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Like a damn bear in the woods, I approach him with caution, ready to run just in case. “What happened back there?”
He crosses his arms and takes a breath. “He’s behind all of it.”
“All of what?”
Tom picks up the picture of his wife and blows out a long breath. “She died when Allie was too little and made me promise not to tell her. I hate lying, and this one eats at me constantly.”
He sets the photo back down and looks at me. “I met Sandra when she was in a relationship with someone. I gave her my phone number in case she ever saw herself out of it and was interested. I was looking at some schools after my career-ending injury. One day, out of the blue, she called me. I flew up and took her out. We dated for a few weeks, and she was perfect. Really sweet, and loved everyone.”
My stomach sinks hearing the sadness in his voice.
“It took her a while, but she admitted the man she was seeing turned out to be married. She wasn’t aware in the beginning. She didn’t know him or how well-known he was. She just never cared about that stuff. When she saw him in the newspaper for something, posing with his wife, she ended things. I found her in tears after she tried telling the man’s wife, and there was bruising on her cheek. I decided I wasn’t leaving her side again. A few weeks into our relationship, she found out that she was pregnant.”
Ignoring the vibrating in my pocket, Tom keeps me hanging on to every word. “The baby wasn’t yours.”
Tom shakes his head. “She and I hadn’t gone that far by then. When she told me it was Mark Vandenburg, I knew who he was and knew his wife had slapped her, so I went to his office for her and tried to talk to him. His wife was there, and I saw she was pregnant.”
Oh, my god. Kat.
Holy shit, Mark is Allie’s dad.
“They offered money and there was a signed agreement. He wanted nothing to do with ‘it.’ He had his perfect wife and the perfect child on the way. Mark Vandenburg didn’t want a whore’s child. How quickly he forgot he misled Sandra into believing he wasn’t married. Just a matter of sticking his ring in his pocket.”
I’m a firm believer now that rings don’t go in pockets. I’ll smuggle Allie’s in my prison pocket if I have to keep it from getting stolen again. “You guys took the money?”
Tom nods. “She was fine with it. She didn’t want the baby around Mark or his wife. We weren’t allowed to talk about it to anyone. So when Allie was born, we took the papers to court, and she’s legally my child. Has an amended birth certificate and everything. Mark saw her once when she was born and never looked back. He signed over all rights to her and is nothing to my daughter.”
I know for a fucking fact Allie doesn’t know any of this. If she were to find out now, I don’t even know what she would do. I mean, I always thought she looked like Tom, but maybe that’s just from being around him as much as I have been.
And now he’s telling me all this like I’m supposed to keep a secret this big from her. It makes sense why he was angry with me at first, thinking I abandoned Allie. Doesn’t help that she kept it a secret, but he’s seeing this for what it is and knows I’m serious about her.
Tom thought I was like Mark, and he probably thought Ted was doing a noble thing like he did.
“Tom? Ted mentioned something about Mark interfering with some medical thing. I didn’t really take him seriously, but is that true?”
Tom shrugs his shoulders. “Can’t prove stuff like that. He covers his tracks, Lucas. I’ve known that for years.”
Which means he did.
“Mark has been trying to push me out of this town for years. He got the school districts changed just to keep Allie and Kat separated. Mark is responsible for all the rejection letters from universities Allie thinks I don’t know about. They were all the schools he tried to get Katrina into. That was before she found out she was pregnant, so it’s not all because of Jadon. She just denies it. The worst part is knowing that some piece of him gives a crap about Allie only to show he’s the better father because he can set her up to send her off and live some dream life without a care.”
“You mean he regrets giving her up?”
Tom shrugs his shoulders again. “I don’t know, but he doesn’t do things without thinking. He made damn sure that wife of his got the experimental drug. We spent every last cent of his money on her treatments after the program failed her. She died, and he said nothing. Then Allie’s car accident happened and by the time I got to the hospital, he was already there covering up for his precious family while my daughter was in recovery, begging for an update on Jadon.”
I can’t believe I had anything to do with that man. He’s just a cruel human being.
“Do you think it was Kat that hit Allie? Maybe some sort of jealousy?” That would be easy to prove, especially with a blood test. It’s not like Allie or I signed an agreement banning us from opening our mouths.
Tom scoffs. “Doubtful. There’s one other person who knows who Allie is, and I doubt they would tell their precious princess she has a sister. Or to use Ted’s favorite word: a bastard. My daughter, the bastard child of one Mark Vandenburg. The ugly dent in his otherwise flawless life.” Tom arches a brow. “A cheating scandal wouldn’t do him any favors during a political campaign, now, would it? That’s why he’s trying to get rid of Allie and me. Doesn’t need to look like a piece of shit who abandoned his daughter.”
There’s a small sound behind me. Tom’s eyes shoot over my shoulder and his face turns sheet white. “Allie.”
I whip myself around, and she’s standing in the door with her mouth covered and tears in her eyes. When I move to stand, she holds a hand up to me. “Don’t, Lucas.” She looks at Tom and the tears make their way down her cheeks.
“I can’t deal with this right now.” She storms back out, shoving her way past John.
John looks at all of us and raises his voice. “I’m sorry, but what the fuck is going on here?” The door on the other side of the locker room slams shut.
