Roman

29 - The secret I hide

Roman

I rock my daughter gently. Romany has just finished her bottle, and now she’s holding onto my finger while staring at me. She’s so beautiful. Yeah, Romany looks just like me, but I see so much of Marley in her little smile.

I left Marley to sleep. After the intense and passionate session we had tonight, she needs it.

Marley chose me. Not him. Me. Marley made me realize that no one is above me in her heart. I can’t even tell you how much I needed to hear her words tonight. Especially thinking she’d chosen him and was about to tell me she wanted to leave.

Ace and Red were right in what they said. All I had to do was give Marley space while letting her know I’d always be here for her.

It didn’t matter how angry I was or how badly I wanted to take my daughter from her – I couldn’t have another man around my child – I couldn’t do it. It would’ve just driven her into his arms. By being the bigger man, I was showing Marley that I was genuine and honest from the bottom of my heart. I showed Marley, without pushing her, just how much I love her. I proved that she could count on me without having to fear I would want more than she could give me at that moment.

I don’t know what the fuc.k they’ve been getting up to those times they’ve met up, but I do know he never touched her. Marley told me that much, and I believe her. She has no reason to lie to me. Marley isn’t a liar.

I don’t know what she’s going to say to doctor fuc.k face, but I know she’s meeting him later on today. I won’t have him thinking he can take Marley from me for a second longer. Marley is mine. No one will take her from me.

Mine!

I’m going to make Marley my wife. The Lord knows I am. While she’s meeting with cunt face for the last time, I’ll be sorting our surprise wedding. Marley knows nothing about it; all she knows is what I told her last night. I want to marry that girl sooner rather than later.

I’m not a man who does things by halves, so I’ll have it sorted within the next couple of weeks. I’ll have the big hog roast planned at the clubhouse; that’s what she’ll think we’re attending. We will be, but it’ll be our wedding day as well. It’ll be huge!

I know Marley doesn’t want the big church wedding; I don’t want that either. However, I want to marry her with my whole club there, my family, and our friends. Ours because my cousin-in-law is Marley’s best friend. All the women of the club love her. She’s just the kind of woman everyone gets along with, and now she’s become friendly with everyone, it’s much easier.

I don’t know what to do about Marley’s family, however. Of course, I’d never invite her father the man is as good as fuckin.g dead for what he put her through. Well, he will be when I catch up with him. He sold his daughter and didn’t even bother to try and find her to let her know her mother had passed away. Marley told me all about that after she woke up from a nightmare. I soothed her back to sleep and didn’t leave her until I knew she wouldn’t wake up again.

My heart hurt for Marley. I couldn’t imagine losing my mother. I don’t know what that would do to me.

Tom Denison has a lot to answer for, though we both thank him in some strange way. If he hadn’t done what he did, we would never have met, and we wouldn’t have Romany. Neither of us wants to think about that. This baby girl is the glue that binds us. She’s everything to the two of us.

Looking at Romany makes me think about the past. The stupid kid I was and what I lost because of that fact. It still fuckin.g hurts to this day. That’s why I try not to think about it, to push it so far to the back of my mind that it has no way of coming forward.

But it’s hard of late when I look at Romany or when my mother keeps saying the same thing. It started to make me wonder if they looked alike.

Do both my daughters look like me?

Or is it just Romany?

Yeah, I have another daughter. I was a stupid eighteen-year-old who thought he was God’s gift to women. Older women seemed to have a thing for me, and I just loved to show them I was better than any man twice my age. I stupidly fucke.d a much older woman, whom I should have known better than to sleep with. I didn’t believe her when she told me she was having my kid.

Who the hell would believe a crazy bitc.h who would have done anything to trap any man into claiming her?

I sent her packing the day she told me. She was angry, of course, and she told me that I’d live to regret turning her away. I laughed and walked away like she was nothing but the whor.e everyone knew her to be.

The bitc.h packed up and left without a word to anyone, and eighteen months later, she sent me a picture of my little girl. I was shocked because I couldn’t even deny she was mine; she was my mirror image.

I showed my mother the picture, and she cried her heart out while placing a picture of me at the same age as my daughter was at the time next to her picture. It floored me just how much she looked like me. I didn’t even know her name, the bitc.h that was her mother never wrote that baby’s name on the back, just a message that told me I’d lost out because I was a cunt who denied her.

It tore me the fuc.k up inside. Tore me up even more that I couldn’t find that baby. Hell, I’ve never been able to find a trace of her, and I’ve looked. In secret, of course.

My daughter would be twenty by now. Twenty, and I’ve never laid eyes on her. It doesn’t mean I’ve ever stopped thinking about her or loving her, nor will I turn her away should she come looking for me. But somehow, I doubt that will ever happen.

If I can’t find my daughter, who’s to say she’ll ever find me?

Her mother is the kind of cunt who’d deliberately keep my identity from my daughter just to hurt her. That bitc.h should never have been a mother. She was a drug addict even back then. I doubt it ever changed. Even if it did, I doubt she was a good mother when she wasn’t a good person.

Isn’t it always the way?

Cunts like her get to have kids, while good women never do.

I wonder if my eldest daughter is okay out there, and I wonder if she ever thinks about me the way I think about her. My heart aches with longing to hold her and tell her how much she means to me. I long to tell her how much her daddy has always loved her.

