Forbidden Baby Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance

by Lara Swann

  Not for the same reason it was a few weeks ago - not as a chance to get attention and see whether my work is really worthy of being displayed in a gallery - but because then all this will be out there.

  And maybe, when the exhibition is finally done…I will be too.

  Maybe it will be enough to finally get Ash out of my mind once and for all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ash

  “All charges are dropped - you’re free to go.”

  I frown, working my way through the confusion as the guard escorts me out of the cell and lets me collect all my belongings.

  Just like that?

  Two weeks of total silence - barely even a look in from the cops running the case, or any kind of pressure to turn on the club - and then suddenly…release?

  Not that I’m complaining, but…

  “What happened?” I can’t stop myself asking.

  “I don’t know, not officially.”

  “And unofficially?” I say, giving him my best charming smile.

  I’ve gotten on well enough with the guards while I’ve been here - once you get down to it, they can get just as bored as you, and no one minds having someone to shoot the shit with occasionally. This guy has been the best of the bunch, too.

  He shrugs. “Some other guy confessed - to all of it, I think. Cleared your part in it…and from what I hear, he has better connections, too. More information.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Do you know the name?”

  “Nah - and couldn’t tell you if I did.”

  The tightness in my gut tells me I have a feeling who it is anyway.

  “Sure. Well, thanks.”

  He gives me a scowl for effect. “Stay out of trouble.”

  I grin at him, unable to resist the wink I add. “Always.”

  And then, just like that, I’m home free.

  I walk out of the detention center and breathe deeply. Prison god-damn stinks. I want a shower, a good meal and…to find Chloe. The last one most of all - but I’m not sure how well that would go down without the shower part of that plan.

  She’s all I’ve been able to think about the whole time I’ve been in there. That, and wondering what the hell the Slayers are doing taking so fucking long to sort this. Sure, two weeks isn’t forever in the scheme of things - but it’s far too long for things to be so bad between Chloe and I. The pain in my chest and the tension running through me hasn’t let up for any of that time.

  The only thing I can think about is finding a way to fix it. It’s been two weeks and I still haven’t thought of a better plan than talk to her - so, fuck it, that’s what I’m going with.

  I’ll tell her everything and anything she wants to know and I’ll prove to her that I’m done with the stupid shit I did back then. Whatever it takes.

  But first, then shower. Then, finding her.

  I head to the shop - only to curse as I find the whole place is still boarded up and closed off by the police as a crime scene.

  Damn.

  That makes both of those tasks harder. Okay, I didn’t really think Chloe would be here - not after how decisively she walked out of the detention center - but I was still hoping, at least a little.

  I manage to grab my bike, though, grateful that I left it out and decided not to bother locking it away in the garage the last time I rode it. Then I head to Mo’s Motel, which is enough to take care of the shower - and confirm my suspicions about what happened with those charges.

  Blake.

  A dozen thoughts flash through my mind as Mo updates me on everything that happened while I was gone - including Blake handing himself in.

  Damn you, bro.

  That wasn’t what I wanted to happen, and I can’t help feeling at least partly responsible. I was the one throwing around all those threats. He doesn’t deserve this. I mean, maybe he does slightly more than I do, but even so…

  Fucking club. Maybe after this whole cluster-fuck, he’ll finally quit it.

  The idea of him taking my place…that doesn’t sit well with me. Not at all. Especially now I’m out and finally enjoying that freedom again. Sure, if he’s confessed maybe he’ll get a decent sentence - and an even better one if he hands them over some intel on the club, though I can’t see that happening. But either way, it will still be a fucking long time.

  I run my hands through my hair, wondering how the hell I’m going to deal with that - but knowing that right now, the priority is Chloe. The only real thing on my mind is Chloe. If Blake bought me time and the chance to be with her and watch my kid grow up…if it’s that or prison…fuck, I’ll take it. Even if it does make me an asshole.

  I pass up on the good meal, settling for a drive-thru burger instead, which I finish in minutes while I stop the bike and try to work out where I might find Chloe.

  I think I already know the answer, but the knot in my stomach makes the food hard to swallow as I think it.

  Please don’t tell me she’s back at her parents. Don’t say she’s living there again…because of me. Please, Chloe, you’re better than that.

  The moment I finish the food, I set the bike racing - even though the big bulky weight of it really doesn’t make it a racing kind of bike - and tear through town. If she is there, I’m not wasting another moment more in getting her out of there. Whatever her asshole father says.

  I pull up outside and walk straight into the store they own. I don’t have my leathers on - they were in the locked up shop - but I still think I’m plenty intimidating enough as I stride toward the counter that her father is standing behind. He looks up and the way he immediately stiffens tells me that I probably am.

  “You—You’re out of—”

  I give him a low, dangerous look as I settle my helmet on the counter.

  “Is Chloe here?” I say, my voice low and intent.

  His face twists immediately. “No. I thought she ran back to follow in your life of crime and—deviance.”

  The comment almost makes me laugh, if it’s not for the way my heart plummets at hearing she’s not here. I didn’t want her to be, but at the same time…it’s the only place I know to look.

