Chapter 15
Doc
“Ms. Liddle, I am not a primary doctor,” I say as politely as I can, despite the burning frustration deep inside me that this is what I have to currently deal with when I need to get to Sweet Treats, “I’m an ER doctor currently on leave.”
“You’re receptionist gave me your number for a video appointment call,” she says, and she not so subtly pulls down her top showing the lacy pink bra.
Thunder tries his hardest not to laugh next to me like a fucker, while Shadow just glares from where he’s sitting with my dad and Hawk’s dad, Doc, which can get very fucking confusing.
That is the problem when you get your road name, there is a chance you could get the same as a different brother in a club you’re affiliated with, just like Anchor with the Huntsmen’s Anchor.
Though to be fair, our Anchor was named because the idiot dropped a boat’s anchor when he was out to sea and fucking lost it, costing thousands.
Did you know it’s actually illegal to dock without one?
Anyhow, when you’re a brother and you go into the medical field, there aren’t many terms for a doctor.
“Only because you wouldn’t stop calling her and she isn’t my receptionist, she’s the ER receptionist,” I state with gritted teeth, my patience slowly thinning.
The urge to get Millie fired is fucking high, the ‘she wouldn’t stop calling’ shit, is just that, shit, Millie is still sour that I hadn’t touched her after we fucked in the storage room. Since I met Brit, every advance she has tried all failed because I only had eyes for my tinkerbell, still do.
“Dr. Conners,” she whispers as she runs her finger down her cleavage, and I hear a growling coming from Shadow, so I sigh and state, “Ms. Liddle, if this continues, I will have no option but to ban you from our ER, and instead you’ll have to attend Hallows hospital.
This is completely inappropriate, and this video call is being recorded. ”
I look directly into the camera so she can see that I’m serious, and her face reddens before she huffs and hangs up abruptly, and I shake my head.
“Fucking crazy patcher chasers,” Tank mutters, and I hum out a “yep” as Shadow growls yet again, pissing me off.
“Shadow, you done with the growling yet? You’re beginning to sound like a fucking dog,” I say without looking at him. Instead, I look at the photo I discreetly took of Brit smiling down at our beautiful daughter, who has my eyes, and he growls again.
“Dad, pack it in,” Thunder groans, and I turn to Shadow as he points at me and snaps, “You broke your fucking promise!”
“No I didn’t,” I instantly deny causing his face to redden but I put my hand up and remind him, “You made everyone promise no one would claim your daughter or bring her around the club and even though everything inside me wanted to claim her, I didn’t.
We broke up because I had a duty to the fucking club, to you,” my breathing picks up, all the stress, all the heartbreak consuming me and I snap, “She was taken, lost her memory and my daughter, mine, was born without me there all because I chose the club, chose you, so get a fucking grip and stop growling. I listened, I broke my own heart because of the club, you, him,” I nod to dad who flinches, “I had everything put on my fucking shoulders because I’m the fucking president and I lost my heart in the process so stop fucking pouting or leave. ”
Shadow looks away in a huff, and I shake my head, my jaw still fucking sore.
When I walked in yesterday, after spending all afternoon holding my sweet fucking daughter, not wanting to let her or Brit go, I came back to Shadow’s fist.
Thunder told him everything, believing it would be best if I wasn’t there against my say so, he’s also on my shit list.
He knows I ordered him using my presidential patch so now, when we get home, he’s on grunt duty. Helping the prospects, something he’s not looking forward to.
Shadow has been pissed ever since, while my dad has looked guilty, as he should.
“You should have told me,” he mutters, and I scoff, “And for what? Would you have stopped the wedding? Would you have forced me to stay with Brit while two kids were being threatened? When brothers were being stopped, our runs were interrupted?” I stand and I growl, “Or how about when my own father threatened to pull a club vote if I didn’t marry Cynthia just so he could get his revenge on her father and have the fucker in his back pocket despite not being president anymore? Would you have stepped in?”
“What the fuck, Canine?!” Shadow snaps at my dad, who flinches and looks away with shame, while the Untamed brothers growl.
