Page 17
Joelle
After five days of walking around, all dazed, Joelle had to face reality.
She was pregnant and couldn’t bury her head in the sand.
However, accepting and sharing it with someone else were two entirely different things.
How could she explain it? People knew she wasn’t dating right now. She considered pretending she’d been inseminated just to stave off the embarrassment, but that was farfetched since she’d never mentioned wanting children.
But she couldn’t burden this alone, so she’d spilled her woes on a three-way call with her friends. After a quick-fire round of screaming and questions, they’d advised her to talk to Diamond.
After several pep talks, she decided she could do one of two things. Tell Diamond or not tell him.
She wasn’t cruel, so keeping that from him wasn’t an option. It was too important to conceal. Joelle needed someone equally responsible to share the burden.
Joelle was prepared, as best as she could, for Diamond to tell her to go to hell and to deal with it alone. Yet, she had to allow him to choose.
Texting him was off the table. What could she say? Hey, remember me? You came all over me last month. How is January treating you? Oh, by the way, you got me pregnant .
“Stop being a chickenshit, Joelle,” she scolded. “You’re a twenty-eight-year-old woman who is independently wealthy, still in the process of moving, but you have perfect eyesight and good skin. Besides, you’re not asking the guy to marry you or even for a relationship. Take a breath and get in there.” She was rambling aloud.
The property in front of her was intimidating, but she couldn’t sit in her car all day, so she started the engine again and approached the Diablo Disciples MC compound. A young man stood by an imposing steel gate, and she pulled up alongside him, whirring the window down just enough.
“Am I allowed to go in?” she asked.
He cocked a pierced eyebrow. “Depends on what you want.”
I’m here to tell one of your biker friends that he’s going to be a daddy. Or not a daddy, depending on his level of involvement.
“I’m having car issues and thought the mechanic could look at it.”
He narrowed his eyes and darted his gaze over her white Denali SUV. When she expected him to challenge her, he simply nodded. “Go on.” He clicked a button, and the electronic gates opened. Breathing a sigh of relief, she drove the long distance, and the MC red brick building made her gape. She hadn’t expected their headquarters to be so large.
She didn’t have many expectations about where Diamond worked, even so, she was curious. It stood tall, spanning multiple floors and featuring an abundance of windows. Smaller structures surrounded the main building, and there was a sprawling mechanical shop on the left that she had lied about needing. With caution, she parked near the central structure with the double doors.
The door was propped open, and she observed two men transporting large boxes. She took advantage and waited for them to vanish before slipping into the entrance. With no prior experience with an MC, she was filled with anticipation, and her curiosity grew.
The first person she saw was a blonde woman emptying a coffee machine into a small trash can.
“Excuse me.”
The woman glanced up from her task and thoroughly scanned Joelle from top to toe. “Who are you?”
“Oh, hey. Is Diamond around? Could you tell him Joelle is here to see him if he is?”
The blonde woman rested an elbow on the bar and smirked. “I’m Sonya. Me and Diamond are together.”
Oh, shit.
Of all the scenarios she’d envisioned about this moment, Joelle hadn’t factored him having a girlfriend. How did she proceed now?
“So, whatever you have to say, you can tell me, and I’ll let him know later.”
“How long have you been dating?”
Her glossy red lips spread with a smile. “For forever, girl. I wear his property patch, and we’ll get married soon.”
It was worse.
And now Joelle wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole, not even chewing her trembling bones.
“What did you wanna see him about? Do you need a bodyguard? Because my baby is the best.”
Bile rushed up into her throat. How could she tell him now and ruin his life?
“No, it’s nothing like that. I should get going. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“Hey, no bother, girl. You take it easy.”
Joelle couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and she didn’t take a breath until she’d driven out of the compound gates and back onto the main road.
Regret was a wasted emotion, but it was sitting heavily in the car with her, leeching all the air from her lungs as she drove without destination.
It was bad enough that she had to drop the P bomb on him, but to do it, knowing he’d cheated on a girlfriend, soon-to-be-wife, made Joelle sick to her stomach.
She’d never gotten that vibe from him, and she’d dated a few sleazy, suit-wearing men in her time.
But Diamond had seemed like a decent guy.
But he wasn’t so decent when he was instructing her through many orgasms.
Oh, god, did that make her an unintentional home wrecker?
