Chapter Fourteen
Derek
Kat was so fucking gorgeous when she glared at me. I tried so hard not to laugh at the look on her face when I told her we could be more than friends.
That confession hadn’t been the plan tonight.
When Frankie told me to come to the diner, I assumed I’d be having dinner with them both. But when I walked up to the booth and overheard the conversation about Maggie, whoever she was, not showing up, I knew exactly what Frankie had done.
We had been parent-trapped.
Kat deserved a conversation about the kiss, and I had been putting it off. When she brought it up, the words, we could be more than friends, slipped out without thinking.
“Are you out of your mind?” she asked.
Probably.
“I don’t even like you,” she insisted.
I leaned forward and whispered, “Bullshit.” Her gasp brought a smile to my face, and my mind went to a place where I wanted to hear more sounds like that.
“The way you reacted to that kiss says you’re lying,” I argued. “Did you react the same way to Zero’s kiss?”
Her cheeks turned red, and I knew the answer.
When she opened her mouth, I cut her off.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Kat. I can tell by the blush on your face that it didn’t.
” She hadn’t confirmed nor denied when I asked if he kissed her goodnight, but the blush told me everything I needed to know. He had kissed her.
I pushed away the desire to pummel his fucking face in and looked over Kat’s shoulder to check on the girls, and Frankie gave me a thumbs-up.
Movement outside the window caught my eye, and I saw Zero glaring at me.
I smiled and reached over for Kat’s hand, lacing my fingers with hers. When I looked back, he was gone.
“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to pull her hand away.
“Tell me that my touch doesn’t make you feel anything, and I’ll let go.”
“Derek,” she whined.
“You can’t, can you?”
“It doesn’t matter. Frankie comes first. I’m not getting involved with someone while she’s still so young. Never again.”
It wasn’t a no, but she tugged her hand from mine and I studied her. “What about Zero?”
“Zero and I are friends,” she answered, putting her hands in her lap where I couldn’t reach them.
“Does he know that?”
“Yes, he does.”
Julie stepped up to the table with water and a coffee pot. She set them down, and I flipped over our cups.
“None for me,” Kat said. “I’ll be up all night.”
I closed my eyes and discreetly adjusted myself under the table. Thoughts about all the ways I could tire her out so she would sleep ran through my head.
“Do you know what you want?” Julie asked. “Or do you need a few more minutes?”
Kat glanced at the board over the counter and ordered the pot roast special, and I ordered the same. Julie disappeared, and Kat suddenly found her silverware intriguing.
“Then let’s be friends,” I said, catching her attention.
“What?”
“Let me be your friend. Frankie’s too.”
“Derek,” she groaned out my name, and though she meant it to show her frustration, my dick believed differently as it pulsed in my jeans.
Her voice alone was enough to make me hard, but the idea of her moaning my name as I thrust inside her was almost more than I could handle.
“What can it hurt to get to know me?” I asked, then cocked my head to the side. “Unless you’re afraid of falling for me?”
Kat snorted. “Not a chance.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about. Frankie likes me, and you trust her judgment, don’t you?”
Kat bit her lip as she thought about my question. When she still didn’t answer, I said, “Listen, all I’m asking is to be your friend. Let me get to know you and Frankie.”
“Why?”
That question had me stumped. The truth wasn’t an option. I couldn’t tell her I was Frankie’s biological father and that walking away from her was the biggest mistake of my life.
“She’s a great kid. She makes me think about what Charlie will be like when she’s older.”
“Speaking of Charlie. You said you and Jack didn’t grow up together. Why not?”
I let out the breath I was holding when she said Charlie’s name.
She hadn’t noticed the similarities between my daughter and my niece.
No one had. Not even Jack and Sam, though I wasn’t sure how.
They could be sisters, and when they were both grown, I had a feeling people would mistake them for twins.
“My mom gave Jack up for adoption when he was born.”
“So he’s older than you?”
“No, I was six when he was born.”
Julie delivered our food, and Kat thanked her. When she moved away, Kat looked up at me, and I knew she wanted to hear more.
“I told you my dad was a drunk. He beat my mother and me. When I was six years old, she disappeared for a few days, and when she came home, her stomach was gone. She went from telling me I had a baby brother coming to never mentioning him again. Eventually, I forgot about him until the day she died.”
“I’m sorry, Derek. That must have been hard.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with where this was going. If I didn’t change the subject, she’d want to know how I found Jack. And that was a story I wasn’t ready to tell. I wanted her to know me first. The man I had become, not the man I was when I made the second biggest mistake of my life.
“Where are you from originally?” I asked, hoping she’d forget what I told her.
“Washington,” she said without elaborating.
“And Frankie’s dad?” I asked.
“I met Richard in college. University of Arkansas. We fell in love and got married. Couldn’t have children of our own, so we became foster parents and then adopted Frankie. After the adoption was final, we moved to Pennsylvania for Richard’s work.”
