The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 102

Chapter 64-1

For several heartbeats, nobody says a word.

Not Diesel.

Not Tucker.

Not Mayhem.

Not Jade.

Clam

Not even Dad.

Sure as hell not me.

The garage is so quiet, I can hear the fluorescent lights humming overhead.

Willow simply smiles, as though she hasn’t dropped an emotional grenade into the middle of a feared, ferocious motorcycle club.

I look from her to Dad, then to the faded photograph still clutched in his hand.

Denise.

The name echoes in my head. I’ve never heard it before, and now an absolutely horrible thought arrives uninvited:

Did Dad cheat on Mom?

The idea makes me feel sick – not because I believe it, but because I don’t. I know my father. Or at least I t hought I did.

Mayhem seems to reach the same conclusion. He slowly turns to Dad.

“You wanna explain?”

Dad blinks. “Explain what?”

“The surprise maybe-daughter.”

Diesel clears his throat. “I mean… the resemblance is kinda freaking me out.”

Now that he’s said it, I see it too. Willow has the same coloring that we all do, the dark hair and eyes. But where I really see Dad is her smile.

Dad keeps staring at her as though he’s trying to remember a dream from thirty-plus years ago. His gaze lingers on her face before drifting back to the photograph. Every few seconds his eyes return to Willow, as though his mind can’t quite reconcile the faded picture with the woman standing in front of him.

Finally he speaks. “I knew your mother. We weren’t together long.”

“For a summer,” Willow says. “Up in Canada, on Lake Rousseau. You were there on vacation in cottage country, and she was working at the general store.”

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Chapter 64+

His cyebrows lift. “Yes, that’s right.”

“My birthday’s in April,” Willow tells him.

Dad closes his eyes briefly. “She never told me.”

“I know.”

“I would’ve…” His voice catches.

“I know. She knew too.”

Mayhem is still glaring. “Seriously?”

Dad turns to him immediately. “I swear to God, son, I didn’t know.”

The certainty in his voice silences the room.

Clam

“I met Denise one summer before I met your mother. Then I got arrested, and shipped back down here to the States to serve my sentence, and when I got out six months later…” He looks back at Willow. “Denise was gone from Rousseau. I flew up to see her, to explain, but nobody could tell me a thing about her.”

“She didn’t know where you were, she couldn’t find you,” Willow says. “At the end of the summer, she went back to Toronto, and that’s where I was born and raised.”

Dad gives a hollow laugh. “Yeah, well. I couldn’t find me either.”

Mayhem’s anger evaporates almost instantly. “Well.” A beat. “Now I feel like an asshole.”

Dad snorts. “You’ve felt like one before.”

“Frequently,” Diesel adds.

Dad looks back at Willow. “I think the rest of this conversation belongs in my office.” His gaze sweeps over

all of us. “Zara. Mayhem. Jade.” Then he glances towards Tucker. “You’re in charge.”

Tucker doesn’t even look up from the engine he’s gone back to rebuilding. “I thought I already was.”

“I’ve been waiting years to hear him say that,” Diesel mutters.

For the first time since Willow arrived, Dad almost smiles.

We follow him upstairs, and halfway up, Willow pauses to admire some of the old pictures of Dad, back when he was first nominated President.

His office door is open, so I step inside, and then I stop dead. Locke is sitting at the conference table, surrounded by papers and financial records. Funny how it didn’t even occur to me that he’d be in here, which tells me that this Willow bombshell has really shaken me.

He looks up, and his eyes find me first. Always me.

“Hey, Zara,” he says. “Doing okay?”

“Yeah.”

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Chapter 64

The awkwardness between us is still there, but somehow smaller, and that’s when he notices Willow. Those gray eye’s sweep up and down, really scan her and take her in, and Willow stares back at him, Tooking a bit shocked.

Dad clears his throat. Locke, we’re going to need the office.”

“No problem.”

He gathers everything without complaint. As he reaches the door, he pauses beside me.

“If you need me,” he says under his breath, his eyes searching mine. “I’m right outside. You can tell me anything, or nothing.”

My chest tightens. After everything that’s happened, he isn’t trying to fix whatever this situation is. He’s simply reminding me I don’t have to face it alone.

I meet his gaze. “I know. Thank you.”

Claim

For one brief heartbeat, something soft passes between us, then he leaves, closing the door behind him.

Suddenly it’s just my father, my brother, my sister-in-law, my possible half-sister… and over thirty years of unanswered questions.

Nobody sits immediately. Dad stands behind his desk, still holding the photo. Willow wanders around the office, smiling at the shelves, the old photographs, the battered filing cabinet.

“This room feels very loved,” she muses. “Lots of history in here.”

Silence, because again, what the hell to say to half the stuff the woman spouts?

Mayhem crosses his arms again, and Jade sits beside me without saying a word. That alone feels strange, as she’s always the one to fill silences, to chatter and set everyone at ease.

“Why now, Willow?” Dad asks. “After all this time. After – what thirty-five years?”

Willow’s smile froze. “My Mom died three years ago. Cancer.”

Dad’s shoulders sink at that hated word. “I’m so sorry.”

“Before she died, she told me about you. She had before, of course, but she’d never told me your name. Just before she died, she finally did.”

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Chapter 64