Temper: Road Roses MC

by Ada Stone

  After that our conversation strayed away from Lia. Mostly that was because when Garrison asked me what I wanted to do about it, I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t have an answer, mostly because there didn’t seem to be a good one. What was I supposed to do? Tell Garrison to storm the castle and rescue the maybe damsel in distress at the risk of being thrown into prison right next to me and probably for a lot longer? No, that wasn’t really an option.

  And besides, Lia wasn’t happy about being there, I was sure, but her father wouldn’t physically harm her.

  But he might harm that baby, I thought, dread washing over me like a thick tidal wave.

  In fact, it wasn’t just a might. He most definitely would do whatever he could to get rid of that baby. Especially since it would be a pretty big scandal. And not just because his nineteen-year-old perfect daughter got knocked up without so much as the promise of a ring. No, on top of that juicy little bit of news, there was also the fact that she had gotten knocked up by her older stepbrother.

  No doubt Mayor Rice was working overtime to make sure that none of that information hit the news stations. Or anyone in town who might be interested in gossiping about a scandal like that. Damage control was likely the mayor’s middle name right now.

  I wanted to tell Garrison that we needed to go for Lia if only to save the baby, but I couldn’t do that to my men. How could I order them to kidnap a young woman, knowing how bad a shape it would put them in?

  Still struggling with my thoughts, I tried to redirect them. “What’s going on with the Roses? What have you heard?”

  Garrison knew I was referring to my suspected mole. My money was on Armand, seeing as how he was the one whispering in everyone’s ears about dissention and what a shitty leader I was. Though these days I wonder if he’s not entirely wrong.

  “We’ve got Delano on it,” Garrison told me. “He’s playing doubles right now and hopefully Armand or one of the others will open up to him. Right now, though, we’ve got nothing.”

  I nodded my head. That was about the news I had been expecting. Armand was taking over as temporary leader because that was what the Road Roses needed and he already had some backing. But if the guys found out that he’d turned me in, they would never accept him. It was my only shot at keeping him from permanently taking over.

  Delano was good at playing both sides, and if anyone could weasel some information out of the boys, it was him. Every once in a while it made me a little suspicious about his personal motives, but most days I was able to shove that aside and trust him. Today I did it because I didn’t have much other choice. It was either trust Delano and sit here and rot, or just sit here and rot. I’d take my chances with Delano.

  The worst part, however, was that even if they figured out who snitched on me, it wouldn’t do me much good in here. It wasn’t like the police were going to care that it was the traitor who told them I’d been doing illegal things. All they cared about was that I had been doing illegal things.

  Which I had, meaning I was screwed.

  As though sensing my thoughts, Garrison told me gruffly, “We got you the best lawyer we could get. She’s a real tiger, they say, and she knows her stuff. We’ll get you off, boss.”

  I nodded, though I was hesitant to hope for much.

  After that, Garrison had left me and I accepted that I wasn’t going to get many more visitors. I definitely wasn’t going to see Lia, and she was all I wanted to see.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Amelia

  I turned off the news reports, furious. My father—or his secretary, at least—was quite the spin doctor. They’d turned my stay at the hospital into quite the bit of drama, all without mentioning the undeniable fact that I was pregnant.

  Of course I’d come home with my father willingly. Initially, it had been out of a deep desire to work things out with him. I wanted him to love me and I wanted him to love this baby. I wanted us to be a family, and there had been a minute spark of hope inside my breast when I’d discovered that my father was going to let Luke go and wanted to do what was best for me. He had sounded so sincere in that moment that, despite years of experience proving contrary to his words, I believed him. I trusted him.

  Then I saw the news.

  Yes, there was that bit about me going to the hospital because I was “so very ill” and everyone was “quite concerned,” but the part that really enraged me was the fact that Luke had been arrested.

  After my father promised that he’d dropped the charges.

  “What had I been thinking?” I demanded out loud, furious with him and myself both. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him!

  And more to the point, if I couldn’t trust him on that, how could I trust that he wouldn’t force me to get rid of the baby? I let my hand slide over my stomach, caressing the small bump that had finally begun to show. I wasn’t huge yet, but I was moving along quickly, and now that I’d really started to show, it wasn’t going to take long before I was the size of a watermelon. I was eating more already and was getting pickier about what it was I was eating. My emotions were still roiling, unfortunately, which my father was using constantly as ammunition against me. He was always telling me, “You’re too emotional to make rational decisions,” and, “It’s your hormones, Amelia, you can’t trust what you’re feeling.”

  It made me angrier, which only proved his point.