I pull my little Romany closer to my naked chest and kiss her head. “One day, you’re gonna know your big sister, Romany. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I do know that I’ll make sure to tell you about her as you grow. Not that I know much, but I want you to love her the way I know she’ll love you if she ever comes into our lives.”

“You have another daughter?”

Fuc.k!

I didn’t know Marley was standing there. However, this beautiful woman will be my wife, and I can’t keep this secret from her the way I have everyone else in my life but my mother, grandparents, and Ace. I haven’t told BlackJack, Taylor, Hawk, or Wrench. I haven’t told my grandparents on my father’s side or my sister. I haven’t told anyone in the MC either, not even Red, and he’s my best friend. I have my reasons why I didn’t, but they’re my reasons, and I need tell no one but Marley. I owe it to her to tell her everything about my life; she deserves that much.

Marley pads over to me on her bare feet, wearing nothing but my t-shirt. It’s so big on her that it hits past her knees. One little hand touches my arm while the other gently strokes our now-sleeping daughter’s head. “Roman?”

“Let me lay Romany down, and we can talk.”

Marley nods and plants a kiss on Romany’s head.

It takes me a couple of minutes to put Romany in her crib and make my way back to Marley. She’s sitting on the couch waiting for me. I drop down in the seat beside her. Her hand clasps my sweatpant-covered thigh, letting me know she’s right here with me.

I never imagined I’d be telling Marley what I’m about to tell her, but I can’t keep it from her either. She’s going to be my wife, and I won’t keep anything from her.

“Only a handful of people know what I’m about to tell you, and they are my blood family. No one else can know.”

“You can tell me anything, Roman. It will never go any further, I promise.”

I nod, take her hand from my thigh, bring it to my lips, kiss her knuckles, and sigh.

“I was a stupid kid, Marley. I was still a Prospect with the club, eighteen years old, and I thought I was God’s gift to women. Women they all wanted to be with me in some way. Ain’t many eighteen-year-olds looked the way I did back then. I was built like a God, always workin’ out, and I had an attitude that seemed to have the women swooning.”

It wasn’t hard to have women dropping at my feet, either. Everywhere I went, women fawned all over me. My dad used to say it was a gift. My mother would tell me never to use women for my own gains, but I was eighteen, and being that age and able to have any woman I wanted was like taking candy from a baby.

I got a big head because of it; I won’t lie. It seemed normal to me when everyone else in the club who wasn’t married or had an Old Lady was exactly the same.

“Older women were no different. I made one stupid mistake, Marley. One that led to an older woman telling me she was carryin’ my baby. I didn’t believe her. We used a condom, but she swore blind that it split. I told her to get lost and never come back.”

I rake my fingers through my hair. Sending that bitc.h packing without even really hearing her out is the biggest regret I have in life. I can’t even bring myself to speak her name because I feel like I’ll vomit on it if I do.

“It’s okay, baby,” Marley tells me in her sweet, calming voice.

I smile at her and kiss her head. Knowing she’s here with me, that she’s mine, that I’ll get to see Romany grow up is the best feeling I’ve ever had.

“She left town, and I never saw her again. However, eighteen months later, she sent me a photograph from an untraceable address. The photo was of a little girl. My little girl. The second I saw that picture, I knew what I’d done. I’d lost my child because I didn’t believe her mother. I told only Ace and my mother at the time. When my mother saw the picture, she grabbed one of me at the same age, and the likeness was uncanny. There was no more denying that the baby was mine.

“I searched for a long time for them. I wanted to be part of my little girl’s life, but no matter how hard I searched, I came up empty-handed. She’s twenty now, and I’ve never so much as seen her face in real life. I could search the ends of the earth, and I know I’ll never find her.”

I hang my head and breathe back my emotions. It never gets easier, no matter how much time passes.

A hand strokes the back of my head. “It’s okay, Tallon. I’m so sorry, baby,”

I reach over and grab my wallet from the coffee table where I left it earlier. Opening it, I grab the only photograph I have of my eldest daughter and hand it to Marley.

“Oh, wow. She’s adorable. She really does look like you and Romany.” I hear the smile in her words. “What’s her name?”

“I don’t know, her mother never told me. I’ve spent all these years wondering about her, if she’s okay, where she is, and if she knows about me. It kills me that I’ll never know her, not even her name.”

“This is the reason you fought so hard to be in Romany’s life? Why you begged me not to take her away from you?” I nod without looking at her. “Oh, Roman, I am so sorry.”

“No.” I shake my head while turning to face Marley. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t take Romany, Marley. You made sure that no matter what you decided, whomever you chose, Romany would always know her daddy, and I love you so much for that.”

Her little hand comes to my face. “I love you so much, Roman, and nothing will ever change that. Romany and I are going nowhere without you. I know one day, this little girl,” She taps the picture in my hand, “Will come looking for you, or we’ll find out where she is, and you will be just as amazing with her as you are with Romany.”

I pull Marley against me and hold her in my arms. She’s so understanding about everything, and she always sees the bright side of every situation. I have no f*****g clue how when she’s suffered the way she has, but I love her so much for it.

I don’t know if I will ever get to meet my eldest daughter, but I know I’ll never turn her away if she comes looking for me. If I find her first, maybe she won’t want to know me, or perhaps she will. I know that the first thing I’ll tell her is how much I have always loved her and how I’ll always be here for her should she need me.

That’s all I can do. I just hope she doesn’t hate me.