Page 9 of Secret Baby with My One Timer

“DNA testing.” Her exhalation is deep before she answers, “I filled most of it out for you.”

“Mom!”

“Please, Taylor, just take it and consider it.”

Chapter 4

Oliver

“I need to talk to you,” I say to my father, who works away as usual in his office.

I stroll to the window and stare out at the views over the mountains beyond the Hunter Valley. Views my father should appreciate, but he is always too busy to appreciate the surrounding beauty.

His eyes rise from his desk, before he places his pen down and entwines his hands behind his head. Leaning back in his chair, he says, “I’m listening.”

There is one thing about my father. He always listens. I wasn’t gifted with a loving mother, but my father makes up for that.

How do I tell him?

How do I let him know I’ve repeated his past?

My career in hockey is always the most important thing to me. I love the thrill of being on the ice, but somehow, I still feel like I am missing something. Yes, the sport gives me so many advantages. For one, I have women throwing themselves at my feet, but I take no chances with them.

My coach didn’t warn me, he did... my father.

But things have changed for me. After seeing another up-and-coming hockey star, Adam Turner, so happy in his life. He’s so young, but he and his wife are about to have a child. It’s made me realize all this time, it’s what I want, a child.

I should want the hundreds of women who try their luck after each game, but I don’t want it.

My father, the successful Leighton Peckham, did it with me. Telling me how stupid he was to get a girl pregnant in his teens. But he did the right thing, offered to marry her. She refused before telling him he had a choice. He had to take the baby when it was born, but she wasn’t part of the package.

My father couldn’t accept the alternative.

I think my father expected her to relent when I was born, but when my mother gave birth to me, she gave me to my father without a second thought.

And that still fucking hurts.

My father has never been married; he is married to his work. He has occasional dates, but nothing serious. Which means I never had a mother figure growing up, but my father gave me everything in the world... love... money... a future in the sport I love... a lack of wanting another.

And too much independence for my own good.

“What’s on your mind?” My father’s voice shoves me out of my thoughts.

“I think I have a child...” I hesitate for a moment. “A little girl,” I say, remembering her pale hazel eyes on mine as she held onto my old nemesis, Adam’s neck, her godfather.

My father narrows his eyes. “You think?” He shakes his head. “What makes you think?”

“The child has my eyes,” I say.

Leighton stares at me for a moment and swallows. My gaze wanders to his pale hazel eyes. The same flecks of gold are in his too.

“Is that enough to think she is yours?”

I sigh and shake my head. “I recognized her mother. She’s a friend of Adam Turner’s wife. She was at the game at the weekend.”

“And she said nothing to you about the child?” My father’s tone is low.

“She never recognized me. She chastised me for something I did on the ice to Adam a few years ago.”

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