The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 62

Chapter 43-1

Zara

Claim

For a few minutes after Dad says definitely yes, the office is everything remember loving about the clubhouse.

Too loud. Too warm. Too full of people who have absolutely no respect for personal space or emotional privacy, which is unfortunate because I can feel tears sitting dangerously close behind my eyes, and Jade is still half-hanging over my shoulders like a victorious barnacle.

Mayhem is already talking about moving tools around in the garage, because apparently my employment requires an immediate and unnecessary reorganization of the entire building. Jade is suggesting figure-hugging overalls, because of course she is. Locke is sitting beside me, his hand still wrapped around mine, his thumb brushing once across my knuckles in a way that tells me he knows exactly how much this means to me.

And Dad is watching me. Not Cobra. Dad. The man who’s just handed me a piece of myself I thought I’d lost for good.

Which is exactly why I need to tell him the rest.

The thought settles cold and heavy beneath the happiness, and for a second, I hate it. I hate the timing of it, the way that joy barely gets a chance to breathe before fear comes back and takes up space beside it.

But that’s life right now, apparently. Beautiful things and terrifying things, all tangled together.

I squeeze Locke’s hand once, then let go. I draw a breath and turn toward my father. “Dad? I need to talk to you alone.”

Something in my voice changes the room faster than shouting ever could. Mayhem stops talking, Jade’s hand stills on my shoulder, Dad’s expression sharpens.

Jade steps back first, her face softening in a way that nearly breaks me because she understands enough not to ask. Mayhem studies me for a long moment, dark eyes searching mine, and I know he wants to stay, know that every protective instinct in him is probably howling at the idea of leaving me with anything painful, but eventually he nods.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Sure, Zarabug.”

Locke is the last to move, and he brushes his lips against mine. “I’ll be right outside.”

The door closes behind them, and suddenly the office feels impossibly quiet. Dad stays behind his desk for exactly three seconds, then he stands, walks around it, and takes Locke’s vacated chair beside me instead.

That’s when I nearly lose my courage, because Cobra Callahan being terrifying behind a desk is one thing. My father sitting next to me, knees turned toward mine, his hands loosely clasped between them and his face already braced for whatever I’m about to say, is something else entirely.

“Sweetheart,” he says gently. “What is it?”

I look down at my hands. “I should have told you something before. A long time ago, actually.”

12

<Chapter 43

Clam

His face changes immediately, a look of readiness. The kind he used to get when the phone rang late at night and he knew, somehow, that bad news was waiting on the other end.

“Okay.”

I close my eyes for a second, then open them again. “About a week before the car accident, my doctor found something on a scan.”

Dad goes very still. “Found what?”

I swallow. “Cancer.”

The word lands between us, small and enormous at the same time… and my mother’s ghost enters the office.

“So after the car crash, there were internal injuries, and they were already operating, and so they removed the masses while they had me open. They think they got it all, but I need chemo. It starts next week.”

Dad stands so abruptly that the chair shifts backward. For a terrifying second, I think he’s going to walk away. Instead, he turns, grips the edge of his desk with both hands, and then the anger comes.

“You didn’t tell me.”

I flinch. “I know.”

“You didn’t tell me you had cancer.”

“I know.”

He turns back then, and the look on his face almost destroys me, because he is furious. And devastated, and afraid, and beneath all of it, hurt. Real hurt. The kind I was trying to avoid giving him.

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