Deceive (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #2) (12 page)

“Just the night. I’ve got to get back ASAP for the preparations for the Bahrain race.”

Fuck, I’d forgotten about the Bahrain race. I’d travelled with Danny and Morgan a little more than a month earlier to scope out the track and the conditions. I’d been fucking looking forward to that race so badly. Now, I would miss out.

My entire body longed to be back behind the wheel of my V8. It was what I knew. It was what I wanted. When I closed my eyes, I could almost see the track stretching out in front of me. I could almost hear the rumble of the motor. I couldn’t wait until I was back in the saddle. Maybe when Alyssa moved to Sydney, I’d actually be able to have it all.

“Okay. I’ll be there,” I said, as if I had a fucking choice in the matter. I had to admit though that the idea of a tiny link to my former life was a little exciting. It was like the two parts of me were slowly drawing closer together.

Eden’s plans had pretty much made up my mind that I needed to go back to Mum’s. I had to, mostly because Eden would have a pink fit if she saw the clothes I was in. Between the sleep-crushed shirt and unironed pants, I was a fucking mess. With a sigh, I picked myself off the ground.

I glanced around the park once more, taking comfort in its familiarity, and readied myself to confront the mother who’d been lying to me since I arrived back in Brisbane—and who the hell knew how long before then.

FOR A long time, I stood staring at the front door. Minutes passed while I let my indecision still my feet. Should I use my key and just go inside, or knock and wait to be invited in? How could I confront her? Just shout and scream until she told me everything, or try to pretend I knew nothing, just like she did?

I had no idea what to do, so I just fucking did what I always did. The way I always did it—with no thoughts, no consideration, just balls to the wall and a bravado I didn’t really feel. With a breath as deep as my protesting ribs could take, I reached for the door handle.

I found Mum sitting at the dining table looking frazzled.

As soon as she saw me she threw herself across the room at me and wrapped me in her arms. “Oh, thank heavens! We’ve been so worried about you. Your father told me about yesterday, and then Alyssa said you were there last night. But then you just disappeared. Everyone’s been frantic with worry over you.”

“I just needed time to think.”

She let me go and walked back to her seat at the table. She looked at me expectantly, like she was waiting for . . . something, but I had no idea what.

“Declan,” she began.

I held up my hand to stop her and asked her the only question I wanted the answer to. “Why are you still here, Mum?”

She looked at me blankly. I wasn’t sure whether it was because of the bluntness of my question or because she genuinely didn’t understand what I was asking.

“I’m assuming that little whore isn’t that bastard’s first,” I said.

Mum gave a small headshake, confirming my suspicions.

“Then why are you still with him? I don’t get it, Mum. Don’t you have more respect for yourself? I mean, fuck!” I slammed my fist on the table to drive home my statement.

“It’s not that easy,” she murmured.

“Fucking hell! It’s exactly that easy. He’s a fucking prick and you shouldn’t have to put up with it.”

“Declan, he’s still your father. Please, just calm down.”

“Not until you tell me why you’re still here. Fucking supporting him at that. Even now you can’t find one bad word to say about him, can you?”

“Of course I can, Declan,” she snapped at me. “There probably isn’t a bad word in the entire world that I haven’t thought about him at one point or another. But you idolised him. You followed his every footstep from the moment you could walk. How could I ever shatter your world like that?” The sadness in her eyes echoed the truth in her words.

All the breath in my body left me in a rush. “You stayed because of me?”

“Of course, Declan. You’re my son. You’re the most important thing in the world to me. Even now, with you all grown and living your own life, you’re still my little boy. There was no way I could be selfish and break up our family.”

“But after I went to Sydney, why didn’t you leave then? Why stay?”

She stared at her hands, which were knotted together on the table. “Where else could I go?”

I moved closer to her and knelt at her side. “You could have lived with me for a while. I would have helped get you back on your feet.”

She shook her head sadly. “I don’t think you would have. I think that’s how you feel now, but that’s Alyssa’s influence.” A small smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “She’s good for you.”

I smiled a little too, but it fell almost immediately. Alyssa was good for me, and I just kept fucking it up. I decided that it was time to get everything on the table, while Mum was talking anyway, and find out what the deal was with Alyssa and Phoebe and the weekends. No more bullshit and half-truths. Those had fucked everything up enough as it was. “Why don’t you look after Phoebe on the weekends?”

Mum either understood I wasn’t backing down, or she just didn’t have the energy left to fight. “Just lots of little reasons.”

“Like?” I shifted to sit in the seat beside her as my side began to ache.

Mum sighed. “Do you know you were born six months after your father and I were married?” she asked. At first I thought she was trying to change the subject.

“So?”

It was her turn to raise her eyebrow at me.

Slowly realisation dawned on me. “Are you saying that you and Dad got married . . .
because
of me.”

She nodded.

“I was an accident?”

“No.” Her voice was emphatic, but then her brows knitted. “Well, technically. I mean, you weren’t expected or planned, but I would
never
call you an accident.”

“Semantics.” I wasn’t planned. When I stopped to consider it, everything was obvious in hindsight. Like working out why a crash had happened in the moments after the car had hit the wall. It was the reason Dad and Mum had married early.
I
was the reason. All of Dad’s whispered warnings made more sense. They weren’t cautionary tales of what
might
happen, they were regrets over what had happened.

Mum moved her hand over mine. “No, it’s not semantics. You may not have been planned, but you were loved from the minute I found out I was pregnant. I was overjoyed.”

I didn’t miss what she’d said, and also what she’d left unsaid. “
You
were overjoyed and Dad . . . felt trapped?” I guessed.

“Not at first.” Her response was a whispered admission.

