Page 26 of Demon's Angel

“Seems to me someone else has to step up and claim to be the father. Only thing to prove it’s not so would be DNA tests. And that, someone like Angel wouldn’t want to provide. He gives a sample? His DNA would be in the system.”

“I’m not particularly keen on my own being taken either. You’re forgetting, it’s also mine that wouldn’t be a match. In the end, what you’re asking me to do is a complete fabrication, Hell. You’re asking me to live a lie. I can’t do that.” Angrily I stand, sliding my chair into the table, a sign I won’t be sitting back down. “Convince him I’m in love with her? That I had an affair with her? That the kid’s mine? Fuck, Hell. How the fuck do I do that?”

He stands too. “You’ve had an example right there in front of you all of your goddamn life. You copy your mom and me. Shouldn’t be that difficult.” His face has reddened. “You treat that kid the same way I fuckin’ treated you. You think living a lie isn’t worth it if it’s done for the right reasons?”

“You really think I should do this?” I round on him, furious. “Throw the next eighteen years of my life away on something that wasn’t my mistake?”

“I invested the last fucking thirty-six years in doing the same thing,” he rasps back.

I send a wary glance toward his hands bunched into fists. A throwdown with my father isn’t what I want to get into, but the way this is going, I may need to take the old man on.

“You loved Mo from the start,” I throw at him, taking a warning step closer. “Don’t compare Vi and me to you and Mom.”

“Perhaps I just needed something to make me step up and claim her! To show me what was right in front of my eyes.”

My fist rises, but instead of hitting him, smashes down on the table. “I’m not marrying Vi to make a ready-made family to satisfy you and Mo’s desire for a grandkid,Dad.The circumstances are totally different.”

For an answer he throws up his hands, a very similar gesture to that when I was a teenager; a parent’sI can’t talk to you while you’re in this mooddismissal. Then, with one last glare, he leaves.

Christ. We get on so well it’s been years since we last argued. At least he’d walked out before it had come to exchanging blows. He might have twenty years on me, but I’m not sure who’d come out the winner.

Pulling out my chair, I sink down onto it, lean forward and put my head in my hands, rage slowly seeping out of my body.I am not my father. Definitely not my real one—I’ve never had any inclination to put my dick where it’s not wanted. But I don’t resemble Hell either, never wanting to settle down and be a family man, and not prepared to play dad to a kid I hadn’t fathered.

If I forced Violet into a relationship to fight alongside her, I’d not be able to go with the whores, the hangarounds who come to our parties, the booty calls I rely on in town. Fuck, my cock couldn’t go anywhere. I’ve not gone without sex for more than a day in all of my adult life. Fucking’s a hobby for me. If I was to be faithful, I couldn’t be celibate. Fucking Vi wouldn’t be any problem for me, but there’s no chance she has reciprocal feelings. She’s clearly outgrown her teenage fascination with me. How does she see me now? A man, much older than her, who leads an MC. She doesn’t want me like that, but pretending, being close to her, being celibate when all I’d want to do is strip her clothes off? Would desperation lead me to press my case just like my sperm donor? And would she simply comply, lay there and take it, because it’s all to protect her son? Angelino’s already ruined her life, I can’t add to her woes.

Fuck, there’s no chance she’d agree even if I asked her. I’m an outlaw biker with no knowledge of parenting. Not much different to the criminal who’s fighting her for custody.

Chapter Ten

Violet

When I’d been introduced to Jayden I’d taken to her almost immediately. My admiration for her grows the more I speak with her. She’s shown she possesses a wisdom, and a knack for looking after children, that belies her years. Quite calmly she told me a little of her background, so much worse than the one-night stand I luckily have no recollection of. Sharing our confidences has begun to forge a connection between us. So much so, that when she took a fussing baby from me and he immediately quieted, I didn’t feel jealousy, just relief.

“You have a way with kids,” I observe.

“Practice.” She grins, then grimaces. “I just wish I could go down to Tucson and see my new niece, Faith, but it’s too dangerous for me to show my face there. And Ella doesn’t want to travel here with a newborn. Hopefully it won’t be long before they visit. Mo’s already assured me Ella and Slick can stay with her.” As she places a kiss on Theo’s sleeping head, the faraway look in her eyes suggests she’s dreaming of holding her niece the same way.

“Any kids in your future?”

“Huh. Not yet. Eventually, I suppose. But I’m in no hurry. Pal and I are just enjoying getting our relationship established first. I’m only seventeen, I can afford to live that much again before I even start thinking I’m running out of time.”

It’s not the first instance that she’s had to remind me. Her maturity makes me feel like I’m talking to someone my own age. I’d already place good money on a bet that if I stay here, I reckon we’ll become good friends. That’s not even a possibility though; Theo and I need to move away, start afresh. I can’t, and don’t want to, presume on Demon’s hospitality, or not for too long. With my carnal thoughts about him, it bugs me he looks at me as nothing more than the sister of his old friend.

Eyeing the direction he’d gone off in, I ask, “Do you know what time the men will get out of their meeting?”

“Church? No. Could be any time. Depends what they have to discuss.”

‘Church’? That word again. “I didn’t take Demon as a man much for prayers.”

Jay giggles. “It’s just what they call their meetings. Bikes could be a sort of religion, I suppose.”

A brief shared moment of mirth, but my merriment soon disappears, knowing what the men are discussing will be me. While I don’t like the story of my stupidity being shared, I do hope Demon’s finding a discreet way to let them know I’m not a bad mother. I hated the way they all looked at me earlier. Understood it, of course, but they didn’t know that the last thing I’d do is leave my son unless I saw no other option, that I’d been at the end of my tether, seeing no other way out.

As the baby sleeps on and Jay seems happy enough to hold him, I relax back and think less of my predicament and more of Demon, the man who’s swept in and turned my life upside down. He’s given me hope for the first time in what seems like forever. I remember him better as Dave; the man he is now is like a stranger, wearing a similar, but not exact, exterior to Nathan’s companion of the past. He’s broadened and muscled up, his chiselled face gotten more defined. There’s no doubt the extra years suit him.

The only thing I’m having difficulty processing is his new name. I could never see him as demonic and hate the handle passing my lips. He seems to insist on it, though. Maybe there’s a compromise?

My stomach growls loudly interrupting my thoughts and making Jay chuckle. She bats my arm. “Look, I have Theo. Why don’t you go get something to eat? You’ll hear him if he wakes.”

---