  “Now get out of my shop - neither of you are welcome here.”

  That gets my blood pumping, fury on her behalf - that someone could treat her that way - if nothing else, and in an instant I do something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. My fist snaps out and I punch him straight on the nose, the satisfying sound of the loud crack pleasing something deep and dark inside me. It’s something I’ve locked away since I met Chloe, but I think there are times - very occasionally - when it’s still a good thing.

  I lean forward as he cries out, holding his nose and backing away from me, right into the shelves behind the counter he’s stood.

  Yeah. Fucking bullies - always cowards. The asshole won’t even give me the satisfaction of fighting back.

  “If you ever lay a finger on her again,” I say, and I don’t even have to try to make it menacing. Just the thought of the bruise on her arm does that. “I’ll come back here and break every bone in your fucking body.”

  I glare at him as he holds his nose, looking at me with wide, terrified eyes - and then I finally turn and stride out of the store, much the same way I came in. There’s a couple standing beside an aisle, staring at me in horror, and I flash a smile in their direction.

  Fuck, that was satisfying.

  It occurs to me that there could be a camera in there - that there are easily witnesses - and I wonder whether the bastard will try to press charges. I wouldn’t put it past him, but I can’t bring myself to care, even though I only just got out of prison. I’ll just have to trust that if it comes to it, someone will see my motivation was pure.

  The flush of warmth and satisfaction wears off the moment I get to my bike - and realize I haven’t got a clue where I’m going to try next. My next guess would be her friend Nathan, but even though I’ve met him a couple of times, I have absolutely no idea where he lives.

&nbs
p; Damn it!

  I kick at the floor, then swing myself onto the bike anyway and just start riding around, mostly aimlessly. It’s pretty fucking stupid to think I’m just going to see her, randomly on the street somewhere, but maybe it will give me some thinking time.

  My next consideration is trying to find somewhere she’ll be, or might hang out. The art class comes to mind immediately but Wednesday has just passed, I’m not waiting a fucking week and besides, isn’t that over now? When was her exhibition supposed to—her exhibition!

  I almost collide with the car in front of me as the thought hits me.

  She’ll be at that!

  I swing the bike around to the side, pulling over into a smaller street and cutting the engine to pull out my phone and start looking it up. There must be details somewhere…I grin as I find them, satisfaction coursing through me again.

  This Saturday. Perfect.

  It still means I have to wait two more days, which is going to be hell, but at least it’s something.

  Hell, maybe I can use the time to think of what on earth I’m going to say to her…

  * * *

  Since I can’t see Chloe yet, the next day I address the other thing on my mind.

  Blake.

  Which is why - despite all my instinctive inclinations - I find myself walking back into the detention center I was released from only yesterday. I think the guards think I’m having a laugh, but I make myself look as serious as possible when I walk up at the visiting time and ask to see Blake. It’s not actually that hard - I’m not sure what to make of this visit at all.

  It takes fucking forever to get approved and I must get searched a dozen times before I’m finally allowed through, but eventually I get led to the same area that I talked to Chloe in…only the other side of it.

  Feels weird, man.

  I sit down and wait for Blake to appear - and I can’t help being surprised when he finally does, grinning and waving at me before he sits down and picks up the phone, almost jovial.

  “Hey, bro.” He says. “Thanks for coming to see me.”

  “Blake…” I start, suddenly at a loss for words.

  The only conversations we’ve had the last few months have been me yelling at him over the phone about everything that’s been going on. We haven’t had a simple, friendly catch up and banter in forever and now…now he’s gone and…fuck.

  “What?” He asks, the humor not fading from his eyes. “Surprised to see me in here?”

  I find myself wanting to nudge him in my usual way, and feel immediately frustrated by the glass in front of me.

  “Yeah, you could say that. What the fuck have you done now?”

  “Got you out of that mess, didn’t I?”

  “I didn’t mean like that.”

  “Yeah, well, someone had to be the fall guy - I told you, I was never going to let it be you. You were never meant to be caught up in any of it anyway.”

  “Shouldn’t have been you either.” I point out. “Blake, I never meant for you to—”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind.”

  “You don’t mind.” I repeat the statement dubiously.

  “Yeah.” He shrugs. “I’ll get a decent sentence - Jared’s given me a few things I can let the cops in on for a better deal - and when I come out, my time here will put me in great standing with the club. I’ll be able to get the kind of position I talked about all that time, huh?”

  I almost groan.

  Really? That’s what he’s thinking? Fucking hell.

  “Blake…”

  “It’s a great plan.” He grins again, then obviously makes an effort to sober up a little. “Really, bro, I’m fine. Ain’t nothing going to happen to me.”

  “I feel like you’re doing my time for me.” I say quietly, and I don’t try to keep the guilt from my voice. I want to be straight-up with him about this.

  His grin really does fade at that, and he glances away from me for a moment, before shrugging.

  “Yeah, well…maybe I deserve to.”

  “You don’t deserve—” I stop as I really notice the shift in his disposition. “Wait…why do you think you deserve to, Blake?”