  Which was exactly why I had stopped speaking to him. When we’d first gotten back, he’d insisted I take a few days to lie down and take it easy. I’d agreed for the baby’s sake. But I couldn’t be an invalid for the rest of my life, or even the rest of my pregnancy, so I started to get up and moving around again. I wanted to go outside, to see Luke, to see my friends. And that was when I discovered the truth: my father was keeping me prisoner. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  He kept claiming that it was for my own safety, but I wasn’t buying it. Not anymore. I knew that now that he had broken his promise to leave Luke alone, which meant he couldn’t be trusted in any way, shape, or form.

  It also meant that if I was going to do anything about my situation, I was likely going to have to do it on my own. Luke wasn’t in any position to help me.

  But am I in any position to help him? I wondered.

  I wanted to get him a good lawyer, but my father had taken my phone and disconnected the landline. Precautions, he told me, to make sure that I didn’t have outside stress affecting me. But he hadn’t gotten rid of the TV, though my computer was packed away somewhere that I couldn’t find.

  I paced my room, my emotions swirling in a terrible dance. Anger, hopelessness, fear, sadness, anger again. I wasn’t sure what to do or what to think. I could escape, I thought. I could climb out my window—I didn’t dare try the front door now that my father had hired private security to make sure that I was “safe.” I could climb down the trellis or maybe find some rope. I could get away.

  But where would I go?

  My father had taken my phone, but even if I could call someone, who would it be? Although Stephanie and Rihanna had been sympathetic, they’d both agreed unanimously that I needed to get an abortion, just like my father. They hadn’t approved of Luke even before he’d been arrested. No doubt they now believed they were right to have thought so. I would be hard pressed to convince them otherwise, no matter what I personally believed about the whole thing.

  I could try to go to the Road Roses, but would they accept me? Want me? House and hide me? That was an awful lot to ask of a group of people who were rough around the edges and barely knew me. Sure, it seemed as though they liked me well enough, but did that extend far enough that they were willing to risk themselves in order to hide me from my tyrannical father? Probably not.

  Not wanting to, but having no other choice, I resigned myself to staying prisoner at my father’s house.

  “I need to figure out what to do about the baby,” I murmured to myself, stroking my slightly swollen stomach carefully.

  I had some lingering
, foolish hope that perhaps I could convince my father to let me keep it, but I knew it would be a hard battle and most of the leverage was on his side. After all, he’d had the father of my baby put in prison—how was I supposed to raise this baby without him? I certainly couldn’t do it under my father’s roof. Not even if he allowed it. I wouldn’t put any child, much less my own, through that.

  I won’t let this baby grow up like I did, I thought determinedly.

  Taking a deep breath, I went to find my father. I was free to move about the house, thankfully, but that was because he knew there was nowhere for me to go. With guards posted, my phone gone, and the keys to my car mysteriously missing, there was no way that I was getting out of here if he didn’t want me to.

  I headed towards the back of the house where my father had his study. He liked to be able to look out over the garden, watch the flowers and the trees and the birds or whatever. Pretend that he appreciated the gentle things in nature, when I knew perfectly well that he’d mow over all of them and slap down some tarmac if he thought it would make him some money and make him look good.

  The door to his study was just barely opened a crack, so I knocked. “Daddy?” I tried, stomping down the fury I felt. Being angry and irrational wasn’t going to get me anywhere with him. Not this time. If I wanted him to take me seriously, I was going to have to convince him that I wasn’t just being an “emotional teenage pregnant woman.”

  “Amelia, darling, come in,” he called through the door.

  I imagined him waving me over, sitting like some chortling old gentleman, or maybe like Santa Claus. All of which was rather ridiculous, given who he was actually. I knew him as the fit, attractive older man with the winning smile and the calculated movements that meant he was never really jovial.

  I pushed open the door the rest of the way and walked in.

  He was pouring over some documents, file folders stacked several high and cluttering his otherwise immaculate desk. I wanted to ask snidely if any of those were about Luke, to be used to make sure he stayed in prison, but I held my tongue. Starting off kicking and screaming wasn’t going to do anything. I needed to think of the baby.

  I gave him a few minutes to finish whatever he was working on, waiting as patiently as I could. Which was definitely not easy. I was feeling achy and angry and not at all in a patient move. But I managed to hold it together until he snapped the folder closed and swiveled his desk chair around to face me.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, concern lacing his voice. It almost sounded genuine, though I hardly believed any of that at this point.

  I resisted the urge to snort and offered him a small smile instead. My hand went automatically to my belly, rubbing tenderly there. “I’m…fine. A little tired.” I didn’t mention that I’d been watching the news. I didn’t think that would help me out any.

  “Then why aren’t you upstairs resting?” he demanded, doing the best impression of concerned father I had ever seen in my life. Impressive. Maybe he should have gone into acting, though I didn’t think politics was really so far off.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something,” I began, trying to figure out how to explain to him the importance of this baby. It may be the only thing of Luke I get to keep. Somehow, I didn’t think that was the best way to convince my father of my need to keep the little bundle growing within me.

