"Tyler, I'm pregnant."

A few seconds passed and I thought he hadn't heard me the first time when his arms around me loosened and he pulled away to look at me, "What?"

I took a deep breath, took his hand and kept it on my stomach. "I'm going to have our baby."

I waited for him to lose his shit, I waited for him to say something like ′nah, don't think it's mine.′ Or expected him to scream at me saying, 'how could you?' but none of that happened and he stared at me with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Wow." He said, still staring at me and then he chuckled. "We made a baby?!"

I nodded and he kissed my forehead, "Why are you shaking, Vicky? Wait, did you think I'd flip and tell you that I didn't want it?"

"Yeah." I shrugged. "I thought maybe..."

"God, no." He said sincerely holding my hands in his. He brought them to his mouth and kissed them, "I'm disappointed that you think I'm like one of those guys."

I shook my head, my heart sagging with relief. "You were gone for three weeks, and I didn't know what to think or how to reach you."

"I'm so sorry, baby. If I knew that you were pregnant, I would have come running." He tilted my face upward to kiss me, the pressure of his lips on mine was gentle, and I could feel my heart racing against my chest as he rewarded me with some tongue. When Tyler pulled away after a while, I thought something changed in his eyes. He regarded me with a newfound emotion, almost like he knew this was the turning point in our lives, that things had changed between us. There was a burning ember of possession and devotion.

He cupped my face in both his hands, thumb caressing my jawline, and his stormy blue eyes cutting through mine. "You don't have to worry about anything now that I'm here with you. After we both turn eighteen in a few months, we'll get married and then we'll move out of this town." He dug his hand in his pocket and pulled out his phone to show me a picture of a beautiful big house. "This is one of my family homes, and the house is mostly always empty, there are lots of bedrooms, a pool and everything that you'd ever want. We're moving there. I'll take care of my dad's operations there and we'll raise the kid together."

Tyler was making decisions for me again, and he hadn't asked me even once what I wanted or where I wanted to live.

This was all about him; everything was always about him.

"Tyler, I'm sorry, I can't do that."

His eyebrows arched up, "You can't do what?"

"We discussed this before and me being pregnant doesn't change anything. I want to stay in Cold-Bay and go to college somewhere close, so it's easier for me to come back home when I want to. I told Mom I would help with the bakery."

"Let me get this straight. You're rejecting my marriage proposal because you want to stay in this boring town?"

"I'm not saying that I won't marry you. I just don't want to move so far away from home, at least not until I'm done with college."

"You're a piece of work, you know that right?" He asked.

His words stung, and that's exactly what he wanted. "Call me what you want to but you can't always make decisions for me."

"Well I'm the father of that baby so naturally I make decisions for you whether you like it or not, Victoria. Get used to it. We're getting married, and we're going to move out of this town. I'm going to help with Dad's company and you're going to take care of the baby. We live happily ever after."

"You can't force me to go with you."

"You wanna bet on that?" He caged me against my car.

"Do you love me, Ty?"

It took a lot of courage to ask him that knowing his answer in my heart.

He looked confused as hell but he didn't hesitate before saying, "What kind of question is that? Of course, I love you, otherwise why the hell would I ask you to marry me?"

"Because of the baby, and because you're used to having me around."

"Is that what you really think?" He asked.

"I know it's a fact," I said, I was firm on my beliefs.

He chuckled, "You told me you were pregnant and I said I would take responsibility which is more than what a lot of boys would do at my age. What you're doing right now is picking a fight over a petty reason and making me fucking furious, and I don't think you want to see me get angry now, do you?"

I laughed, "It slipped, see. Your mask. If I pushed you hard enough you show me what you're capable of."

"Which is?"

"Threatening me!"

"If you think that's all I'm capable of then you're in for a little surprise so yeah it would be wise not to push me." He said in a cold and calculative tone, "It's probably your pregnancy hormones so I won't blame you, but if you think you can get rid of me somehow than I'll tell you how wrong you're about that. Now, get in the car."

It's been what, thirty minutes since I've met him now and he was already bossing me around.

I sat down in the car and handed him the keys mostly because I knew arguing with him wasn't going to get me anywhere. Still, I hadn't lost the fight in me.

Don't get me wrong, I was happy that Tyler was back and even happier that he was taking responsibility for our baby, but that didn't change his over the top possessiveness and demanding behavior.

I wanted everything on my terms. I wanted him to understand that having this baby didn't change my dream about owning the best bakery in town. My passion was baking, and I wanted to continue doing that even after I was married. What Tyler wanted from me was to be caged in his billion-dollar lifestyle.

The last thing I expected when I walked down the hallways of my school was to be stared at. If that wasn't enough, I knew I heard my name being whispered more than a few times. I ignored it every time because I thought I might be imagining it.