She didn’t look me in the eye; she moved her fork around her plate without really eating much.
“Does Frankie know?” I asked, my voice filled with emotion I hoped she couldn’t hear.
“That she is adopted?” I nodded, and so did she. “I’ve never kept that from her. We became her foster parents when she was two. And a year later we adopted her.”
“And your ex-husband?” I asked, dropping my hands under the table so she couldn’t see my white knuckles from how hard I clenched them into fists. She looked up with a question in her eyes. “I assume they ran a background check and nothing flagged?”
“No, I didn’t even see it, and I’d been with him for years.” Her voice was soft; I recognized the look on her face. She blamed herself for whatever he did. The same way I blamed myself.
“What did he do?” I worked hard to keep my voice calm and even, but the look on her face, the way she set her fork down and leaned back, told me she hadn’t missed a thing. “Frankie told me he tried to kill you.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I keep hoping those memories will fade.” She looked over at Frankie and her friend. They were laughing together as if they’d known each other their whole lives. “I came home from grocery shopping and found Richard touching her.”
My heart stopped.
The red haze crawled in from the corner of my eyes. I closed my eyes, trying to stop the rage that was building as Kat opened up and told me the rest.
“At first, I thought I was misinterpreting what I was seeing. But once the shock wore off, I launched myself at him.” She released a sad chuckle.
“I was no match for him. He was big. Not as big as you or Zero, but big enough to overpower me. Frankie wasn’t quite five, but when Richard started hitting me, she ran to the neighbor who called the police.
I pressed charges and told them exactly what I found. ”
“What happened?” I asked, my eyes boring into hers. I couldn’t be sure what she saw, but her eyes widened and she continued.
“He was tried for domestic violence, risk of injury to a minor, and sexual assault of a minor. I divorced him while he was in prison, had his parental rights terminated, and left the state.”
“And now? Is he still in prison?”
“No. He only served three years. My best friend defended him. Convinced the jury that what I saw was my own trauma from my childhood. He was found guilty of two counts, but not guilty on the sexual assault. When he got out, he married her.”
Her eyes had been on her hands twisting in her lap until then. She looked up at me and said, “Stacy has three girls; the oldest one is two years older than Frankie.”
Frankie waved to me over Kat’s shoulder and I smiled. It hurt so fucking much to smile at my daughter knowing it was my fucking fault she went through what she did. She’d never forgive me if she found out who I was.
I should have protected her.
I thought I was.
Instead, I’d sent her into the lion’s den.
I’d walked away from my daughter with an ego the size of Texas.
My self-righteous attitude had led me to believe she was better off without me, that a family with a mom and a dad was better.
Never once had I imagined I would be sending her to a home where she would be hurt worse.
When Frankie told me he’d gone to jail for hurting them, I assumed he’d hit them both. What he did to my little girl was so much fucking worse.
“Does she remember?” I asked. “What he did? Does she remember what he did?”
Kat had tears running down her cheeks. “She remembers. She doesn’t talk about it, but she saw a therapist who said it shouldn’t have lasting effects because she was so young. But I don’t know how long he had been doing it.”
I slammed my fist on the table, and the whole room looked our way. I pulled out my wallet and threw some money on the table, enough to cover our dinner and Frankie’s and her friend’s.
“I need to go.”
She didn’t say a word. Never once begged me to stay, and when I stood up and saw the way Frankie looked at me, her eyes going to her mother, I knew I had been right all along. They were better off without me.
I stormed out of the diner, marching to my truck. I slammed the door of my truck shut and banged my fists on the steering wheel, letting the tears I had been holding back fall.
Looking up through the windshield, Frankie’s eyes stared back at me, filled with hurt. Kat stood beside Frankie, her arm around her shoulder. With a deep inhale, I threw the truck in reverse and backed out.
My mind whirled as I considered my choices. I should have called Haizley. I should have gone to her house and banged on the door so she could talk me down, but I didn’t want to be talked down.
So instead, I drove to the clubhouse, and the prospect opened the gate. Sam and Jack were still out. When I walked in the house, ignoring Mimic and Indie, taking the steps two at a time, I hastily packed a bag and went back to my truck.
Mimic met me outside. “Where are you going?”
“None of your fucking business.” I tossed the bag in the back seat and climbed behind the wheel.
“What do I tell Sam?” His words made me pause. I didn’t miss that he was more concerned about Sam’s feelings than Jack’s. He was closer to her, despite Jack being his club brother.
I blew out an angry breath; I was a grown fucking man who didn’t have to answer to anyone.
But Jack was my brother, and I was trying to build a relationship with him.
And Sam, even though I didn’t love her the way I thought I did, I still loved her like a sister.
I owed them both for opening up their home and their hearts to me.
“Tell them I have something I need to do, and I’ll be back in a few days.” Then I pulled out of the clubhouse in the direction of Pennsylvania.