Pregnant and abandoned, she made a dreadful choice to survive
Lauren never considered herself weak. Quite the oppositeeveryone called her the picture of rationality, cool logic, and iron will. Growing up in a childrens home taught her one unshakable rule: you could only rely on yourself. No one would come to the rescue. No one would save you. In this world, you had to be strong and calculating, like a chess player thinking ten moves ahead. Lauren built her life the way an architect drafts a housedown to the millimetre. No slip-ups. No impulsive decisions. No naive dreams.
First came teacher training college. Then a modest but steady jobteaching primary school. Her own little flat. Next, marriage. Not out of passion or youthful infatuation, but deliberately. To a reliable, solid man with whom she could build the one thing shed never hada real family. The very “building block of society” shed read about in textbooks but never known in real life.
She despised those who chose recklessnessgirls who threw themselves at the first man they met, got pregnant at sixteen, and ruined their futures in one impulsive moment. Lauren was different. She thought she was smarter. Stronger. And she was certain: she would never stumble.
Then, one day, a man crashed into her carefully constructed world, proving stronger than all her plans.
**Jack.**
Tall, with eyes like a summer skybright, piercing, dangerously handsome. He worked at the garage near her student digs, laughed too loudly, bought her chocolate bars, and asked her out even when his pockets were empty. He had an old but spotless Ford Fiesta, and hed drive her around the countryside, blasting music and telling outrageous stories about his misadventures. He seemed free, generous, unbreakable. Behind his broad shoulders, she wanted to hide from the world.
And Lauren, always restrained and cautious, let herself dissolve in emotion for the first time. For once, feeling overpowered cold calculation. She was swept up in passion, and everything shed built for years crumbled like a house of cards in the wind. She lost controland, just as she feared, that was when she crossed the line.
When two pink lines confirmed her worst fears, her heart clenched with icy terror. But a stubborn flicker of hope remained. She went to Jack with shaking hands, a wild fear in her chest. She imagined hed pull her into his arms, promise theyd manage together, that theyd marrythat this was the start of a new life.
Reality hit so hard the ground fell away beneath her.
Jack listenedthen laughed. Not loudly. Dryly. Coldly. With a mocking edge that sent chills down her spine.
“Seriously?” He smirked, leaning back on his chair. “Lauren, come on. I never signed up to be a dad. Ive got enough problems of my own. Dont need a kid. And honestly?” His gaze flicked over her. “With that baggage? Neither do you.”
Each word stung like a slap. He spoke as casually as if discussing the weather, as if she were just an inconvenience in his carefree life. His eyes didnt waver. His hands didnt shake. He didnt see the woman hed claimed to love. Didnt see their future. Didnt see their child. All he saw was a problem.
In that moment, Laurens world, which had just started glowing with warmth, turned grey again. Empty. Frozen. She walked through the rain without feeling it. Tears streaked her cheeks, but inside, there was no griefjust a numb void. All her plans were ruined. Her future erased. She felt alone, betrayed, doomed. Ahead lay only pain, silence, and the abortion shed booked for the next day.
But fate had other ideas.
That evening, lying on her dorm bed surrounded by crumpled tissues, staring blankly at the ceiling, her phone rang. Insistent. Unrelenting. As if it knew she couldnt ignore it.
She answered. A mans voice, dry and official, introduced himself as a solicitor.
“Miss Lauren Whitaker, this concerns an inheritance left by your late grandmother, Evelyn Margaret Whitaker.”
“My what?” she whispered, disbelieving. “I dont have a grandmother. I dont have anyone.”
“Nevertheless,” the voice continued, unfazed, “you are required to attend the reading of the will. Urgently.”
The next day, in an office that smelled of old paper and wax, Lauren heard words that upended her life for the second time that weekbut this time, lifting her toward light, not darkness.
The elderly solicitor adjusted his glasses and read the will of Evelyn Margaret Whitakera name Lauren had never heard before. According to the documents, she was to receive: a flat in Bristol, a large countryside cottage with land, and a substantial sum in a bank account.
She sat utterly still. But there was one condition. A strict, unusual one. She would inherit only if she lived in the cottage for exactly one year alongside a man named Samuel James Woodley, who, under the same will, inherited a garage and an old car.
“Who was this woman?” Lauren asked, voice trembling. “And who is Samuel?”
The solicitor sighed and set the papers down.
“Miss Whitaker Evelyn wasnt just your grandmother. She was your mothers mother.”
Shock hit Lauren like a tidal wave.
It turned out her story wasnt as simple as “left at an orphanage.” Her mother, Evelyns daughter, had her too young. Her fathera man with a criminal pastblackmailed Evelyn, demanding money and threatening to take the baby. To protect her granddaughter, Evelyn arranged with her daughter to fake abandonment, placing Lauren in care until the danger passed.
But “later” never came. The fathers threats kept Evelyn away. By the time she could search properly, Laurens trail had vanished in the system. All those years, her grandmother had looked for her. And found hertoo late. Ill and frail, Evelyn never got to meet her.
As for Samuel? The son of Evelyns closest friend, taken in as a teenager, hed become like a grandson to her.
Everything Lauren knew about her past shattered in an instant. She wasnt “no ones.” She wasnt abandoned. Shed had a grandmother who loved her, searched for her, grieved for her. And suddenly, the choice shed made that morning seemed monstrous. Leaving the solicitors office, she found the nearest bin and tossed the abortion referral inside.
For the first time in years, something else burned inside her. Not just hopelight. Now, she had a home. Money. Roots. Familyunexpected, but real.
“Ill manage,” she whispered into the damp air. “Me and this baby well survive. More than thatwell be happy.”
A week later, she arrived in the village. The cottage stood apartsolid, built of oak beams, with a garden that must have bloomed riotously in spring. By the gate, a tall man in a worn jacket waited, leaning against the post, a faint smirk in his eyes.
“So youre the unexpected heiress,” he said instead of hello, voice low and a little rough. “Sam.”
“Lauren,” she replied shortly, bristling at his tone. He sounded as if shed come to steal his last possession.
“Well, come in, then, Miss Inheritance. Lets see how you plan to survive a year here,” he said, swinging the gate open.
Inside, the cottage was warm, smelling of wood and dried herbs. A photograph of an older woman with kind eyes sat on the table. Granny Evelyn.
“She waited for you,” Sam said quietly, noticing her gaze. “Kept saying, Ill find my Lauren. Ill bring her home.”
The love and grief in his voice made her realisehe wasnt just a tenant. He belonged here by right of heart. And she was the outsider, arriving with papers.
“Listen,” she said firmly. “I need this deal as much as you. I wont get in your way. I just need this year to get on my feet. Lets agreewell tolerate each other.”
Sam blinked, surprised. Hed expected tantrums, tears. Instead, he got a business proposal.
“Tolerate it is,” he said, the edge gone from his smile. “Deal. My rooms upstairs. Yours is down here, faces the garden. Shared kitchen. Dont get lost.”
He turned to the window. And in that moment, Lauren saw something elsenot a sharp-tongued man, but someone lonely. Behind the sarcasm was the same grief she carried. That thought became the first fragile thread between them.
Life began moving differently. Lauren took a job as a kitchen assistant at the village schoolsimple work, but steady. Every pound earned added to her confidence. She made the cottage hersdigging vegetable patches, planting herbs, sowing the garden with marigolds and asters, just as shed loved as a child. The house came alive under her care.
Sam kept his distance at first, watching. He noticed her growing bump. Said nothingnot his business