I sat through most of the classes confused until during lunch when Abby came up to me, she was co-captain of the football team and we usually exchanged pleasantries in the hallways. We'd been friends in middle school but then things had changed somehow.

She had a polite smile on her face, "Hey Vicky, congratulations!"

I almost dropped my carton of milk.

She knew!

"How do you know?"

She shrugged, "Rob told Wayne, Wayne then told Timmy and you know how it goes around until everyone finds out. It seems Brad was with Tyler when he announced it."

"Tyler announced that I was pregnant?"

I felt the anger pulsing through my veins.

"Yeah," she smiled, "He said he was going to be a daddy."

I climbed to my feet and started making my way out of the lunch area, and I didn't stop until I'd hunted him down. I stormed right into the boys changing room, not caring that some of the team members started grabbing their towels to hide their junk. I was so angry, I just didn't care.

I found Tyler standing by a locker with a towel wrapped around his narrow hips, water still dripping down from his body, his hair was wet and he was talking to Ray Nelson when he saw me. He appeared to be surprised at first and then he gave me a megawatt smile, "Here's my baby's momma."

Some of his teammates who were standing there sniggered and hooted.

"You're not allowed to be here, Vicky." He reminded me, a little pissed to see me here with a room filled with half-naked guys.

"Did you tell everyone that I was pregnant?" I asked, seething.

Tyler gave me his most innocent look, "Yeah, I did. Thought it wasn't something we should be hiding anymore."

"Couldn't you have at least talked to me about it first before screaming from rooftops, seeing as I'm the one who's going to be carrying around the baby for another nine months?"

"What's the big deal?" He asked in an irritated voice, "I'm going to be here for you."

"What's up?" Ray intervened, "Is my man giving you any problems, Mrs. Lockhart?"

It took a few seconds to sink in that he was calling me Mrs. Lockhart.

Tyler turned to look at Ray and glared him down, "Beat it, Nelson."

Ray took the warning and left us alone, and Tyler gave me a menacing look, "I know you have a penchant for drama but I would rather not do this right now in front of my teammates, so whatever it is that you have a problem with, we'll discuss it when we get home. Okay?"

"Next time you need to announce something, you discuss it with me first," I told him.

"How about you quit stomping into the men's changing room? Go back to class, Vicky."

Our relationship was going nowhere; it was like constantly walking into brick walls imagining that they would break one day. I was tired of these constant fighting, and Tyler's aloof behavior.

I knew why he'd declared that I was pregnant, that was his way of announcing to all the guys in school that now I was completely off-limits, I was having his baby, so everyone would just back off. He wasn't thinking about the impact it would have on my life. I planned to tell everyone in a few months when I had things figured out, but right now, he'd already made it difficult for me.

It was a free period so I'd decided to do my homework when I heard it.

"Yeah, what kind of moron doesn't have protected sex?" Jenifer said. She was sitting a few seats behind me but her voice was loud enough for everyone to hear in closer proximity.

"She's not a moron, Jeni, she's smart." That was Linda, Jenifer's best friend. The two were Harper's minions and they liked being mean to me when they got a chance, and their hatred for me had increased ten folds since Harper was suspended for a few weeks.

"Smart how?"

"Don't you see? She got knocked up by Tyler, I mean Tyler Lockhart. That baby is going to give her a mansion, and a credit card that she could use until she's got gray hair and lost all her teeth. The way I see it, she hit a jackpot."

"Maybe that baby isn't even Tyler's. She used to hang out a lot with Noah too, remember?"

"Right."

"If I knew that sleeping with Tyler was going to come with so many benefits, I would have tried harder to seduce him." That was Jenifer.

"Quit dreaming, girl. You and I both know he's got a thing for Victoria. He looks at us like we were bugs or something."

"But Harper said she had sex with Tyler once." Jeni and Linda both giggled, her voice turned louder when she said, "She told me it was right after he got suspended last time. She went to his house and completely caught him off-guard. She said it was off the charts hot."

Tyler was not a cheater. No matter what these bitches said, I knew that was the absolute truth.

My fury sprung to life as stood up and walked to their table. "If you guys have a problem with me, you should come to talk to me directly and stop talking shit behind my back."

Linda rolled her eyes, she wasn't ashamed about all the lies she was spreading. "We understand. The truth can hurt."

I laughed, "I understand you girls are jealous. And Linda, maybe it's time you changed your bio as well because apart from cheerleading, spreading rumors and spreading your legs is the only thing you're actually good at."

Someone in the back seats hooted. You should have seen her gaping face, and Jenifer pretended like she had nothing to do with anything that I said. I picked up my bag-pack and walked out of the classroom.

I thought I was having the worst phase in my life, and not because I was pregnant at such a young age but because people like Jeni and Linda were making it hard for me. Little did I know that things were about to get even uglier.

* * *