  My stomach sinks, a hard knot forming inside it as the suspicion rises.

  “If you’ve confessed now…then you can finally tell me what actually happened, right? What all this was about?”

  He shifts where he sits, but then he sighs and finally looks at me. I don’t give him a chance to start, though, too intent to be able to wait for the answer I really want.

  “Did you use my shop to store drugs. You?”

  I make the emphasis clear. Not ‘you’ as in the club, but ‘you’ as in him personally.

  He was around me plenty. He could have gotten access at any time - when we were catching up, just as friends, when I was deliberately purposefully refusing his request to help out with the job, twice…when I was telling him about my baby…

  The idea of him doing something - taking a key, leaving something unlocked, dropping something off or picking it up -any of those times horrifies me. I don’t know what it is, but it feels like so much more of a betrayal that way.

  He finally raises his eyes to mine, and I can see the guilt and regret in them.

  “Not…exactly.”

  I raise an eyebrow and wait for him to continue, my heart in my throat. I’m used to that almost-sort-of-not-quite game. It’s how the club attempts to avoid trouble all the time.

  “I might have lost my key to your shop…and forgotten to tell you. The one you gave me back when you first opened. I’m not sure you even remembered I had it, to be honest.”

  I look at him, surprised for a moment. He’s right - I hadn’t remembered about that at all.

  “Fucking hell…” I groan, leaning forward on the desk and pressing my head into my hand.

  I’m not sure what to think about that - not at all. It’s not the same as if he’d taken or done something right under my nose while I was meeting up with him for other reasons, but still…he’s always been the one guy I thought I could rely on.

  “I’m sorry, bro.” He says, and I can’t help seeing the genuine consternation in his face when I look up at him. “Really, I am. I just—I didn’t think anything would come of it. I thought it would be a simple job, we’d keep a couple of things there overnight and that would be it. You never even had to be involved. But…it went sour. Things went bad, the Iron Dogs came after us and we couldn’t risk going near your place to retrieve anything for weeks—and then they came after you—fuck, I’m sorry, really. I wasn’t thinking, when Jared suggested it, and it didn’t seem so hard—didn’t seem so risky—if I would’ve guessed…”

  He trails off as I don’t say anything for a long moment. That’s the problem with Blake - he always does think everything will work out fine. That’s where we’re different, and why he still doesn’t understand me leaving. All I can see is the risk. There was a time I was willing to accept it…but not anymore.

  “I had a baby on the way.” I repeat. I feel like I’ve told him a dozen times already, but I’m not sure he gets it—

  “I didn’t know that at the time.” He says quickly, holding one hand up in defense immediately. “I swear, man, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it no matter how low the risk. But by the time you told me, I’d already ‘lost’ the key and when I tried to convince Jared this was all a bad idea, he wasn’t having any of it. Shit, man—”

  “You could’ve told me.” I mutter, and it strikes me that that’s exactly what Chloe was saying to me when she came to visit.

  Shit.

  He just looks at me, meeting my gaze steadily and letting me see the remorse there - but also the shared knowledge that he couldn’t have told me. Not without letting me in on things I didn’t even want to be a part of.

  “I tried to fix it…” He says, sounding more than a little defeated now. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

  I sigh, trying to find the anger th
at I felt for all those months, the rage at the club…but seeing him sitting opposite me like this - in the chair I was in only a couple of weeks ago, and in the detention center and uniform I was wearing yesterday - it’s impossible.

  “So you got yourself locked up instead?” I finally ask, and he shrugs.

  “Yeah, I guess so. But it’s not so bad.”

  “I guess so.” I try agreeing with him, but it’s hard to mean it. I wouldn’t feel the same way about prison at all.

  “And I did fix things.” He says, looking at me hopefully, and I let out a deep breath.

  I guess this is the moment for it. I always knew I was going to have to make a decision about him - about whether this could possibly work and we could come back from everything he’s done - and I guess that’s now. I’m not entirely sure I’m ready, or that I know what I think, but…damn it, as fucked up as it all is, he was there for me as best as he could be, this whole time.

  That’s the thing with Blake - he makes mistakes, he does stupid shit, but he does want to look out for me. I know that. If I needed any more proof of it, the fact he’s sitting right here opposite me - in this place - should be enough.

  “Yeah.” I finally say. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

  How can I say anything else, to the guy who’s going to prison for me? Maybe all of his own doing, but even so…it’s more than anyone else I know would do. The rest of the Slayers probably would’ve left me to rot.

  A smile starts spreading across his face again, slow and a little bit tentative, but with renewed hope in his eyes.

  “So you’ll come visit me? Tell me all about what you’re up to - how you’re getting on with the little one?”

  I can’t help giving him a small smile back. “Yeah, yeah I’ll come visit.”

  “Thanks, bro—”

  “But I’m cutting ties with the rest of them.” I add, my voice turning more serious. “I don’t want any of that shit in my life anymore. I think I’d better take that key back too—nah, actually, never mind that, once the police are done with the place I’m getting the locks changed.”