Marco (The Men of Indecent Exposure #1) Read Online Free Page B

you… are you sure you wanna do this, B? I mean, there are other options.”
    Options. I knew what she meant.
    I was already shaking my head before she finished her sentence. “Mona, you know my story. I won’t even consider it,” I answered, stopping myself from reciting my list of reasons out loud. She already knew them; already knew how I felt about terminating. I’d never judge a woman for making that decision for herself, but that’s just it; it’s a personal decision. For me, it simply wasn’t on the table as a possibility .
    “I know, I know,” she said softly before thinking to herself again. When she exhaled a breath, I knew she was only moving on because it was obvious I didn’t want to talk about that anymore. “So, explain to me how you’re just now realizing you have a whole baby inside you and you’re two months in?”
    I took a breath, feeling her judgment through the phone. “As long as you’ve known me, my periods have been irregular. So, it was easy to miss,” I explained. “I didn’t have a reason to be suspicious.”
    “Okay, true,” she replied, probably recalling the many times I’d been back and forth to the doctor in an attempt to regulate my cycle.
    “And I put on a few extra pounds, too, but…” I paused to shrug and looked down at my full legs, “…it wasn’t exactly noticeable, considering,” I added with a laugh.
    She breathed deep on the other end as my explanation settled in. “I suppose your story checks out,” she teased. “But what are you gonna do about St. Ann’s, though? About your job? You know they don’t play that.”
    I frowned, wondering what any of this had to do with the school where I taught, the school where she herself had also been employed before the move. “I don’t follow.”
    “I know you started a few years after me, but didn’t they have you sign the morality clause, too? Unless they got rid of that before you came, but I know I had to sign it and I was not happy. Such an invasion of privacy,” she added.
    I thought back and vaguely remembered something like that, but the details were murky, which was why it hadn’t come to mind before now.
    Plus, I was so ecstatic to land that job, I probably didn’t read it all that carefully. Now Mona had me worried.
    “Anyway, if you signed it,” she started, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, sweetheart… your job may be in jeopardy when they find out.”
    At first we were both quiet as the possible reality Mona just revealed weighed heavy on me, but then a nervous laugh slipped out. “This isn’t the 1920’s, Mona. Folks can’t fire you just because you get pregnant without having a husband.”
    That’s absurd.
    I mean… isn’t it?
    “Actually, if you’re not married, parochial schools are one of the few institutions that can,” she corrected. I listened harder. “If they asked you to sign a morality clause before you got hired in, they have legal right to terminate you for breeching your contract.”
    I sat up straighter, worried now about my position being secure, as if I didn’t already have enough on my plate. “So, just because I’m expecting, they can let me go?”
    “Girl, it’s archaic I know, but if you signed it, legally speaking, St. Ann’s is covered and well within their rights to do so.”
    I fell silent. Since finding out I was pregnant, I’d been in a fog, hence the reason this thought hadn’t occurred to me on my own. There were enough other things to be concerned about.
    “Dammit.”
    “But don’t sweat it,” Mona cut in. “Like I said, they might not have even had you sign one. Just go to HR and ask for a copy of your contract. Worst case, you’ll just have to apply elsewhere, but you’ll get hired on within a public district quickly,” she assured me. “You’re a great teacher.”
    Her words of encouragement went right out the window as I acknowledged that I had much more at stake than I initially realized.
    “But moving on,” she