The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 111

Chapter 68-2

Mayhem looks over at me, a glint in his eyes. “That’s a good question.”

Dad sighs towards the ceiling. “She has a phone. There’s electricity and heat. It’s not the nineteenth century.”

“Does she grow her own lentils?” Mayhem asks.

“I have no idea.”

“She definitely grows her own lentils.” He pauses, contemplates. “Also?’I bet they have alpacas.”

Clam

I finally laugh, and I absolutely can’t help it. The sound escapes before I can stop it, and a second later Dad’s mouth twitches too. Mayhem grins, delighted as ever to be a sarcastic shit-disturber. For the first time since we walked into the office, the pressure in my chest eases. Enough to breathe, at least.

Dad looks down at the DNA report again.

“She’s mine,” he repeats.

I reach across the desk and cover his hand. His fingers tighten beneath mine.

“How do you feel?” I ask.

He gives me a look. “I’m too old for goddamn new-age questions like that, sweetheart.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“Yes, I am.”

Mayhem leans forward. “She’s right.”

Dad looks between us. Traitors, his expression says, but neither of us cares. Finally, he exhales.

“Yeah. I don’t know.” It’s probably the most honest answer he could give. “I feel…” He pauses. “Angry.”

“At Denise?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer immediately. “At the situation. I wish she’d told me.”

Mayhem’s expression softens. “She tried to find you, but you were inside and then you disappeared.”

Dad gives him a flat look. “Thank you for the detailed timeline of my failures.”

“I’m not saying you failed.”

“But I did,” Dad says. “I mean, look at it from Denise’s perceptive, right? What did she think about me all those years?”

“Dad,” I say. “It’s not like she told you that she was pregnant and you abandoned her.”

“No,” he agrees. “In some ways, it’s worse: she would have thought that I fucked her for a summer, then got on a plane without saying goodbye, and didn’t look back. She would have felt so-so used. Then being

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< Chapter 62.

Clam

pregnant and raising a daughter alone? Well, that’s just the cherry on the top of the shit sundae, isn’t it?”

That quietens all of us, then I squeeze his hand, remembering what Locke said last night.”You lost thirty-four years with your daughter.”>

His jaw tightens. “Yeah.”

“But you didn’t choose to… and now you have whatever comes next.”

He looks at me. “What does come next?”

I glance at Mayhem, and he glances back. For once in our lives, neither of us has an answer ready, because suddenly, we have a sister. A real one. A woman we barely know who shares our blood, Dad’s smile and apparently a deep commitment to oat milk.

“I suppose we meet her properly,” I say.

Mayhem leans back. “We already met her.”

“You refused to hug her.”

“I’d known her twenty minutes.”

“You’ve hugged men after knowing them for less.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“There was alcohol involved.”

Dad rubs his forehead. “I’m beginning to regret telling either of you.”

“No, you’re not,” I say.

“No,” he admits. “I’m not.”

Mayhem looks down at the test result. “So she’s really ours.” The joking has gone from his voice.

Dad nods. “Yes.”

Mayhem looks at me, and something warm and uncertain passes between us. Then he looks back at Dad.

“Well,” he says quietly. “I suppose we’d better figure out how to be a family of four.”

Dad’s face changes now, just barely, but I see it. I reach for Mayhem’s hand with my free one, and he complains immediately.

“What are you doing?” he demands.

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