No. She would not be that woman who took on the blame for a man’s mess.
This catastrophe was on Diamond’s toes.
He cheated.
Joelle knew nothing about it.
The regret remained anyway.
It stayed with Joelle right into the next day, after a restless night. She’d half decided that telling him face-to-face was out, and she’d have to resort to a text.
What he did with the information was up to him, but she had to get it off her chest.
Joelle decided to do it over a coffee. She found a corner table in a local restaurant where she usually brought Reeves to eat.
With an untouched pastry, she toyed with her phone, waiting for a spurt of courage to send the text to Diamond.
The minutes ticked by and she people watched as they stood in line to order.
Then she scrolled through the newsfeed, ordered a few items from Amazon, and answered an email. While mentally counting to ten, after which she would send the text, she saw a broad back, recognized it, and waited for Titan to be finished being served before she gave the security man a little wave.
Seeing his furrowed brow, she anticipated him walking right by her.
“Hi, Titan.”
He grunted in reply.
“How are you? I see you have a takeout coffee, but would you like to join me?” He hesitated, staring down at her. “That is, if you don’t have anywhere to be.”
She almost told the guy to forget about it because he took so long, but then he pulled out the opposite chair and sat down.
“Aren’t you eating that?” he asked.
“So you can speak!” she smiled and shook her head. “No. It’s yours if you want it.”
He took the plate, and within three clean bites, the pastry disappeared.
The phone in her hand taunted her for not doing what she should have done an hour ago or yesterday.
“Are you a biker?” she asked, latching onto a distraction, if only for a few minutes.
“No.”
“Oh. I thought the guys working for Diamond were all bikers.”
“Some are. I’m an independent contractor.”
“I wanted to thank you for taking care of my mom. Your stoic silence impressed her.” Joelle chuckled, and she saw Titan crack the tiniest corner lip smile.
She wished to ask him about Diamond, yet wouldn’t mention his name.
“She was the easiest job I had,” Titan shared. “Lots of shopping.” He grimaced like he’d rather face bullets than go inside a boutique again. She couldn’t relate. Shopping for clothes was one of her favorite sports.
“You haven’t had any more issues from the Irish?” he asked, sipping his coffee.
The Irish? Did he mean Shannon? She popped up an eyebrow, about to ask him to clarify when he went on. “The mob isn’t something you want to get messed up with, for future reference.”
Excuse her, what?
Joelle blinked, sure she’d heard him wrong.
Was he talking about actual mobsters from Ireland? Crime lords and gangsters?
No, that couldn’t be why her father had hired Diamond. It was because of his mistress.
But then it all fell into place.
Shannon was Irish.
Was Shannon part of the mob?
Oh, damn him. She had convinced herself that she no longer harbored anger towards her father, but it all returned instantly.
Titan didn’t realize he had just revealed the information her father wanted to keep secret, so she quickly covered for him. “Yeah, that’s good advice for sure. I should keep your number on speed dial,” she tried to laugh, but it fell right out of her mouth when the object of her sleepless nights was striding through the door.
He had a mean look on his face, and Joelle gripped the table, fearing that the world might go topsy-turvy after Diamond’s presence took all the air away.
But she realized, though he’d swept his gaze over her, it was Titan he was staring daggers at. If looks could kill, his employee would be sipping coffee as a corpse.
“We have company.” She whispered, right before Diamond reached the table and Titan looked up to see his boss towering like a menacing war statue.
“What’s this?” Diamond asked.
“It’s a bistro.” Answered Joelle flippantly.
No hello ?
No, sorry, I have a girlfriend, but I jerked off on you .
Charming.
“If you head over there, it’s where you buy coffee and food.”
“Don’t get smart with me, Bluebell.”
Oh, she was Bluebell again, was she?
It made her feel worse because he didn’t realize she knew about his other woman, so calling her a cute nickname felt like a stab to the heart.
The same heart that skipped a beat when he took his stare away from Titan and focused it on her face. Joelle wasn’t prepared for this.
But she couldn’t stop the sass as she pointed her chin in the air, meeting his ferocious glare.
“It’s rude to stare.”
“I told you already about that smart mouth.” He dared warn, and she saw Titan move to stand up. Her hand shot out and landed on his arm. “Stay. Your boss has the manners of a lettuce.”
