Ilara shouted over her shoulder, “I’m not your woman anymore. It looks like you’ve found my replacement. You won’t even have to miss a beat.”
Everyone in the room was now watching us and it had gotten really quiet. Someone had turned down the music. They were talking low and some I could hear were swearing. What the hell had happened? All I wanted to do was meet my dad, not cause drama between him and his girlfriend. We were stopped by several more bikers coming up to Bear. They had angry and stunned looks on their faces.
“Bear, we need to talk,” one of them said. I saw his name was Bull. This was his best friend. He sounded gruff, and he frowned.
“Like hell we do. I need to go after my woman and daughter. You saw her. She’s upset and Hope is sick. Ilara got the wrong idea about Tarin.” Bear pointed at me. I was huddled behind him, wishing I could disappear into the floor. No one had a welcoming look on their faces when they looked at me. “She thinks we had sex, but we didn’t. I need to find out why she jumped to that conclusion.”
“Maybe it was the fact she saw you coming out of your bedroom with her,” I heard a woman snap from behind us. We turned to look at her. She looked pissed too.
“How the hell do you know she saw us coming out of my room?” Bear asked her.
“Because I was coming up from checking on Hayden. I saw you and this Tarin coming out of your room looking all cozy. Ilara was at the other end of the hall. She saw it too. She was devastated. She walked off, and I was about to ask you what the fuck you were doing, when she came back and confronted you.”
Bear groaned and closed his eyes for a couple of seconds then opened them again. Everyone was still standing there, looking at him expectantly.
“I need to talk to my old lady. I’ll explain it later.” He turned to look at me. I couldn’t help but feel sad for him. He had enough on his plate without having to deal with this misunderstanding on top of it. “Come on, Tarin, let me walk you to your car.” The guys around us reluctantly parted and let us pass. They didn’t look happy about waiting to hear the explanation. They were giving me ugly looks. When we got out front, I hurried over and got into my car. Bear leaned through the driver’s window and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” I whispered, before I drove to the gate and waited for it to open. The entire drive back to town, all I could think about was how much drama and shock I’d brought to him. I hoped this wouldn’t keep him from wanting to get to know me. I prayed once he explained to Ilara who I was, things would go back to normal for them. Or as normal as they could with a surprise daughter in the mix. It took me a long time to get to sleep after I got into bed at the hotel. Please, Lord, don’t let this be another lie. Don’t let Ilara be too upset to accept me as part of his life. I really wanted and needed a dad. One I could rely on and who would protect me.