My own father didn’t respect me or the title I fucking earned.
Shaking my head, I look at Tank and demand, “Call Stone, give him an update, and see if Dirty has found anything on the senator yet or his daughter. They’ve been blowing up my phone demanding a meeting after the wedding shit didn’t go ahead.
I’m going to go speak to Brit and hopefully in the next few days we’ll ride out with her. ”
“I should be the one speaking to her!” Shadow snaps, cutting in.
I turn and point at him as I remind him, “You are in no position to go and tear that fucking girl's world apart, and it has to come from me. Everything has to come from me.”
“He’s right, Shadow,” Hawk’s dad says, “She has no memory, and if anyone may be able to bring it back, it’ll be him, she had his kid.”
I give the man a head nod in thanks before I turn and walk out of the Untamed clubhouse with my heart in my throat, knowing this conversation is not going to go well.
I pull up outside Annie’s Sweet Treats ten minutes later, and I look through the door window to see Brit talking with Annie, smiling, and even though she doesn’t remember anything, she seems content.
I wish I didn’t have to do this —to confess everything —but I can’t leave her here, and not just because of our daughter, but because I know I can’t live without her.
If I had gone through with the wedding, I would have done everything in my power to make Brit mine despite being married, I just know it.
Taking a deep breath, I climb off my Harley and walk towards the shop before opening the door, gaining both ladies' attention. Annie gives me a ‘you can do this’ smile, and I nod my head before locking eyes with my tinkerbell, who looks fucking gorgeous despite the bags underneath her eyes.
Something tells me it isn’t just our daughter keeping her up at night.
I take in her attire as my eyes travel over her gorgeous body and my heart skips. She’s wearing my shirt, and I swallow the lump forming before I rasp, “Hey, Bell, fancy going for a walk?”
Her eyes race between mine.
She knows there’s a familiarity between us. She doesn’t understand where it comes from, she knows we need to talk.
“Sure,” she whispers before looking at Annie, who smiles at her softly, and Tinkerbell rounds the counter, walking my way. I open the door and gesture for her to go first. She gives me a hesitant smile and walks out. I look at Annie again, who nods, and I sigh as I follow Brit outside.
“Where, uh, where do you want to walk?” she asks nervously, and I smile softly as I nod to the pond down the street, and we begin walking.
People pass us by, cars honking, chatter echoing as we walk, but we don’t say a word, not until we reach the pond and she speaks first.
“What happened to your jaw?” she asks as we walk towards the pond.
“Shadow punched me,” I admit, and she raises a brow, but I just shake my head, not willing to speak about it yet.
My stomach is twisting, hating that she will most likely look at me differently in a minute and walk over to the pond.
I take a seat on the bank, Brit following just as my phone buzzes, and I grab it from my cut before opening the text thread between me and Dirty.
I tense.
Dirty:
I found more details about Brittany before she went missing. She was going to have an abortion the day she was hurt, brother. The doctor wrote in her notes that she didn’t hear back from her after giving her the pills.
Damn….
Tears burn, and I blink several times to stop them from falling.
After I called Dirty and explained about Bailey, he got right to work to find shit out, to see if she saw anyone about her pregnancy. To see if she knew she was pregnant before she was attacked.
I didn’t think her solution was to get rid of our daughter without telling me.
Fuck, I really hurt her.
“Are you okay?” Brit asks quietly, and I shake my head, not willing to lie to her.
Taking a deep breath, I look at her, my love whose looking at me with concern and I admit, “I’m in love with this girl, have been for nearly two years,” Brit keeps eyes contact, listening, “She became my whole world and I couldn’t see my life without her but I made a promise to a brother.
I knew I couldn’t break it because I had to set an example being the president.
I made decisions that I knew would affect our relationship but had no choice to make,” she frowns and I whisper, “I chose my club instead of the woman I wanted, the woman I wished I had told that I loved her, that she was my one. I hurt her.”
“Was it life and death,” she asks softly, “Why you chose your club instead of her?”
If it was my tinkerbell who I was talking to, before she lost her memory, she wouldn’t have asked that question.
