Acting Royal #Wattys2017

Chapter 53

JENNY

Jenny sat waiting for Emma to come back with the babies. She had to tell someone who Abi's dad was. She could not walk around with this secret anymore, it was killing her. Especially now that the family was in the news and probably would be for months to come. She was gripping the magazine in her hand. She trusted Emma. After everything they'd been through and the time apart, in the end it had just made their friendship even stronger.

She sat on the veranda waiting for her to return, she saw the prams coming round the corner. She stood up the second she saw Emma.

"I have to tell you something. I have to tell you about Abi's dad."

"Ok." Emma rushed, truthfully she'd been waiting for this moment, although she had never pried. "Let me pop the girl in their pen."

Emma lay both the girls on their backs, looking up at their mobiles. They cooed and played with each other hitting the colored toys and taking each other's hands. They would probably fall asleep like that soon. Clinging onto each other. Emma and Jenny could look at them for hours while they slept like that.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone though." Jenny said.

"I won't. I promise. On Maddie and Abi's little chubby lives. I promise."

Emma moved over and sat next to Jenny, who was still visibly shaken up. Jenny didn't say a word, instead she just passed the magazine article over. Emma looked at it, scanning it at first, not sure what to make of it until she saw the photo of Zayn and his green eye.

"Oh my God." Emma lowered the magazine. "His eyes." She glanced across at Abi. "You mean... him... he is...?"

Jenny nodded. "Yes."

"How?"

Jenny hung her head, this is the part that she was dreading. But she told her the whole story and Emma listened and nodded and took Jenny by the hand when she teared up and started crying.

"You still love him?" She asked.

"More than anything." Jenny confessed. It was the first time she'd said that out loud to anyone. "But I mean nothing to him."

"But this whole thing sounds odd, I mean, I wasn't there but it sounds like he loved you."

"I thought so. But why would he have me thrown in jail and say those things?"

"Maybe he was trying to protect you from the evil guy?" Emma said pointing at the photo of Amir. "What's his name?"

"Amir." Jenny looked at the photo of Amir and then back to the photo of Zayn. She'd never considered this, not once. She'd been too overwhelmed with saddness and anger to think about the reasons why he would do it. And when Emma said it, something about it made sense. Maybe that was just her foolish naive hopes again...

"And he doesn't know about Abi at all?"

"No." Jenny said, "And I have no idea what I'm going to tell her when she asks."

Emma squeezed Jenny's hand. "I always thought Abi was a princess, our little princesses, that's what we called them. But a real princess, that's just..."

"Crazy. I know."

"More than crazy." Emma admitted. "Wow. We are in the presence of royalty. Should we start curtsying to her?"

Jenny looked at Emma and smiled. "I hope she doesn't grow up and start behaving like one. She's already so full of herself."

The two women sat there in silence for a while looking at their children.

"You're a great mother." Emma finally said to Jenny.

"You too."

"What can I say, we rock!" Emma nudged Jenny with her shoulder. "And I'm here for you."

Jenny felt so much better for telling someone about this. It felt like a massive weight had been lifted off her shoulders and she signed a sigh of relief, but she also couldnt stop thinking about what she had said.

What if Zayn had only done that to protect her from Amir? What if he did still lo- she cut that train of thought off. She could not afford to go there.