  My father gave me, for possibly the first time in my life, his full attention. Part of me melted at the knowledge that I was finally worth such intense consideration. The rest of me reminded me that he wasn’t to be trusted—and I didn’t need his approval.

  “What is it, honey? You know you can talk to me about anything.”

  And that was it. If there were any doubts about whether or not I could trust him, that settled them. Never in all my life had I been able to honestly share things with my father. Any “open communication” between us always resulted in a fight. And then me being grounded. And then him ignoring me after the grounding, like I was a particular bug he hated more than just about anything and was just trying to convince himself didn’t exist.

  No, I had never been able to talk to my father about anything without some serious repercussions. And that terrified me now. How was I supposed to convince a man like that of anything?

  Clearing my throat, I tried anyway. “It’s about the baby.”

  There, I saw it. The hint of a frown, a flicker of it, before he put back on the concerned daddy face. Like I hadn’t seen it at all. But I had. “Are you feeling ill again? You’re not bleeding, are you? If you are, then we need to leave immediately for—”

  I shook my head impatiently, interrupting him. “No, no, the baby’s fine. I think. I don’t feel sick.”

  He paused. I could see that at least some part of him was relieved, though that was of course for my sake, not the baby’s. I wasn’t sure if I should feel a little good about that or not. At least he loved me enough that he cared about my wellbeing…right?

  “Then what is it?” he pressed, lacing his fingers together, elbows on the armrests of the chair.

  I hesitated. “Well, I think we need to start talking about plans, right? I haven’t even filled the prescription for the prenatal vitamins yet and I really should be taking them.” I paused; my father didn’t even blink. “And I’ll probably need to get maternity clothes soon. I’m starting to show and my pants are definitely feeling tight. There’s just…just so much to do. And I’m worried that we haven’t really started doing it yet.”

  The silence that filled the air after my words was so heavy, so filled with charged emotion that I felt the weight pressing down on my rib cage, threatening to strangle me. I understood then what he was about to say, what he was trying to put into words without losing the “caring, gentle, concerned father” façade.

  And he couldn’t. No matter what he said next, he’d never be able to do it.

  “You’re right. We do need to talk about plans.” He paused, considering and choosing first before speaking. Ever a true politician. “That baby is going to come quick and we don’t have much longer before a decision needs to be made.”

  I straightened my spine reflexively, stiffening under the weight of my father’s implication. “Decision?” I repeated, my tone cooling quickly.

  If my father noticed, he said nothing. He nodded his head instead. “Yes. There isn’t any time left to do it at home, of course. We’ve waited too long on that. I really wish you’d come to me earlier,” he added, giving me a gently chiding look, as though I came to him with tangled hair because I hadn’t brushed it in ages. “But never mind that now. Even though we can’t use the pill, the operation is still a very viable option. Legally, we can do that up to six months along. But it’s better to get that done sooner rather than later. The procedure of course becomes riskier the longer we wait, and I don’t want to make this any more difficult than it already is…”

  My father continued going on and on about the abortion, where we should go to get it, how long I should be in recovery. He even started talking about hiring a personal trainer to make sure that what little baby weight I was beginning to put on would come off like melted butter. Part of this was concern over what it would look like to be standing next to a fat daughter for him, but most of it was because he didn’t want a single soul to know that I had been pregnant.

  Eventually, I interrupted him, unwilling to listen to another single word. “Stop. Just stop it!”

  He looked at me in surprise. “What is it, Amelia?”

  “I’m not doing it,” I said flatly. I wanted my words to hold no room for argument, not in the slightest. “So don’t bother, I’m not doing it.”

  His eyebrows crawled up his forehead until he looked so surprised it was almost clownish. I might have laughed under different circumstances, but in that moment, I could barely see beyond the red. I was so furious with him.

  “Not doing what? If you don’t want the personal trainer, I understand. You’ve never had a problem with your
weight before, I just thought that it would be helpful to have—”

  “Shut up!” I nearly screamed at him.

  He frowned. “Amelia, don’t you use that tone of voice with me. I am your father and…”

  And so it began. He started reverting to that father that I knew so well. The one that didn’t really care about my opinions or what I wanted for myself. Well, I wasn’t listening anymore. I was standing up for myself and I wouldn’t let him push me around anymore.

  “The abortion,” I told my father firmly. I was done listening to his lectures about the importance of respect and listening to your elders and whatever else he wanted to throw at me to make me bend to whatever he wanted just then. I wouldn’t do it, not today. “I’m not getting the abortion. I’m keeping this baby and I’m going to raise it my way. You don’t get to make this decision for me.”

  A scowl darkened his face and he stood, anger clearly etching his features. “Amelia, please, we talked about this.”