Coldhearted Boss - R.S. Grey Page 0,107

when it was my turn to get my diploma, but it all happens too fast. I walk to the center, shake the dean’s hand, pose for a photo, and then they’re on to the next person. I shouldn’t be crying as I descend the steps. No one else is crying. In fact, the guy in front of me immediately starts texting again, bored out of his mind.

Maybe to some people, a college degree is a given.

For me, it wasn’t.

I never thought I’d be here, a graduate of the University of Texas School of Engineering. For the last six years, I’ve been anything but the typical student. For my first couple of semesters, I took all my courses online while Ethan and I finished up work on Pine Wood Resort and then moved back to Austin together. There, I continued working for Lockwood Construction in a part-time position, all the while continuing to take courses at the community college.

Ethan was the one to convince me to apply to UT. It still felt like a pipe dream, especially considering McKenna was only a year away from applying herself. She was at the top of her class back in Oak Dale, president of everything. She had college in her future no matter how many ways you slice it.

Still, I applied, if nothing else so I could say, Well, at least I tried!

I didn’t think I would get in. In fact, I was so sure of it that I didn’t factor it into our plans. Ethan and I were both eager to take the next steps in our relationship. We wanted marriage and kids. We wanted a family of our own.

We had a tiny wedding ceremony back at Pine Wood, right on the edge of the lake where we used to spend our weekends swimming and reading. I stood across from him, pregnant, though I didn’t know it at the time. We said our vows while the breeze from the lake rustled the flowers pinned in my hair. Mckenna and my mom cried the whole time, which in turn made me cry the whole time, but you better believe our hair looked amazing.

Ethan and I didn’t have a honeymoon. There was no time. Lockwood Construction had a big project starting up—one I was going to help assist on—and then, well…everything happened all at once: I took a pregnancy test and found out I was pregnant the very same day my acceptance packet came from UT.

When Ethan got home that night, I was on the floor in our bathroom, crying and clutching the manila envelope in one hand and the test stick in the other. Apparently I looked like I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because he hauled me onto his lap and started kissing my cheeks, my hair, anywhere within reach.

“Taylor,” he said, desperately trying to get me to look at him. “It’s okay. This will be okay. I know it’s overwhelming, but don’t be sad—”

That’s when I finally spoke up, and to this day he still quotes me on this. With a smile and a broken sob, I said, “Are you kidding?! This is the best day of my life!”

Being a mom in college was as hilariously difficult as anyone would expect it to be. Late-night study sessions while breastfeeding an infant often had me seeing double the next day in class.

I had semesters where I only took one class and I had semesters where I crammed three courses into a shortened summer session and thought I was going to die from stress. Thankfully, Isla stepped up in a big way. I never had to think about hiring a nanny because she was there. I mean, really, at all hours of the day and night. I thought I’d never be able to repay her, but she’s due to pop any day now, and I’ve already stocked her freezer full of meals and helped her set up the nursery. Tanner’s a nervous wreck, so the plan is for me to be with her in the delivery room too, just in case he faints and has to be wheeled out.

I smile down at the fake diploma in my hand and then glance around me. Most of the students here had the standard college experience: four years of studying hard, taking risks, changing majors, finding themselves. Most of them are twenty-two, just babies. I know at twenty-eight, I’m not all that much older, and yet somehow I feel like I should be sitting