Terrified to tell my parents

I (27F) recently took a huge step and reached out to my high school sweetheart (28M) through social media. We met when we were 16/17 respectively at a church my family started attending. At the time, my parents weren't allowing me to date until I was in college, and I was raised homeschooled. Long story short, my family changed churches after a year and my parents weren't a fan of how our relationship had grown. They took my phone and didn't allow me to communicate with him, and told me to wait for him to communicate with me. I never heard from him again.

Fast forward a decade and I got out of a mildly emotionally abusive relationship in January, and had my chain yanked around with a loser for a few months. My work is my family, especially my coworker who's like my work mom. I have told her several times how much I missed my high school sweetheart and how good he was to me. She looked him up and he had gotten divorced, with two boys. She encouraged me to reach out.

So, I took a bold step and I did something for me for once. He answered me almost asap and was incredibly happy to hear from me. We met up three days later in person and we've been texting almost nonstop for the week.

He told me he hadn't forgotten me over the years, so much as he thought of me during his other relationships. His ex-wife cheated on him and isn't a good person, so he has majority custody of his boys. We've talked about our past and we're both very nervous, but it's seemingly quickly going down a path where we could get into a relationship.

My parents still don't know I've even gotten in contact with him. I know I'm already going to have to bend the truth on how I got back in touch with him. I still live under their roof due to financial reasons, but I'm actively looking for full time work. I just mentioned the fact I had thought about my highschool sweetheart during a conversation with my mother today, and she immediately went on a 'rose colored' glasses tangent. About how the church he had grown up in was crazy (it was, that's true) and his family was off and how I didn't really know him at the time. And how physically our relationship was progressing further than she liked, and how he could have gotten me pregnant.

To be blunt, I'm terrified to tell her now. I have no idea how to broach this where it ends well for me. I am a people pleasing person and I don't want to go against my parents, but he made me so happy when I was younger. The fact we thought about each other for years and he tried to look me up several times shows we still care about each other to some level.

Please, does anyone have any suggestions on how to make this easier? My original plan was to go out after work somewhere and tell her I just ran into him and he wanted my phone number. Even that gives me massive anxiety.