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Grinning, she shot me a look over her shoulder. Her eyes held mine. The grin slowly started fading. “There’s something else, isn’t there? This isn’t just about you being worried about his relationship with his father anymore.”

I shook my head slowly from one side to the other, chewing on my lower lip as I tried to decide how much to tell her. “There’s more.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really, but the long and short of it is that I got fired because of all this stuff going on with the Thayers in the press right now and I didn’t tell him.”

Tasha’s mouth dropped open and she blinked slowly. She swiped her tongue across her lips and gawked for another second. “The library let you go? I thought they just told you to lie low for a while.”

“They did, but then they received all sorts of complains about a Thayer working with their kids and it went downhill from there.”

She scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. Court committed white-collar crimes. Unless they’re worried about you swindling their kids out of their allowances, I don’t really see the problem.”

“I know, but it is what it is.” I dragged both hands over my face, considering telling her about the possibility that I might be pregnant, but I wasn’t ready to admit that to anyone yet.

Hell, it had been hard enough acknowledging to myself that my period was late. Telling Holden had been a heat of the moment thing. If I told Tasha in the cold light of day and without being in the middle of an argument, that would make it real. I wasn’t ready for real. As a precautionary measure, I’d cut way down on caffeine and I hadn’t had so much as a sip of alcohol, but outside of that, I just needed some more time to get my head wrapped around the possibility.

Tasha wrapped me up in a hug and squeezed me tight. “Do you think they’re going to let you come back when this blows over?”

“No,” I admitted against her hair. “I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. My boss didn’t mention anything like that on the phone, so…”

I trailed off, surprised when Tasha suddenly laughed as she let me go. By the time she’d pulled away and was standing in front of me again, she was beaming, her eyes brimming with genuine excitement.

“Okay, I know it sucks that they fired you, especially because you didn’t do anything wrong and Court’s crimes had nothing to do with harming children, but look on the bright side. Now, you can really lean into being a rich wife.”

Confusion snaked through me. “What are you talking about?”

She hooked her arm through mine and dragged me away from the sexy animal outfits. “I’m talking about you not having to work. Don’t get me wrong, I know you loved your job, but let’s face the facts. Your husband is loaded and so are you. If you miss the work itself, you can always find a community organization with some books to volunteer at and help them expand their offerings, or you can join one of those groups that teach children to read, but at the end of the day, you don’t have to do that.”

I blinked a couple times, but she wasn’t wrong. “I haven’t thought of volunteering.”

She gave a mock little bow as we stopped in front of the slutty princess dresses. “That’s why you have me. I’m a genius. Think about it, Alicia. People have jobs to make money. You don’t need that anymore. You can do some actual good for the kids of this city, and when you’re not doing that, you can just be a lady who lunches.”

I shoved her playfully. “You want me to start having garden parties?”

She laughed. “Hey, if the shoe fits.”

I groaned. “I hate that you’re making some sense.”

“I always make sense.” She winked at me, then motioned toward a Cinderella style dress that wouldn’t even fully cover my butt cheeks. “With that thought in mind, your royal gowns await, milady. You’re a Thayer now, get it?”

“Why do you insist on calling them the Royal Thayers?” I asked. “They’re really not.”

“No, but they used to be. They used to rule our fair city’s social scene with an iron fist. Nora was practically a queen, which makes you a real princess.”

“I don’t think princesses come in slutty.”

“Sure, but like you just said, they’re not that royal anymore. Well, not right now, anyway, but while you’re waiting for them to rebuild their reputation, you could go back to school or you could sleep until noon and start entire libraries in community centers all over when you finally wake up. The possibilities are endless.”

The more she spoke, the more I realized that I hadn’t thought about any of this. Honestly, I hadn’t even considered looking at it from the point of view that this might be a blessing in disguise at all, but maybe it was.

Maybe it would even be okay if I am pregnant.

The shift in perspective suddenly opened up a whole new world of what my future might look like. It felt like someone had shattered a piece of glass I’d been trying to walk through without even realizing it was there.

It happened so fast that it was almost dizzying, but God. During the pregnancy, I could stay home, rest, and take my time deciding what my next move should be. After the baby was born, I wouldn’t have to worry about maternity leave, or childcare, or whether I could afford to take six months off.

I could spend my time with the baby and reading to my own child. Warmth bloomed in my chest at the thought. I truly had loved my job and being a librarian had been my dream for so long that I’d never even considered an alternative, but motherhood was another dream I’d always had.