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When she was a girl, she never thought she would wind up this way. No, Bella Swan was going to live a long and happy life with the man she loved.
When she was seventeen she was fairly sure she knew who that man was – she and Edward had been together for years, on and off again, true, but that would settle down once they graduated and moved to the big city. That was the plan until his summer fling came down from Alaska. Tanya Denali was her name and she was carrying his child.
Sure, it hurt Bella that Edward had slept with some fling when she had been with him for years and they hadn't even gone that far, but she guessed it was a good thing. It conveyed his respect toward her, how she was significant in his mind, and Tanya...wasn't.
Nevertheless, she mourned her first love and tried her best to move on.
Emmett was a good man — a kind, honest, loving man. She was truly blessed to have him, she knew that. From a rational perspective, she was lucky that she lost Edward, who was clearly fickle and now married to Tanya, so she could be with Emmett. But Bella wasn't rational, she missed Edward and he missed her, which was why they met up in a motel room every chance they had.
It wasn't fair to anyone, she knew that. It wasn't fair to Emmett or Tanya. It wasn't fair to Tanya's bright, beautiful child, and it wasn't fair to her own children.
Her Irish twins — Jane and Alec – they weren't meant to be born like this. She shouldn't have to wonder about their paternity, not with how innocent they were, not with the way they looked up at their father adoringly. They were McCarty's, through and through – Bella had to keep believing that.
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