The mate of his nanny

Chapter 120: An Unexpected Turn of Events

Moana

I woke up the next morning after a night full of too many dreams about Edrick. If I wasn't sure of it before, I was sure of it now after our conversation the night earlier; Edrick would never accept me as his wife. Even if he decided to have a fake relationship with someone, he would never choose me because of the glaring differences in our social status.

Even though my heart was broken, I knew that it would be for the best if I just left at that point. I couldn't raise a baby in a home where its own father didn't think that I was worth even having a fake public relationship with, and I certainly wouldn't raise my baby in a home where Edrick was also living with a different woman. As I woke up that morning, I knew that it would soon come time for me to leave. I was just glad that I had been carefully saving my money for that inevitability; but I only wished that it had happened before my harrowing experience with Edrick. The way he saved me from those Rogues only made me more attached to him, and now it would be even harder for me to cut myself loose.

When I woke up, Edrick was already gone for work. In a strange way, I had hoped to wake up in his arms one last time — but I knew that it would only make things even worse, so maybe it would be better this way. At the very least, when he came home later and I informed him of my plans to leave, I wouldn't do so with the feeling of his arms around me still fresh on my skin.

I took my time showering and getting dressed, as it was still early. Lately, the pregnancy had made me a little slower, too. My belly was beginning to protrude even more with the rapidly-growing little werewolf inside of me, which made me wonder just how long it would be before I would be the side of a small planet; maybe, I thought to myself as I got dressed, it was time for me to start doing research on werewolf pregnancies.

If I was going to be going through the remainder of this pregnancy on my own without Selina or Edrick by my side to guide me, I would need to have at least some basic knowledge on how the process would work.

When I eventually emerged from my bedroom with all of these things still on my mind, however, it seemed that the universe simply felt the need to get in the way of my own train of thought.

"Miss Moana!" Amy said, scurrying up to me with a somewhat frantic look on her face. "You have to see this." She quickly grabbed me by the wrist before I even had a chance to react, then practically dragged me out into the living room.

"What's going on?" I asked as I noticed that Selina and Lily were standing in front of the television with wide eyes. "What? Did someone die or something?"
Lily slowly shook her head as she stared unblinkingly at the television. Even Selina, the stoic and unperturbed housekeeper, was so fixated on the television that she didn't even seem to acknowledge my presence. I had never seen her like that before, aside from the other day when Edrick brought me home after the incident with the Rogues, and seeing how pale her face had become frightened me and made me wonder if something seriously awful had happened.

"Look," Amy whispered, pointing at the screen and tearing my attention away from the housekeeper.
With shaky eyes, I followed Amy's finger to the screen. There was a news channel that seemed to be playing a recap of the morning's events; in particular, events involving Edrick.

On the screen, there was a clip of Edrick getting out of his car. The camera footage was shaky as the reporter ran up to him. He was surrounded by frantic paparazzi and seemed to be trying to keep his head down and push his way through the crowd, but the news reporter stood in his way and spoke loudly.

"Mr. Morgan!" the news reporter said with a plastic grin as she blocked his way, which seemed to distress him a bit as he tried to sidestep around her. "Do you have any comments on the recent speculation? Who is this mystery woman, and what is your connection to her?"

For some reason, Edrick froze at that point. He stood there for a moment, staring at the ground with a pale face as though he was losing focus; then, all of a sudden, he looked up and responded to the reporter after refusing to speak to the paparazzi for the entire clip.

"The red-haired woman is my fiancee," Edrick blurted out into the reporter's microphone, almost as though he didn't even seem to consider it beforehand. "She is the mother of my eight-year-old daughter, and we have another baby on the way."

My eyes went wide. The reporters gasped, as did I and the other servants. I clapped my hand over my mouth in shock as Edrick was quickly ushered away by WereCorp security guards and disappeared inside the headquarters. I swore for a brief moment before Edrick disappeared that I even saw a hint of a relieved smile on his face, as though he seemed glad to have made this announcement. But why?

Wouldn't he feel embarrassed to announce a relationship with someone who not only had a much lower social status than he did, but was also, for all intents and purposes, still a human in the public's eyes? Wouldn't his father be furious?

The news clip then faded away and went instead to a news anchor sitting behind a desk while paparazzi photos of Edrick and I appeared on the screen next to her. But by that point, I had no idea what she was even saying because I was in such a state of complete and utter shock.

Had Edrick just announced that I was his fiancee? Not only that, but did he come out and say that I was not only pregnant with his child, but was also Ella's biological mother?

I couldn't believe it.
"Miss Moana," Lily said, turning to face me with wide eyes. "Is it true? Are you and Mr. Morgan engaged now?"

I swallowed and shook my head, still in a state of disbelief. "No," I replied. "We're not. It's... It's just fake to keep the paparazzi at bay."

Both Amy and Lily looked at me with a combination of disbelief and disappointment, but Selina only stared at me from behind them. As I locked eyes with her, I could sense that she knew that this was something else... Something more than just a fake relationship for positive press. And there was even what looked like a ghost of a smile on her lips, as though she was happy that Edrick had announced our relationship.

I didn't realize it, but I was smiling a little, too.
Did this mean that he really wouldn't marry anyone else? When he said the night before that he wouldn't choose Kelly... Was that because he had already chosen me instead?