“ Leave ,” Diamond growled, and though he was staring at her, she knew he didn’t mean her. Her poor heart pitter-pattered like crazy.
What a situation to find herself in.
All she’d wanted was a coffee and a chance to work up to sending him a brief text.
She was caught in a stare-down.
“Stay.” She kept her hand on Titan’s arm, and the poor man looked like he didn’t know what to do.
Diamond’s stare got Joelle thinking some wild thoughts. And he had no right to look possessively at her. Not when he was taken.
If her assumption was correct, he was acting jealous because of Titan. But that couldn’t be right. He’d already told her Titan was in a happy relationship.
Before she knew what was happening, he bent his solid body in half, leaning over her, and his lips came for hers in an attack she didn’t see coming.
A hand went to the back of her head and then to the front of her throat, holding her steady. But Joelle, weak where he was concerned, didn’t even try to evade Diamond’s seeking mouth.
After pining terribly for weeks, she withered under his forceful lips instantly.
Her brain emptied of all thoughts, of anything she knew was right and wrong.
His lips angled dominantly. Every flick of his tongue dared her to push him away. The kiss was like a storm unleashed, and despite her surprise, Joelle didn’t hesitate as his kiss demanded she take it.
Even though she had only a limited history of kisses, her body remembered the taste of his mouth and hungered for more as he sensually moved his lips, enticing her with brushes of his tongue. Diamond’s passionate kisses caused her insides to riot, and his seductive grip around her throat made her weak as a kitten, so easily foldable against his magnetic touch.
His tongue was so irresistible and skilled. It made Joelle long to follow him anywhere, as long as he never stopped kissing her.
When she heard Diamond grunt, she was overcome with a sudden clarity, causing her to wrench her head back. Instant regret sank in for her poor actions.
Labored and harsh, Diamond’s breath echoed in her ears. With her hand on the center of his chest, she encouraged him to move backward, even as the heavy tapping of his heart bumped on her fingertips. He moved, although not willingly, and then gave Titan a piercing look.
“Leave.”
“Boss, whatever shit you’re thinking...”
“I said leave. Now .”
It was hissed, but there was little room to mistake the command as it rattled out of his mouth.
Titan gave Joelle a good luck shrug, climbed to his feet, and exited without saying another word.
She stared up into Diamond’s darkened, angry eyes. Feeling shaken not only by his appearance but by that kiss.
Why had he kissed her like that?
Why didn’t she hesitate to kiss him back?
“Do you feel better now you’ve exerted dominance?”
Diamond pulled out Titan’s chair and put himself in it. Then he gave his lips a quick lick. “Why are you here with him?”
She ignored his question. “What the hell, Diamond! What do you want from me? Because you’re sending a bunch of mixed signals. You ghosted my last messages. Fine, I got your dismissal loud and clear. You’re here, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong and blowing things out of proportion.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Blowing what out of proportion?”
Her eyes challenged him to say it. “You tell me.”
“Were you on a date with him?”
Laughter bubbled up inside Joelle’s throat.
Was he jealous?
Now, that kiss made sense.
But he had no right to be jealous.
None at all.
She didn’t know whether she should be angry or feel flattered that he’d lost his cool, assuming wrongly that she was dating his employee.
“Because there are bigger things about to happen, I won’t drag it out, though, for that caveman act you just pulled, I shouldn’t tell you the truth. But no, I was not on a date with Titan. I’m not a cheater!” She aimed her chin high. “We happened to be in the same bistro, that’s it.”
That didn’t appease him, and she watched his eyes narrow. “Why were you together?”
Some part of her wanted him to be green with jealousy, to feel the same shaking possessiveness she had felt over him.
Her answer was petty. And she didn’t care. “That’s none of your business, Diamond.”
He was the man in the wrong here. With a girlfriend at home, he had no right to force kisses on her or to act jealous.
“That’s no problem. I’ll break his legs and find out that way.” He smirked, a tinge of darkness around his eyes, kinda sinister but hot.
Even when she was mad at him, he affected her.
She’d been wrong about Diamond, trusting him from the start. But needed to give her intuition a reboot.
“You came to the MC.” He announced, sweeping other thoughts out of her head, derailing her breath.
Joelle blinked. “Did... did you track me down?”
“I was on the way to your place, and saw your car outside. And then I find Titan all over you.” he scowled.
