distress. “No. God, no. I was just… trying to downplay things to my mother. She’s worried about the girls, about how this will affect them.”
He took a step closer, his expression softer than it had been all day.
In the Caribbean sun, she’d memorized every plane of his face — the stubble that grew unevenly along his jaw, the faint scar beneath his left eye from a hockey stick, the laugh lines that deepened when he smiled genuinely.
Now, in the familiar light of their kitchen, he looked both the same and fundamentally altered, as if their relationship existed in two separate realities that could never quite align.
“And your team? They want you to fire me?” Sunny asked directly, needing the truth.
Liam’s jaw tightened. “Some of the management suggested it might be the ‘cleanest’ solution. I told them that’s not happening.”
His hand reached for hers across the counter, his calloused fingers warm against her skin. The casual intimacy of the gesture, so at odds with their careful distance all day, made her heart ache. “You belong here, Sunny. With us.”
The simple statement, delivered with such conviction, threatened to unleash fresh tears. Instead, Sunny turned back to the cutting board, focusing on the methodical slicing of peppers to keep her emotions in check.
“Maybe they’re right,” she said quietly. “Maybe it would be easier for everyone if I just…”
“Don’t.” Liam’s hand covered hers, stilling the knife. “Don’t even finish that thought.”
She looked up to find his blue eyes fierce with determination. “The team is concerned about ‘distractions’ and my upcoming contract negotiations,” he explained. “Their job is to worry about advertising dollars and public image. My job is to worry about my family.”
My family.
The words warmed something inside her, even as uncertainty clouded her mind.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“I meet with PR tomorrow. We weather this storm. We stick to our agreement about keeping things professional, at least until this dies down.” His thumb rubbed gentle circles on the back of her hand. “It will die down, Sunny. These things always do.”
Beth had said the same thing, but Sunny wasn’t convinced. Still, she nodded, drawing strength from Liam’s steady presence.
“The girls need us,” he said. “Both of us. They’ve been through enough.”
She could not disagree with that statement.
Dinner passed with forced normalcy, the girls chattering about their vacation memories while the adults maintained a careful distance, both physical and emotional.
Afterward, Sunny guided the girls through their bedtime routine with extra stories and cuddles, treasuring these moments of uncomplicated connection.
Later, alone in her bedroom, Sunny found herself unable to sleep despite her exhaustion. The events of the day played in an endless loop through her mind — the shocking headlines, the cruel comments, Liam’s stressed conversations, the uncertain future that awaited them.
Against her better judgment, she reached for her phone once more, scrolling through a few final notifications before attempting to sleep.
Her thumb paused over an alert from the Kansas City Coyotes fan forum — a place where she occasionally lurked to read updates about Liam’s games, though she’d never posted.
The notification preview made her blood run cold: “Background Check: Who is Sunny Thompson? The REAL story of Anderson’s Nanny”
With trembling fingers, she opened the link to find a multi-page thread dissecting her life — her education, her previous jobs, even details about her time in foster care.
Someone had dug up her college yearbook photo.
Another had found an ancient MySpace page she’d forgotten existed.
They’d uncovered the obituary for her stepfather, speculating about her “daddy issues.”
Complete strangers were analyzing her life, picking apart her background, her choices, her very existence. The intrusion felt violating on a cellular level.
Sunny set the phone down, suddenly nauseated. The room seemed to spin slightly as she curled onto her side, hugging her knees to her chest. The physical symptoms of anxiety were becoming all too familiar — racing heart, clammy skin, churning stomach.
Trying to ground herself, she focused on counting her breaths. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. A technique she’d learnt after her father died, when panic attacks had become a regular occurrence.
As her breathing gradually steadied, a new awareness filtered through her anxiety — a different kind of physical discomfort. She sat up abruptly, counting backward in her head.
When had her last period been? Before the vacation, certainly. But how many days before? A week? Two?
She grabbed her phone again, her shaking fingers opening her calendar app. She scrolled backward, searching for the small red dot she used to mark her cycle.
Six weeks. It had been nearly six weeks.
She was late. Very late.
Her hand drifted unconsciously to her lower abdomen as the implications crashed over her like a tidal wave. The nausea that had plagued her all day took on new significance. The unusual fatigue she’d attributed to vacation activities suddenly seemed suspicious.
Could I be…
She couldn’t even complete the thought, her mind rebelling against the possibility even as her body sent unmistakable signals.
Not now. Please, not now.
But her silent plea couldn’t change the simple mathematics of their situation.
She and Liam had always been careful and used protection.
But she recalled the evening when Liam’s sister Morgan had unleashed her torrent of abuse.
Liam had visited her that night for a consolation cuddle, which turned into a lot more.
He had pulled out, but there was no guarantee without using protection.
Tomorrow she would need to find a pregnancy test. Tomorrow she would know for certain.
But tonight, as the reality of their situation settled over her like a heavy blanket, one thought echoed repeatedly through her mind: What the hell am I going to tell Liam?