Not willing to lie to her, I swallow hard before finally admitting, “Two kids that are club brats had targets put on their heads. I was sent a picture, but I didn’t show it to my girl. Instead, I distanced myself from her. I broke her heart.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “that you had to be put in that position.”
I turn my head and look at her as I lean my elbows on my knees.
She’s so fucking precious, I hate that I’m about to tear her world apart, that I’m basically going to admit that she’s the girl I broke.
I hate when she gets her memories back, she’ll realize she was going to abort our daughter because I broke her heart and it is going to fucking kill her.
“I had a lot of pressure put on me,” I admit, and we lock eyes.
I continue, “My dad wanted revenge against Senator Smith, he made his job hard when he was pres and decided to pass off in conversation me marrying his daughter,” Brit doesn’t look away, taking everything in, “I declined, several times over but he got more persistent. Began threatening to cast a vote and have me removed from my position with the club, that he’d accuse my passion being an ER doctor too distracting.
That was before I met the girl I fell in love with,” I swallow, “I knew I shouldn’t have gone there with her, she was forbidden fruit so to speak, I knew I couldn’t claim her, yet, deep in my soul, I knew she was my one.
Selfishly I wanted her any way I could have her, consequences be damned.
Then suddenly, cops were showing up at the clubhouse, my brothers were being stopped and searched, druggies were showing up at my place of work claiming I gave them drugs and still, I wanted to keep my girl, my heart. ”
“And then you got the picture?” she confirms, and I nod slightly.
“I did and I thought maybe, I don’t know, live the best of both worlds by keeping her while marrying the senator’s daughter for my club, my dad,” I confess.
“You didn’t want to claim her then?” Brit asks with a broken whisper.
“I couldn’t,” I admit quietly, “Her dad, a man who adopted her when she was young, made the brothers, including myself, swear we would never bring her around the club, never put a property patch on her. He made us swear we wouldn’t even look at her, but then he asked me to pick up some paperwork that he forgot to take to the club, and she was there.
I broke one promise,” I sigh, “I accepted the engagement, even though I didn’t want to, even though it meant I had to hurt my girl for the sake of my club,” I look into her beautiful sapphire eyes, “You see, I accepted it to give me some time to figure shit out, figure out my next move on whether to get the club involved or see if everything died down.”
“But you hadn’t spoken to your girl about it?
” she questions and I shake my head and murmur, “No, she found out from a news outlet before I could, and I, fuck, I stupidly, because I didn’t want to lose her, I basically asked her to be my mistress knowing I wasn’t going to touch the senator’s daughter. ”
“Damn,” she whispers, and my jaw ticks as I look at her, and I grunt, “The pain of losing her, I couldn’t handle it.
I knew I made wrong decision after wrong decision, I knew I should have told her how much I loved her, but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t risk the boys, I couldn’t risk hurting a brother and losing his trust. So, after my girl rightly slapped me, I left for a few weeks.
Went for a ride because I knew I let my one go for the sake of the club, fuck, I actually wanted to burn my club to the ground. ”
I turn and look at the lake, and she asks, “Why are you telling me all this?”
I think she knows why, just like she knows why she feels a connection with me she just doesn’t know how to wrap her head around it all because she can’t remember.
She needs me to say it so she doesn’t think it’s all in her head.
I look down for a moment before I look back at Brit, and I say, “Because when I returned, I spent a month trying to forget, trying to give my girl space. I didn’t see her.
I was thrust into a life I didn’t want, having a woman try and hang off my arm and sell to the town that we were a couple.
Until her father, her adopted father, walked into church and announced his daughter was missing, that my love was missing… ”
Brittany’s eyes tear up, her bottom lip wobbling, finally seeing what she already knew wasn’t in her head but couldn’t pinpoint it due of her memory, and I choke, “For months I have been trying to find you, for months, I was petrified you’d been killed because of your connection with me, only to find you here with no memory. ”
“You-you’re Bailey’s father,” she sobs with shock as she places the back of her hand over her mouth, her tears falling.
“I’m so sorry, Tinkerbell.”