Page 32 of Secret Baby for the Bad Boy

She nods again, slower this time. “I should've told you sooner. I'm sorry.”

Why didn’t she? Why did she hide him from me for so long? Questions pound inside my skull, a relentless drumming like the beat of waves on the shore. How? Why? But do any of them matter in the face of the realization that I have a child? I have a son. I’m a dad.

“Does he... does he know about me?” My voice sounds like it’s coming from far away, and distorted like I’m speaking under water.

“He knows he has a dad…” She trails off, as if internally wrestling with – or justifying – something. “I wanted to wait for the right moment…”

The right moment? To tell him that I’m his dad?

“Were you ever going to tell me?” I ask.

She freezes, and I sense her fear this time. I’ve asked a question she doesn’t want to answer, but I need to know. I don’t know why I need to know, but I do.

Her tongue darts across her lips and she blinks, then begins to ever-so-slowly shake her head.

No.

She was never going to tell me about my son.

“Why?” I ask, pain taking a stranglehold on my throat. “Why weren’t you going to tell me?”

She sighs, as if deciding that she’s already told this secret, what’s the harm in coming completely clean. “I looked you up all those years ago. I ran because I learned…” She swallows hard. “That you were… in business with some shady people.”

She’s right. Some of the jobs I did back then were less than legal, but they were all to claw my way out of generational debt and poverty. I did what I had to to survive and to take care of my mom after my father died.

But instead of coming to me with her concerns and learning my side of things, she’d run away, cut me out, and hid my son from me. Anger rises up in my throat, sour as bile and burning.

“I know I messed up, and I don’t know what I can do besides say I’m sorry.” She sounds genuinely pained by the whole situation, but she’s not the one who has lost four years of her son’s life. I am.

There's so much I've missed, so much I don't know. So many years lost that I’ll never get back. I’ll never get that time back, never get to hold him as a baby never get to see his first steps, never get to hear his first word. I’ve missed so much and the anger within me turns to pain.

“Can we tell him now?” The question bursts out, fueled by a sudden, desperate need to connect to this new reality and my son.

“Of course,” Lara says, her expression softening. “He's asleep right now, but soon.”

Soon feels like far too long after all the time I’ve lost.

I can’t get that time back, but I can make sure I don’t miss another moment moving forward. “As soon as possible, please. I’ve already missed so much time.”

She looks like I’ve punched her in the gut; her face goes pale and pain fills her features, and I think, for the first time, the reality of what she’s done sinks in for her. She was there for everything I missed.

“Thank you,” I say, my heart racing a thousand unnamed emotions. I'm a father. The thought is both terrifying and exciting. I can’t wait to be a dad, to take him to games, go camping, teach him to swim, all the things I wish my dad had been there to do for me.

Lara watches me, her gaze offering a silent apology.

“Okay,” I say, dropping my hands on my knees. What else can I say after having this bombshell dropped in my lap? “Okay.”

“Are you okay?” she asks, concern filling those striking eyes of hers.

I nod and stand, my legs shaky, and my stomach twists violently, like I’m going to be sick. “I need to make a call,” I say, my voice somehow sounding more composed than I feel.

“Of course,” she says. Her kind tone only makes it harder to look at her. She stands up and gestures me out onto a balcony and I step out. “It’s private out there,” she says.

I thank her, feeling the crisp night air on my skin. The city sprawls below, lights twinkling like distant stars, and the world I know suddenly feels very far away. Nothing has changed, but everything is different. I pull out my phone and dial the number that I call once a day.

“Lark?” She sounds happy to hear from me, but surprised, too.

“Mom?” My voice is a whisper that breaks, and I lean on the balcony.

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