“But eventually he did?”

Mum’s eyes turned glassy, picturing what exactly I didn’t know, but her voice was emotionless when she spoke. “We were married at eighteen. It didn’t take long for him to feel like he was stuck at home while his friends were able to go out and live it up. I think that made him a little resentful.”

“Toward me?” I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. As much as I hated him at the moment, he was still my father. Hearing that he resented my existence stung and made me hate him even more.
Will Phoebe feel that way about me one day?

She shook her head and reached out to stroke my cheek gently. “No, it was never toward you. He loved you with every fibre of his being. He still does. It was everything he had to give up to provide a stable household for you.”

“Like racing?”

She nodded.

“That’s why he said all that crap the other morning.” I had meant it as a question, but knew it so absolutely that it came out as a statement. “And why he warned me to be careful so often?”

Mum looked away.

My blood turned to ice. Had he said similar things to Alyssa? Was that why she was uncomfortable around him and didn’t bring Phoebe around on the weekends when he might be home?

“What else?” I asked. My voice was small and weak, lacking all the anger that burned just below the surface.

Mum’s eyes fell back on me for a second before dropping to the floor.

“What else happened?” I asked, more loudly. “Did he fucking say something to Alyssa? After everything she went through, did he accuse her of trying to trap me?”

“No, he’s never said anything like that to Alyssa. At least, not that I’m aware of.”

“Then what did he do?”

“Nothing,” Mum whispered, before picking up a rag that was sitting nearby and cleaning the table, wiping it in small, tight, anxious circles.

“What did he do?” I asked, kicking away from the table. My entire body was on alert. I was ready to turn around and hunt the fucker down. I had no idea where he was going for his “business trip” but I had a sudden desire to know and to go there. To introduce him to both my fists again and again.

Mum pressed harder as she cleaned the table.

“Tell me,” I commanded, thumping my fist against the table. The noise resonated throughout the house and a small exclamation of shock left Mum’s lips.

After her initial squeak of surprise, Mum fell silent. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to protect Dad or not betray Alyssa. I’d scared her often enough with my lack of control, she’d likely only give up the secrets if she thought I wouldn’t fly off the handle in response to them. The calmer I was, the more likely it was that she would tell me the details. I swallowed down the emotions clawing at my throat and tried to release the tension in my body.

“Please.” I forced the word past clenched teeth.

“It was just little things—lots of little things—that made Alyssa feel uncomfortable.”

“Like?”

“You have to understand the full situation. I already felt like I’d lost you. I couldn’t stand to lose Alyssa and the twins as well.”

“What did he do?”

“I didn’t want to drive her away. So after it all happened, it was just easier for her not to be here when he was. To come during the day while your dad was at work. Alyssa seemed okay with that solution too. We’ve stuck with it ever since.”

“What. Did. He. Do?” Each word hissed through my teeth as I tried everything I could to keep my anger in check.

“I told you, just little things. There wasn’t anything specific.”

I pulled at my hair and decided to pull out the big guns. With a sigh, I leaned against the table. “Mum, please, I need to know. I’m trying to gain Alyssa’s trust and I think if I know everything she’s been through, it’ll be easier.”

She eyed me sceptically. “You’ll overreact.”

My heart struggled to pump the ice-cold slush that filled my veins. I tried to keep that chill out of my voice. “No. I won’t. I promise.”

“It’s really nothing.”

“Fucking hell, Mum!” I snapped, slamming my fist onto the table again. “Just fucking tell me.”

“He used to compliment her,” Mum whispered, almost silently. I had to strain to hear the second part. “Especially once the pregnancy hormones kicked in.”

That didn’t sound too bad, and I wondered why it would be something to keep Alyssa away. I struggled to think of what pregnancy hormones did but I knew so fucking little about that shit that nothing came to me.

“And he accidentally walked in on her in the shower one day.”

“What?” Mum’s words cut through all of my thoughts, and I needed to know more because it didn’t make sense. “Why would she shower here?”

“It was when she was about six months pregnant. She’d had really bad morning sickness through the early months. She was finally getting past it, or so she thought. But then she had a bad bout when she was here one day.”

Her words layered a fresh serving of guilt over the ones that already surrounded my heart. I hadn’t been there for Alyssa during those hard months. Whatever had happened to her because she was trying to keep a relationship with my mother was my fault.

“I loaned her some of your old clothes and offered her the shower.”

I clenched my fists at my side. “Then what happened?”

“Are you sure you really want to know? I don’t think the specifics are important.”

“Like fuck they aren’t.” I needed to know whether I just needed to hurt Dad, or whether I needed to murder the fucker.

“All I know is that he was in the bathroom when she got out of the shower,” she said. Then added in a guilty rush, “I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding though. He said he’d only just walked in.”

“Misunderstanding, my arse,” I whispered with barely contained rage.

Mum rested her hand over mine, no doubt trying to show me some support. “After that, Alyssa never felt comfortable here with him around. I never questioned her, not if it meant I still got to see her and Phoebe.”

The only sound I could hear was the grinding of my teeth. Mum’s words were a reminder that I hadn’t only left Alyssa behind. The more I learned about the way things had been at home, the more I regretted my actions. It was no wonder Mum hadn’t gone out of her way tell me the truth about it all. It wasn’t the sort of thing she could just say over the phone.

Dad, the dirty prick, was getting around with a scrag younger than I was. Who knew what other fuckery he’d gotten up to over the years. My fingers curled into fists at the thought. My hold on my temper was tenuous at best. It took everything I had to keep my heart rate under control. Any additional revelations would push me over the edge. Without another word, I turned and walked away from Mum to my room.