Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SHORT
When Bronwyn first admitted that Trip was her son, that she was the woman who’d given birth to him, I couldn’t believe how she had fooled me.
Remembering how I thought she was an untouchable virgin made me feel so fucking stupid and had me seeing red when she let slip she was the kid’s mother.
I’d thought she was pure. The more she told me, I’d read into her words that she was a manipulative bitch.
She was guilty, nowhere near innocent, and instead of owning up to and taking responsibility for her mistakes, she let her parents cover up her misdeeds and take on the role of a parent that she herself should be doing.
And I was the blind fool who’d fallen for that act she’d played all along.
Perhaps my violent outburst had been, in part, due to the thoughts I’d been having about her.
The difficulty in keeping my distance that my club had demanded of me, as they, like me, thought she deserved better than a biker.
I’d tried to play down the growing attraction I felt toward her, feeling like a dirty old man who shouldn’t have carnal thoughts about someone so innocent and untouched.
When, as it turned out. I wasn’t dirty. It was her.
I knew it was my raised voice that had caused Trip’s meltdown, and then, when I saw him lashing out, I’d come to the obvious conclusion as to how she’d gotten her injuries. It wasn’t her father who gave them to her while dolling out beatings, it was her fucking son who’d inflicted them.
Then, she started talking. And, at last, I began listening.
Her story was stomach-curdling. Never, in my life, have I heard something so sickening.
Or if I had, this hit home the hardest. She’s not an anonymous person on the news.
This is Bronwyn, a woman about whom I’d started to care about, telling me that she’s been abused over and over again by the man who was supposed to cherish her and protect her.
Fuck, I’d tear my own hair out if I had any.
I’m such a fucking idiot. I couldn’t see further than my nose.
Twisted the facts so they made sense in my head, and all because I thought I’d been treated like a fool.
I jumped to assumptions because it suited my narrative.
And mostly down to the ridiculous fact that her having a baby, in my fucked-up narrow-minded, and probably misogynistic masculine head, had sullied her.
I can’t believe I was so fucking stupid.
I want to lash out at something, someone – anyone but her.
She’s the last person who deserves my anger.
My urge is to place my fist through the wall, though I abstain because, yeah, that might set Trip off.
I’d been so blind, so ready to jump to conclusions, I didn’t even consider what I already knew about her.
Bronwyn isn’t capable of the things I accused her of.
And now I’ve hurt her. My outburst, my lack of understanding, delivered a mortal blow to her already near-fatal mental injuries.
Being a stupid fucking biker, I hadn’t stopped to think of the math.
That an eight-year-old boy couldn’t have been born to a woman, he’d been birthed by a too-young girl.
Fucking Doc’s been abusing her since she was a child.
And Trip? Well, his developmental problems now have a reason.
Incest is a dirty word, but it’s an explanation that’s been staring me in the face, and one I was too fucking stuck in my own head to see coming.
I have to live with the reason I was so angry when I thought she’d allowed a boy to touch her, rather than even contemplating the truth.
I’d built her up in my head to be a veritable angel, and so far out of my reach.
That even if I’d given in to my urges, I wouldn’t have been the one who’d corrupted her, defiled her.
Now I wish it had been some boy she let get too handsy, teenage exploration gone too far.
It’s no longer important that she’s not a virgin.
My anger now is because the only male touch she’s ever known had been from the very man who should have loved and protected her, and instead of experiencing pleasure, she’d been forced and endured.
And as for her mother? Standing back, abetting the horror a too-young girl had suffered?
Well, there must be a special place in hell reserved only for her.
How could a woman ever recover from something that appalling? And is she now even further out of my reach? As a victim of sexual abuse, how could any man ever overcome what she’s been through?
She must be terrified even to be in my presence.
But fuck, all I want to do is pull her into my arms and comfort her.
How can I? I’m no better than her father. If I’m honest, from the first time I met her, all I wanted to do was sink my cock in her.
