“Then what is it about?” Her voice cracked. “Because you don’t get to show up here, tell me you need me, and expect me to just?—”
I stepped into her space, took her face in my hands, and kissed her. The world around us seemed to fade away in that moment, leaving only the two of us suspended in time. The feel of her skin, soft and warm beneath my touch, sent electricity coursing through my veins. The taste of her lips on mine, sweet with a hint of the wine she was probably drinking because she was pissed at me, settled something inside of me that had been restless and searching for far too long. It was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle I didn’t even know was incomplete. Her breath mingled with mine as she leaned into the kiss, and I felt her hands come up to rest against my chest, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt as if anchoring herself to me.
“No!” Trudy ripped away from me, shoving at my chest. “You don’t get to come here and kiss me and expect that makeseverything okay.” Trudy turned her back on me and picked up her wine from the coffee table, downing the rest of the glass. She took a deep breath and spun back to me.
The anger I saw on her face turned me on, and I could feel my dick getting hard.
“Will you let me explain?”
Trudy didn’t answer; she moved to the sofa and sat down. She poured another glass of wine from the bottle and sat in the corner of the couch, eying me. If I were being honest, in that moment, I wasn’t entirely sure if she expected me to speak or get the fuck out of her house.
So I took a chance that the connection we had meant something and I sat down at the other end of the couch, leaning my elbows on my knees.
“I want to tell you about Christina.” The words came out rough. “Start from the beginning.”
Trudy’s expression shifted. The anger was still there, but something else crept in. Concern. “Okay.”
My hands twisted together. I was about to tell the woman I was falling in love with about the woman I thought was the love of my life. “I met Christina in Purgatory, California. I was VP of the Soulless Sinners MC back then, working under George Stone. He sent me out there on club business, intelligence gathering on the Golden Skulls MC. Rival club. Dangerous fucking situation.”
Trudy was silent beside me, but I knew she was listening.
“I walked into their clubhouse, and there she was.” I ran a hand over my face. “Christina was... different. Didn’t belong in that world. Too soft. Too quiet. Too fucking breakable. But I couldn’t stay away from her.”
“You fell in love,” Trudy said quietly.
“Yeah. I fell in love.” The words tasted bitter. “We started seeing each other. And she got pregnant. With Grace.”
Trudy’s eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t interrupt.
“I knew I couldn’t keep her in California,” I continued. “The MC world was too dangerous. George was escalating shit with the Golden Skulls, and Christina... she was terrified. So I made a choice. I hid her.”
“Hid her?”
“In Arkansas.” I looked at Trudy. “Changed her name to Scarlett Bishop. Asked a man I thought I could trust to watch over her while I was away on club business. Thought I was protecting her. Thought I was keeping her safe.”
“But you weren’t,” Trudy said.
“No. I wasn’t.” I leaned back, resting my head against the sofa back. “When Grace was born, I was lucky enough to be there. And for years, I visited them. Whenever I could get away without letting my president know where I was going.” I blew out a heavy breath. “We kept it a secret.”
“Christina and Grace?”
“Yes. I kept my family a secret from my club. But we also kept me a secret from Grace. We never told Grace I was her father. We thought it was safer that way. Thought if Grace didn’t know, she couldn’t accidentally tell anyone. Couldn’t put herself in danger. So I was just... some guy who visited. Some friend of her mother’s.”
“Jesus, Stephen.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my face. “For eight years, I was in Grace’s life. I was simply Uncle Stephen. And then one day when Grace was about eight years old, Christina just... disappeared.”
I heard her shuffle on the couch. The slight clink as she set her wine glass down before she moved closer. Maybe to comfort me; maybe to hear me better as my voice dipped lower. I chose to believe it was the former.
“One day I showed up in Arkansas, and they were gone,” I said, my voice rough. “No warning. No explanation. No fuckinggoodbye. Just gone. I went to Titan, demanding to know where they were. And he looked me in the eye and told me Scarlett had taken Grace and run. Said she didn’t want me in their lives anymore. Said she’d made her choice.”
“Oh my God.”
“I spent twenty fucking years searching for them, Trudy.” The anger rose up, hot and bitter. “Twenty years. I looked everywhere. Followed every lead. But Christina had vanished.”
Her hand on my thigh felt like a brand, searing through the fabric of my jeans and burning itself into my skin. The weight of it was impossibly heavy, anchoring me to the spot.
“Eight months ago,” I continued, “I finally got a lead. James Doherty, the former president of the Golden Skulls, and Grace’s uncle, reached out after he’d seen her in the clubhouse wearing King’s property cut.”
