Dark Secret - Avelyn Paige Page 0,9

in her voice brings every protective instinct I’ve ever had for her rising back to the surface. Between the noise, the eyes of everyone looking at us, and this fucking revelation swirling around my head, I can’t take it anymore.

Reaching out for her hand, she recoils.

“Jesus, Shelby, I’m not going to fucking bite you. We need to go someplace, away from all this noise, so I can think.” I reach out for her again, and this time, she allows me to touch her soft hand. I lead her down the hallway, straight toward the room I keep at the clubhouse. She stops dead the second she sees it, her face sullen and white.

“Come on.” Opening the door, I drag her inside, releasing her long enough to shut the door and everyone out. Shelby’s eyes dart around the space before focusing back on me. A slight tremor rolls down her body, as if she’s afraid of me.

“Start from the beginning.”

Shelby

I stand like a statue, unable to move a muscle as I take in the room that changed everything about my life as I knew it. I hadn’t spent but a few seconds in here that night all those years ago, but from what I can tell, not much has changed.

Computer parts and cords are scattered across every available surface, with boxes stacked in the corner. The bed is made, but rumpled. At least it’s empty.

“Shelby,” Wyatt calls, snapping me back to the here and now. “Your daughter.”

I blink at him. My daughter. Him saying those words to me is so strange. But she’s not just my daughter; she’s his too. Oh, God. What was I thinking coming here?

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here,” I blurt out, bolting past him toward the door.

When it opens just a fraction, my heart soars with hope. I need to get out of this room, out of this clubhouse. Out of this godawful town. But I only get it open a fraction before it’s closed with a thud so loud, it rattles the walls around us.

Wyatt stands behind me, so close, I can feel the heat of his chest against my back, his muscled forearm pressing against the door beside me. “I don’t fucking think so, sweet cheeks. I’m done watching the ass end of you running away from me. You came to me, asking for help.” His words, whispered against my cheek, sends a shiver down my spine. And just for a moment, I revel in his nearness, my eyes falling closed as he moves even closer.

“Fuck,” he snarls, pushing away from me and stalking across to the other side of the room. “What the actual fuck, Shelby? You can’t just fucking walk back in here thirteen years later and tell me I have a goddamn kid. You think you can drop an atomic bomb like that and just bolt again?”

I press my back against the door and fight back the tears that are already spilling down my cheeks. “I shouldn’t have come to you. I shouldn’t be here.”

Anger and hatred stare back at me from the same eyes that once looked at me with reverence and admiration. “You heartless bitch,” he spits. Those words assault my heart like serrated blades, but I still don’t move. “You think long and hard about your next move, Shelby. If what you say is true, and that you’ve been keeping my kid from me all these years, we’ll deal with that. But if it’s also true this kid is missing, we need to move, and we need to move fast. So, pull your fucking head out of your ass and fill me in so I can find my fucking daughter.”

I gape at him before finally dashing away my tears on the backs of my trembling hands. Reaching into my purse, I pull out the small stack of photos I’d been showing to anyone who would look and hold them out.

He doesn’t take his eyes off of mine as he steps forward, plucking them from my fingers. I stand rigid and watch as he takes in the image of his daughter for the first time. There’s no mistaking she’s his. She has his brown eyes, and dark, unruly hair. She even has the little dimple in her chin that I had once teased him about, even though it was one of my favorite features. He swallows thickly and flips to the next photograph, and then the next. All of them are current, and taken within the past few