Men. Perhaps we all should be castrated at birth.
I feel ashamed of my erotic thoughts toward her, even when I used her to fuel my fantasies.
I’m no better than her dad. Except, I’ve been trying hard not to act upon my desires.
Does that count in my favour? Could I do anything to make up for my terrible accusations and words? I doubt she’ll ever forgive me.
Her tear-stricken face makes my gut clench, but now that she’s started confiding the truth, I hold back from interrupting, hoping total disclosure will be cathartic.
I force myself to listen to the continuation of her story, forcing myself to live through it with her, even knowing I would never be able to feel the same pain. I’m not even sure I could bear it.
“For the first time, I was sent to school. I think it was to get me out of the house.” Swallowing a hiccup, she half-heartedly wipes tears from her face.
She gives a little snort. “Knowingly, or unknowingly, they’d set me up.
I was brought up as an only child, then thrust into the midst of a group of students who’d started kindergarten together and had formed friendships over the years.
I was awkward and the odd one out. I probably hadn’t needed Dad to impress on me how I’d be treated if I ever let on I’d had a child.
I was the new girl, the one who didn’t fit in.
How could I have admitted my maternal status to the kids who’d already ganged up to bully me for being different?
” Her eyes close, her hand covers her mouth, and with a cry, she blurts out, “I’m so fucking weak, I went along with everything.
I acted as if Trip was their son. I called him my brother. ”
“Fuck, Bron!” Enraged though I am, I remember to keep my voice down. “You were fourteen.”
Whatever else I was going to say goes unspoken when a knock comes at the door, reminding me that I’d made a colossal mistake, I’ve brought my VP into this. Fuck knows why he thinks I’ve called him and Pippa over, but whatever he’s thinking, he couldn’t dream up this truth.
I need privacy to warn him about what he’s going to be walking into, and give him the highlights, without Bron having to go through it all again. So, I undo the lock, and rather than letting Saint and his old lady in, I usher them both onto the porch and pull the door closed behind me.
“Where the fuck is the fire?” Saint asks immediately. His expression and the way he’s got his arm around Pippa strongly suggest there’s something better he’d rather be doing.
Without consciously thinking, the words come out of my mouth. “I want to claim Bronwyn. Put her under the club’s protection.”
“What the fuck? That’s what you dragged me out for?
” His eyes narrow. “On the phone, you intimated she was some conniving bitch, yet now you want to ol’ lady her?
” His growl becomes menacing. “Don’t tell me, she wouldn’t put out, and now you’ve fuckin’ fucked her.
You bastard. You want Pippa to calm her down after you forced her? I fuckin’ warned you not to go there.”
I don’t have a chance to tell him how wrong he is, and doubt I’ll have time to duck out of the way of the fist that’s coming for me, but Pippa’s got lightning-fast reflexes, and traps his wrist with her hand.
“Listen,” she hisses to her man. “He said it’s to give her the club’s protection, and I see no sign of a man who’s recently got his rocks off.”
Perhaps it’s Pippa’s previous career as a secret agent coming through, or just her feminine intuition, but whatever it is, I could hug her right now. Except that wouldn’t get me free of Saint’s fury.
I speak fast to defuse the situation, or more correctly, to explode the bomb in another direction.
“Trip’s not her brother, he’s her fuckin’ son.
I leaped to the wrong conclusion when she first let that tidbit slip.
” I brush my hand over my skull. “I called you before I found out the truth.” I pause to allow myself a moment to summon up the strength to put the disgusting truth out there.
“Doc was raping her ever since she was a child.” I spill the highlights of Bronwyn’s story in an effort to make Saint understand.
“She got pregnant when she was just fourteen, for fuck’s sake.
Doc and her ma stepped in and took over the child.
She’s never been allowed to be a mother to her own kid. ”
Saint’s eyes widen, his fury no longer directed at me. “Doc raped his own daughter?” His tone suggests he’s having a hard time believing it.