Page 13 of Grumpy Ex's Secret Baby

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TYSON

“Trinityisyourdaughter,”Haley said, looking as if the words hurt her to say.

Good.

I wanted her to hurt. I wanted her to feel the same pain ripping me to pieces as I stood there, trying to comprehend how she had hidden my daughter from me for years. I wanted her to feel her heart being torn from her chest and crushed beneath her feet as her entire world tipped on its axis.

“What the fuck, Haley,” I said, not knowing what else there was to say.

I had a daughter. My daughter was four, and I had never even gotten the chance to meet her. I hadn’t even known that a daughter existed for the last four years. I thought that it was just me and dozens of failed relationships.

“How the hell could you do this to me?” I asked, my voice booming as I walked away from her, needing to put some distance between us. “How could you just hide an entire human being and think it was okay?”

“I did what I thought was best for her! It’s not like you’d be a great dad, given your lifestyle!”

Her words hit me like a sucker punch. One moment I was staring at the woman who broke my heart, who I still loved, and the next, I was looking at a complete stranger. I had never known Haley to be this cold or cruel. Not once had I ever thought that she would be the kind of woman to hide a child from me.

Haley’s lips pressed together in a thin line as she crossed her arms, and tears glittered in her eyes. I hated how much I wanted to walk over to her and hug her. If this were any other situation, I would be wrapping her up in a hug and telling her everything would be alright. I would have done everything in my power to make her feel better.

Now, I just wanted her to feel as miserable as I did.

Once, Clarke had described her as a storm on the sea. She was gorgeous, but destructive. She could make even the strongest ship sink.

I hadn’t believed him then and didn’t want to believe him now, even as she said the words she knew would twist the knife.

“I’m sorry,” she said, tears tracking down her cheeks before she wiped them away. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just don’t know what we’re supposed to do right now, Ty.”

It was the Ty that broke me. She rarely called me Ty when we were growing up. It was reserved for the nights when she knew her mom may not be home for a long time or those rare times her mom did show up and ruin everything for her.

“You ran away like you always used to, Haley. You thought that running away from the problem would fix it, but just look at where we are now. I have a daughter I’ve never met who’s about to start school, and neither of us knows how I fit into her life.”

“How did you even find out about her?” Haley asked, her tone harsh as she went back on the defensive. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought up her tendencies to run away, but that’s part of the problem.

“Corey Maxwell said something to me about you having a daughter when he picked me up from the airport. After that, I had a private investigator do some snooping. It wasn’t hard to find the information I needed.”

“See! This is what I’m talking about when I talk about your lifestyle! That is a total invasion of my privacy! You think that you can just have some private investigator find out about Trinity, and then you know everything that happened? I have news for you, Tyson! It doesn’t work like that?”

“Oh?” I said, anger running through my body once again. “When are you going to tell me about the police report?”

“Maxwell, tell you that too?” she asked, her voice venomous as she took a step forward, invading my space.

Everything in me wanted to grab her by the waist, pin her against the wall, and kiss her senseless, but doing that won’t fix the situation.

“No. The private investigator did early this morning when I asked him to do a bit more digging.”

“Invasion of fucking privacy! You, over anyone else, should know how much I value my privacy, Ty! Fuck!”

“Well, I wouldn’t have had to stoop to that level if you had just told me what was happening with my daughter.”

Haley took another step closer, her finger pressing into the center of my chest. “Don’t you dare try to pin that on me? You’re the grown man who decided to have someone else snooping around in my life.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” I asked with a sigh, my shoulders slumping as the will to fight left me. “Were you? Or was this going to just be some secret until the day I died? Does anyone else know that she’s mine?”

Haley shook her head, removing her finger from my chest. “No. I told everybody that I didn’t know who the father was.”

“And what about telling me?”

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