Page 83 of Claiming What's Mine

Why would she do this?

“Why didn't you tell me?” I tried to keep my voice even and calm. I didn't want to yell at her, I didn't want to let this anger take control. But it was hard as fuck to not demand answers.

“I couldn't.”

“What do you mean you couldn't?” Veering my stare, I titled my head, fighting back the urge to throw something. “If I'm her father, I had every right to know.”

Blue reached her arm up to touch me, but I brushed her hand away and took a step to the side. I couldn't be touched right then, not by her, not by anyone.

“Jayden, please, hear me out.” Her eyes were big and watery, tears blistering over the surface, magnifying her eyes and making her pupils the size of pools. “I didn't have a choice, my father forced me to.”

“He forced you to?He forced you?”Furrowing my brows, I stroked my jaw. “How could he force you to do anything, Blue?”

“I was a kid, Jayden.”

“Yeah, and?” My lip turned into a snarl as I took a strong step towards her, forcing her to take a nervous step back. “We were both kids, Blue, that doesn't excuse the last eight or nine years. You had every chance in the world to let me know after you turned eighteen, so why didn't you?”

Spinning on her heels, she turned to face the back wall, unable to look me in the eyes. “He told me I had two options; keep the baby and pretend like we don't know who the father is, or give the baby up for adoption if I tell anyone it was yours. I couldn't give her up, I just couldn't.”

“And what about me, huh? When did I have the right to know I had a daughter?”

“Jayden, I'm sorry, I—”

Cutting her off, I took a long, determined lunge forward, boxing her in. “You and your father stole the first ten years of her life from me. I missed everything, all of it, and for what? Because he told you to do it?”

“Jay—”

“I'm not done,” I said harshly, causing Blue to begin to crawl inside herself. Her arms folded up like a praying mantis, her eyes were no longer giant orbs, but were pouring pipes like the damn had finally burst. “I'm that girl's father, no one else. You're an adult now, Blue, and you have been for years. Why didn't you ever pick up a damn phone to call and tell me?”

Standing taller, Blue's eyes cut through me. “You were gone, you left and never came back until now. I didn't know where you were, I didn't know how to find you. My father took everything; my phone, the house phone, the internet. All of it was monitored by him to make sure we didn't talk. And after, I just didn't know how to, I couldn't just call you out of nowhere and tell you that you were a father.”

“I don't give a shit!” My voice boomed in the kitchen, loud and serious. “There's no reason for you to not write me a fucking letter, or call me once he wasn't looking over your shoulder. Instead, you chose to keep the secret, you decided to let her live without a father for a decade.”

Blue glared at me, her mouth turning razor thin. “And what about you, huh?”

“What about me?”

“Where were you all these years?” Dropping her hands to her hips, she kicked out her leg. “Why didn't you ever call me? Why didn't you write me? You left, you just walked away and left, never looking back.”

Throwing out my arm in disbelief, my eyes shot open. “You told me to go! You told me to leave!”

“I didn't know what I was saying! I never thought you'd actually give up on us! But you did, you walked away after everything we talked about doing together.” Blue's eyes glowed with her own anger, her jaw clenched tight. “You left me, you said you never would, but you did. Where were you when I turned eighteen?”

“Don't put this on me. You had my child and never told me! Fuck what we talked about as kids, you had my baby and never said a fucking word to me!”

Sadness and regret clouded her face as her expression softened. “Calm down, Jay,” Blue said, bouncing her hands up and down. “I'm sorry, I know it was wrong, I know I don't have an excuse for not telling you. But I was just a kid, and it really screwed with my head. I wasn't ready to be a mother, I didn't know what else to do.”

Tears were streaming down her face, and I could see the remorse in her eyes. But all of that remorse wasn't enough to temper the anger running through my body.

“This is about more than just you, Blue. This is about a little girl who lost ten years of her life with her father. I mean, what the hell did you tell her about me, anything at all? Or did you make up some story?”

Shrugging her shoulder, her eyes darted all around my face. “I told her her father left before she was born. She hasn't really asked a lot about who her father was.”

“Yeah, because she thinks I'm a deadbeat.” Shaking my head, I crooked my jaw. “I don't know what to say to you.”

“Please don't hate me, Jayden, I never meant to hurt you. I was scared, my father threatened to kick me out on the street if I didn't do what he told me to. What was I supposed to do?”

“Your father was afraid to have his name dragged through the mud, that's all that was. You were the pastor's daughter, how would it look to everyone else if his teenage daughter got knocked up by some scumbag Henry? He didn't do any of this for you or for Bliss, he only did it for himself.”

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