Liam
Four-thirteen in the morning.
Something was deeply wrong. He had felt it in his bones when he left her room earlier — the tension radiating from her small frame, her avoidance of eye contact, and the mysterious pharmacy bag she had tried to hide.
Was she seriously ill?
He stood, pulled on a T-shirt, and padded barefoot into the hallway.
The plush carpet muffled his steps as he made his way to the staircase leading to Sunny’s room in the upper part of the house.
The old grandfather clock in the foyer chimed the quarter hour as he climbed the stairs, each step feeling heavier than the last.
Outside her door, he hesitated. What if she was sleeping? What could he possibly say? ‘I have a bad feeling’ hardly seemed adequate, yet it was the truth. Liam Anderson, the feared enforcer on ice, was terrified of what might be happening behind this door.
He knocked softly, the sound barely audible even to his own ears. No response. He tried again, louder this time, his knuckles rapping sharply against the wood.
“Sunny?” he called, keeping his voice low to avoid waking the girls.
Only silence greeted him. A cold feeling began to spread through his chest, a familiar precursor to panic he had experienced only once before — the day he found Kate collapsed on the kitchen floor.
The pharmacy bag flashed into his mind again.
There was only one course of action now.
Liam pushed the handle. The door swung open to reveal a room in disarray. The bed was made but clearly hadn’t been slept in. Drawers hung partially open, and closet doors were ajar. The bathroom stood empty, the light off. But most telling was what was missing — the duffle bag he had seen earlier.
“No,” he whispered, the word escaping like a prayer. “No, no, no.”
She was gone. She had actually left, just as she’d threatened.
The realization struck him with a physical force, driving the air from his lungs.
He braced himself against the door frame, memories of Sunny flashing through his mind — her radiant smile when the girls said something funny, her fierce determination when protecting them from that dog in Saint Lucia, the vulnerable look in her eyes when she first kissed him.
Liam bolted from the room, taking the stairs two at a time.
If she had just left, maybe he could catch her in the house.
He searched frantically — the kitchen, the living room, his office — each empty space heightening his desperation.
The house felt cavernous and hollow without her presence, a preview of what life would be like if she truly left.
“Sunny!” he called, no longer caring if he woke the girls. Better they wake to his shouting than discover tomorrow that Sunny had vanished from their lives.
He burst into the den, the last room on his mental checklist, preparing to grab his car keys and drive through the rain searching for her — and froze.
There she was.
Sunny sat curled in the corner of the large couch, coat on, her packed duffle bag at her feet. She was clutching a white envelope. Her face was tear-stained, her blue eyes rimmed with red as she looked up at him.
“You’re still here,” he breathed, relief washing over him so powerfully that his knees nearly buckled.
“I couldn’t do it,” she whispered, a fresh tear tracing down her cheek. “I got as far as checking on the girls one last time, and I just… couldn’t leave them. Not like that.”
Liam crossed the room in three long strides and dropped to his knees before her. Without thinking, he gathered her into his arms, cradling her against his chest as if she might vanish if he didn’t hold on tight enough.
“Thank God,” he murmured into her hair. “Thank God you’re still here.”
She shuddered against him, her small body wracked with silent sobs. He felt her hot tears soaking through his thin T-shirt, her fingers clutching desperately at the fabric.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked out between sobs. “I thought leaving was the right thing. For everyone.”
“Why?” Liam pulled back slightly to see her face, searching her expressive eyes for answers. “Whatever’s wrong, we can figure it out together. Running isn’t the answer, Sunny. Are you sick? Is it something serious?”
She bit her lip, her gaze dropping to the crumpled letter in her hand. “You should read this,” she said, her voice barely audible as she held it out to him.
Liam took the envelope with a sense of foreboding, noting how his name was written on the front in her familiar handwriting. His hands were surprisingly steady as he withdrew the letter, though his heart hammered painfully in his chest.
The first lines confirmed his worst fears: she had indeed planned to leave. But as he continued reading, the world seemed to tilt beneath him.
There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just be direct: I’m pregnant, Liam.
The words hit him like a body check against the boards, stealing his breath.
Pregnant.
A baby.
Sunny was carrying his child.
He glanced back at Sunny’s face. She was watching him with raw vulnerability, her arms wrapped protectively around her midsection — a gesture he now understood wasn’t just about self-comfort.
“Is it…” he began, his voice thick with emotion. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, fresh tears spilling over. “I took the test tonight. That’s what was in the pharmacy bag you saw.”
Liam’s mind raced with conflicting emotions. Shock, certainly. Fear, undeniably. But beneath those immediate reactions, something else began to take root — a fierce, protective joy that caught him completely off guard.
“A baby,” he whispered, the word carrying a weight and wonder he hadn’t anticipated.
The unexpected gift of new life amid so much chaos.
Sunny’s eyes widened at his tone, clearly not the reaction she had expected. “Liam, I’m so sorry. The scandal, the team’s ultimatum, your career — this will make everything a hundred times worse.”
But Liam wasn’t focused on the team or the media.
His mind drifted back to the day Maddie was born, when the nurse placed that tiny, red-faced bundle in his trembling arms Then to Hailey’s birth, when Kate smiled up at him tiredly as he held their second daughter, marveling at her perfect miniature fingers and toes.