“He was not all over me. For god’s sake, he’d only just sat down. Stop overreacting.” She snapped. She hated how much of a thrill his open jealousy gave her. Most men would keep their jealousy hidden from a woman. It would have been refreshing if he hadn’t been a cheater.
“Did you come to the MC to see me?”
Oh, boy. Here we go . Her poor emotions were like a pinball, crashing from wall to wall.
Heat crawled up Joelle’s chest and flushed her cheeks. Grimacing, she sipped her lukewarm decaf coffee before setting the cup aside.
“Who told you I was there?”
She waited for him to say my girlfriend so it was out in the open, and her heart cringed, not wanting to hear those words.
“The prospect on the gate described a blue-haired bombshell dressed like a rainbow. It could have only been you.”
Oh. Oh . She smiled.
“He was pretty cute. Bombshell, you say?”
Diamond’s eyes flashed, and his forehead creased. “Don’t start that shit, Joelle.”
“What shit?” she asked innocently, with her tongue in her cheek. “Is the boy single?”
“I’m already going to break Titan’s legs. Do you want to add another man?”
Oh, god. He had to stop that.
“I was at your MC to speak to you about something, but your girlfriend said you weren’t around. As you can imagine, it was a tad awkward.” She revealed. She could tell the truth, even if he was incapable of it.
He pulled a face. “What fucking girlfriend?”
What ?
So, he was straight-up lying?
Joelle scowled and shook her head. “Listen, there’s no need to lie, Diamond, okay? If you cheated on her, that’s something private between you two. But please don’t insult me by lying right to my face. We’re not anything, and what happened between us was an obvious mistake.”
If anything, he frowned even deeper until she could count the etches on his furrowed brow. Diamond held her stare for so long that she nearly squirmed in her seat.
“I don’t have a girlfriend.” He spoke finally. “Who told you I did?”
“She did.” Joelle fired back, remembering to keep her voice regular because of where they were. “Sonya.”
“Fucking Sonya? Are you serious?” he snapped. Suddenly, Diamond was on his feet. “You’re coming with me.”
“Like hell am I getting in the middle of your mess. No, thank you.” She protested, but Diamond already had a hand underneath her arm and was helping her up, her body moving to his demands instead of listening to her logic.
He got in her face so close she saw all the different shades of blue in his irises. When he dropped his head lower, she held her breath. “You won’t believe anything I say. I see that shit on your face, Joelle. Do you think I have an old lady even when I put my mouth between your legs? Even though I sucked orgasms out of you like a dying man, you won’t take my truth.”
“For heaven’s sake, shut up.” She hissed in a whisper.
“You’ll follow me back to the clubhouse.”
This situation was getting worse by the second, and if she thought he wouldn’t forcefully chase her all over town, she would have refused point blank.
“Fine, but this isn’t necessary. I don’t care if you have a partner, Diamond.”
“You do, or you wouldn’t be looking at me like you are. And you wouldn’t have taken off from the MC without waiting to see me. Let’s go.”
Diamond didn’t touch her. He didn’t have to; she followed him like an invisible line connecting them. She watched his formidable back as he strode out of the restaurant. Every pair of eyes, including hers, was on the dynamic man.
“Wait up, there’s something I need to say.” She said, a step behind him on the street.
He turned and pinned her with a stare. “You can say what you want to say to me once we do this.”
“This is stupid, Diamond.”
He ignored her, waited for Joelle to open the door, then sighed and pressed her against the car. Diamond’s head canted down, and he pinned her with a laser-blue stare.
“Because you want me to be honest, Bluebell. Let me tell you, we might have agreed that me and you couldn’t be anything more, but that night together? It was not a fucking mistake. Far from it,” he breathed, holding her gaze before he stepped back, and she watched him striding to the Harley Davidson that gleamed under the midday sun. The way he climbed on was so sexy she was awestruck, gaping at him. Until he pointed a finger at her car, telling her to get in and follow him.
Sighing, she shook her head. But what could she do? The sensible thing by going home? Nope. She got behind the wheel and waited for Diamond to pull out in front of her.
And then she followed him back to the MC.
Oh, goodie, round two of her humiliation.
She figured telling him she was pregnant with his baby would be the most embarrassing thing ever. Little did Joelle know it would come with two crushing side quests first.