Tears burn the backs of my eyes.
“You could’ve tracked him down. Hell, you knew his last name and where he worked. It would’ve been simple, and if you were having trouble, Max can locate anyone.”
“I know.”
And I considered all of that, but a man who has sex with a girl on the hood of her car didn’t seem like the type of man to step up to the plate, and watching his face turn from that flirty smirk he had that night into pure disgust wasn’t something I could handle. I knew what the outcome would be, so I made the choice to avoid the pain of his rejection.
“And what were you going to tell that son of yours when he asks questions?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far.”
“Being a parent is about selflessness, Iz. The child has a right to know. Drew had a right to know.”
The stubborn side of me wants to argue that he does know now, so there’s no point in being mad about it, but I know what I did wasn’t the best course of action.
“I’m just… fuck, Isabella, I’m disappointed in you.”
Without another word, he turns around and leaves my room. Mere seconds later, the front door opens and slams closed. Hearing Amelia crying and calling for her daddy downstairs makes my stomach turn. He hurt her feelings by walking out, and I caused that.
Queasiness forces me from the bed, but I go to the window for fresh air rather than the bathroom to puke. I’m so tired of being sick, of feeling horrible every day, but I wouldn’t change it. Nothing about how my father just acted is enough for me to regret this baby.
I was shocked when I found out I was pregnant. I questioned everything about my life, but with time came acceptance, and now I’m excited. I told myself I’d be a good mother, better than the one I was given, but Dad’s words come back to me.
Drew had a right to know.
And boy is Dad right.
My mom took off with me and married another man, one that could support her current lifestyle, one my Marine father would never be able to provide. At seventeen, he joined the Corps to do everything he could to take care of my mom and me. She repaid him by disappearing. Dad never set eyes on me until I was four, and although we eventually started writing each other back and forth through my nanny, I didn’t meet him in person until I was a teenager.
Dad is right. I was going to do the very same thing to Drew that was done to him. He despises my mother for what she did, and I have no doubt that he’ll never be able to look at me with kindness again.
With breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth, I lift the window to get some fresh air into the room. I already know I’m going to be sick, but right now, I can’t tell if it’s the baby or disappointment that’s going to force me to my knees in the bathroom.
All thoughts of nausea vanish when I look across to Lawson and Delilah’s house. Of course they’re right next door, the houses having been built at nearly the exact same time.
And there stands Drew, shirtless and frowning, the skin of his torso marked with horrific bruises.
He’s looking in this direction, but it’s as if he doesn’t see me, like he’s looking through me.
I want to go over there, insist he tell me what happened that would leave such brutal marks on his skin. My legs ache with the need, but I’m frozen in place, thinking back to last night and his insistence that he thought I was dead, begging me to leave him alone because he just couldn’t handle seeing me.
I press my fingers to the window glass, an olive branch of sorts to let him know I’m here, but instead of offering the same, he turns and walks away, disappearing into an area of the room I can’t see.
Dad’s mad, Lawson’s mad, it’s clear Drew is mad.
And I deserve it. I kept a secret I wasn’t supposed to keep.
My ringing phone startles me enough to rip a yelp from my throat, but the name flashing on the screen was just as expected as Dad’s visit to my room this morning.
“Hey,” I say when I answer.
“We have a lot to talk about,” Sophia begins. “Are you ready to talk?”
“Not really,” I mutter.
“But you will if I ask the right questions?”
“I’ve got nothing to hide,” I confess.
“Drew is the father?”
“Yes.”
She chuckles. “Don’t give me too much information or anything.”
I remain silent, and when she speaks again, her tone is different, taking on a more serious edge.
“What are you going to do?”
“Have a baby.”
“Iz.” It’s a warning. “Are you going to talk to him?”
“I don’t think he wants to talk to me.”
I’m not going to explain what happened outside the clubhouse last night. His confusion and anger isn’t anyone’s business, and I understand Lawson well enough to know he won’t discuss it with anyone unless he feels they really need the information. He may tell Delilah and probably Jaxon and Rob, but this isn’t going to be a topic of discussion around the Cerberus clubhouse living room.
“You have less than three months before that baby gets here. You need to talk with him.”
“And what, give him a choice? Is it really even a choice? The man may go to prison.”
“The Cerberus men won’t let that happen.”
“I know you were raised with those men, and they can do no wrong in your eyes, but they don’t control the judicial system in New Mexico. Drew O’Neil has been charged with homicide, and there’s a good chance he’ll land in prison for it. Your degree is in criminal justice. You should know that better than I do.”
“He’s still owed a conversation.”
“Are you going to jump on me for not seeking him out, too? I already got it from Dad today. I don’t need a second round.”
“You were wrong.”
“I know.”
“I thought you told him. You let me believe the dad knew and didn’t want anything to do with the baby.”
“I was avoiding this conversation,” I murmur.
“It was wrong.”
“I know,” I hiss. “But is it wrong because the dad is Drew or because it’s innately wrong? What if the guy wasn’t a cop? What if he was a drug dealer? Would you still have the same opinion?”
“Now you’re just trying to justify your wrong actions.”
Leave it to my best friend to tell it straight. I should be grateful to have someone like her in my life, but right now I just want to hang up on her and bury my head in my pillows.
“It’s done. I can’t change my choices.”
“But you still need to go over there and talk to him.”
“And if he tells me to get lost, that he’s not interested?”
“Then you have your answer, but he deserves the choice.”
“I’ll talk to him,” I concede.
“Today?”
“Eventually,” I offer. “Right now I need to shower and probably throw up.”
I hang up the phone before she can try to argue about my timeframe choices.
Chapter 6
Drew
Seeing her even after hours of coming to terms with the truth is like a knife to the gut. I can’t make reality mesh with what I’ve thought for the last several months.