The overwhelming surge of love that crashed over him in those moments was something he never thought he’d feel again after Kate’s death.
Now, looking at Sunny’s tear-streaked face, he was blindsided by the realization that life was offering him another chance — not to replace what he had lost but to build something new from the broken pieces of his heart.
“How… when did this happen?” he asked, struggling to process the timeline.
“After Morgan’s visit,” Sunny replied, her voice small. “That night when you came to my room… we weren’t as careful as we should have been.”
The memory flashed vividly in Liam’s mind. The night had been a blur of comfort and passion after Morgan’s cruel accusations had left Sunny shattered. They had sought solace in each other’s bodies, desperate to prove that what they shared wasn’t shameful or wrong.
“I don’t expect anything from you,” Sunny continued, pulling him back to the present. “I understand if this changes things, if it’s too much with everything else…”
“Stop,” Liam interrupted, taking her trembling hands in his. “Just… stop.”
She fell silent, her eyes wide in her pale face.
Liam struggled to organize his chaotic thoughts. The team’s ultimatum echoed in his mind: “End your relationship with Miss Thompson.” His career — his only identity outside of being Kate’s husband and the girls’ father — hung in the balance.
But looking at Sunny — brave, selfless Sunny, who had been prepared to leave rather than complicate his life further — made everything suddenly, blindingly clear.
“I almost lost Kate once, before she died,” he said quietly, the words emerging from a deep place he rarely accessed. “There was a car accident when she was pregnant with Hailey. The doctors weren’t sure if either of them would make it.”
Sunny’s breath caught. “You never told me that.”
“I’ve never told anyone this, except for my family,” Liam admitted. “I sat in that hospital waiting room for six hours, bargaining with a God I wasn’t sure I believed in. I promised I’d be a better husband, a better father — anything if they both pulled through.”
He swallowed hard, the memory still painfully vivid. “They did survive, and for a while, I kept those promises. But eventually, I fell back into old habits — hockey first, taking Kate’s support for granted, missing more of Maddie’s milestones than I’d like to admit.”
Liam’s voice broke under the weight of his regret. “When Kate collapsed that morning, I knew she was gone before the paramedics even arrived. All I could think was that I’d wasted the second chance I’d been given. That I’d failed her.”
“Liam,” Sunny whispered, reaching up to touch his face. “You didn’t fail her.”
“I did,” he insisted. “Not by being a terrible husband, but by not appreciating every moment we had. I thought there would always be more time, that there would always be a tomorrow.”
He took a deep breath, forcing himself to meet her gaze. “When I lost Kate, I thought that was it. Life had given me my one shot at happiness, and I’d squandered it. Then you walked into our lives.”
A hint of warmth returned to Sunny’s eyes, though uncertainty still clouded her features. “I never meant to complicate things.”
“You didn’t complicate them,” Liam replied firmly. “You made them make sense again.”
He placed a tentative hand on her abdomen. The gesture felt both foreign and achingly familiar. “This baby — our baby — it’s not a complication. It’s a miracle.”
Sunny’s eyes filled with fresh tears, but they seemed different from the earlier ones. “You don’t hate me? For getting pregnant?”
The question struck Liam like a hockey stick to the face. “Hate you? God, Sunny, no. How could I ever hate you for this?”
“I was so afraid,” she confessed. “With everything going on — the scandal, the team’s demands, Morgan’s accusations — I thought you’d think I did this on purpose. To trap you.”
Liam pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her slender frame. “I know you better than that,” he murmured against her hair. “You’re the most selfless person I’ve ever met. If anything, I’m the one who failed you by not being more careful.”
They sat in silence for several moments, the steady rhythm of the rain outside creating a gentle backdrop to the monumental shift occurring between them. Liam’s mind raced, trying to navigate this unexpected turn in their lives.
The team’s ultimatum no longer held any power over him. His priorities had crystallized with stunning clarity the moment he read those words:
I’m pregnant, Liam.
Three simple words that had reconstructed his entire world.
Maddie and Hailey’s faces flashed in his mind.
How would they react to this news? They adored Sunny, but a new sibling would be a massive change, especially after everything they had already endured.
Would they feel replaced? Threatened? Or would they embrace this new addition as enthusiastically as they had welcomed Sunny into their lives?
Then there was the practical side — the media firestorm that would inevitably erupt when news of the pregnancy leaked. The scrutiny would be brutal, the invasion of their privacy relentless. But they had weathered the first wave of scandal; they could face this too, especially if they stood united.
“What are you thinking?” Sunny asked softly, breaking into his thoughts.
Liam looked down at her, this remarkable woman who had brought light back into his darkened world. She had loved his daughters as if they were her own from the very beginning.
Kate’s face flashed in his mind — not the pale, lifeless version that haunted his nightmares, but the vibrant, laughing Kate he had known, her eyes dancing with mischief. What would she think of this moment?
Strangely, he could almost hear her voice, feel her presence beside him.
“Life’s too short for second-guessing good things when you find them, Liam.”
It had been her mantra, one he’d often found frustratingly impulsive during their marriage. Now, it felt like permission.
In that moment, with perfect clarity, he knew exactly what he wanted. The two words emerged from a deep, instinctive place, bypassing his usual cautious deliberation. Yet, the moment they left his lips, he knew with bone-deep certainty that this was what he wanted.
“Marry me,” he said.