“Honeybunch, this kinda shit, I know your dad, he’d wanna know,” he explained to me.

“Pete, this kinda shit, you think maybe there’s a reason he doesn’t know and the only people who can explain that reason would be Shy or me?”

“I weighed my actions, Tabby, and in the end did the right thing,” Pete replied and I knew he had his back up at my tone because, although he was a great guy, I adored him and he adored me, his ass was stubborn. Not to mention, he was a biker and not a young one. He wasn’t used to women giving him crap, thus the reason he’d been divorced (three times).

“Well, you would be wrong,” I told him before I hung up on him.

That was yesterday, two days of messages that went unreturned from Dad and Tyra, Rush’s tirade, and Natalie’s continuing grudge. And this didn’t even include the fact that Shy was trying to gloss over things were not so great at Chaos for him. Not that he’d come right out and said that, but I could tell by the look on his face and his mood.

The brothers were about as pleased as Dad upon the news spreading that there was a Shy and me, and when those men got ticked off about something, they didn’t go gab with their psychologists about it. All hell broke loose.

So by the time I got Pete on the phone, I was over it.

Now I was totally over it.

Yes, okay, Shy was a brother, I was the president’s daughter, this had ripple effects on the family.

But, to coin Shy’s phrase, I was twenty-three years old, and I really did not have to report to my Dad, stepmom, and extended motorcycle family who I was fucking.

Seriously!

So I was raring to go when, still wearing my scrubs, I stomped up the steps to the office and stormed right in.

Fortunately, I saw my little brothers Rider and Cutter weren’t there, like they often were, hanging with their mom while she worked.

This was the only good thing.

The bad thing was Tyra turning to the door with a smile then seeing it was me. Her face went blank, her mouth set, and she lifted a hand and announced, “Tabby, I was hoping you were getting the message when I didn’t pick up your calls. I need a few more days to process what you’ve done before I talk to you.”

She could not be serious.

She was talking to me like I was sixteen.

Uh-uh.

No way.

I stared at her in her cute little top and I knew she had a slim, smart but tight skirt and high heels on behind the desk that hid her. Even after years as the office manager of Ride, a garage run by bikers, she didn’t give up her professional sex-kitten look. I knew Dad (and all the other guys) totally dug it. I also knew, staring at her right then, that was a look I had once adopted. Another phase, the phase I was in when I was with Jason. A phase that was Tyra, not me.

I walked fully in, closing the door behind me, stopped a couple feet from her desk, and repeated, “You need a few more days to process what I’ve done?”

Her eyes narrowed on me and I knew she was pissed but I also knew I was more pissed.

“You heard me,” she replied.

“Oh yeah, I did. I just don’t understand you. What, exactly, have I done?”

Her head jerked with anger before her eyes got big and she stated, “You lied to your dad and me.”

“When did I do that?” I asked. I saw her nose scrunch, it was cute but it was also an indication of anger.

“Don’t be smart—you know lying by omission is the same thing as lying.”

“Okay, now that you’re talking to me, tell me, when did we go back in time, because as far as I know, I’m twenty-three, I have a college degree, a job, an apartment, a dead fiancé, and a man in my bed. So I kinda wanna know why you’re talking to me like I’m sixteen.”

Her voice got quiet when she warned, “Be careful, Tabby.”

“Fuck careful, Tyra.”

She blinked. I’d never talked to her like that. Heck, I didn’t know if I’d ever talked to anyone like that. Actually, I never thought I would, not to Tyra, we were that tight.

But in this instance, having had days to think on it (okay, stew on it), I knew she was in the wrong and I was in the right.

I didn’t respond to her surprise.

I kept going.

“How dare you?” I asked.

“Pardon?” she asked back, but quietly.

“How dare you think you deserve to know who I’m sleeping with when I want to keep that private, between him and me, be happy for a little while, just get used to him, the relationship we’re building, the life we’re going to share? How dare you think that is not my choice to make but it’s yours or Dad’s or anybody’s? How dare you not take my calls like you’re putting me in the naughty corner when Dad’s pissed, on a rampage, and something this important is on the line? And how dare you sit there and act like I owe you pieces of me that are not yours to own unless I deem them something I wish to share, like who’s in my bed?”

She stared up at me, lips parted.

I was so angry, I refused to register her hurt. I kept talking.

“You wanna know why we didn’t share?” I leaned toward her and threw out an arm in the direction of the Compound. “That’s why. We both knew that would happen, Tyra, and we were so fucking happy, we wanted a piece of that before we had to face your judgment.”

“Tabby,” she started, standing from her chair and I was right—tight, smart, sex-kitten skirt. “Shy is—”

My hand shot up. “Stop right there,” I snapped. “I’ll warn you now not to say anything you’ll regret. Rush already spouted that shit to me, and the grudge he has to bear from me is currently scheduled to last years. You have no clue what Shy is. You know who knows?” I jerked my thumb toward my chest. “Me!”

“You’ve suffered a grave loss,” she reminded me quietly.

“Yeah, Tyra, a year ago. I had a grave loss a year ago. Now I’m found.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think—”

I cut her off again. “You don’t get to think. Dad doesn’t get to think. Big Petey. Dog. Brick. Boz. Natalie. All you all…” I lifted a hand and circled it in the air before I dropped it “… don’t get to think. I live my life, no matter how much you or Dad or anyone loves me, or how much I love all of you, you don’t get to live my life for me, tell me how to live it or judge me for the decisions I make. I know what I have with Shy. Shy knows what he has with me. If I thought I wouldn’t be facing this, right here, with you, explaining why I fell in love with the man I love, I would have shared with you while I was falling in love with the man I love. And, frankly, Tyra, you’re my stepmom but you’re also my friend, I thought a true friend who got me, and not only did I miss sharing that with you, it hurt when the time was forced on us to share and you wouldn’t let me.”

She flinched.

“But I’ll give you a tidbit. He’s good to me. When I say he’s good to me, Tyra, I mean he’s good to me. He’s good for me. He doesn’t care if I ruin dinner. He doesn’t care that I talk too much. He thinks I’m the shit, and you know why I know that?” I leaned into her and didn’t wait for an answer. “Because he tells me. All the fucking time. I’m precious to him and I know it because he shows me and he tells me. It’s beautiful. It’s real. It’s right. And, if you’ll think back, I knew all of that and shared it with you when it started happening. It was too soon then, that’s true, I wasn’t ready. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

She started to round the desk, eyes on me, speaking carefully, “Honey, you can get confused and I think—”

Oh God.

Seriously?

“No,” I whispered. “Don’t say another word.”

She stopped moving and talking.

I didn’t.

I moved to the door and turned to her.

“You know, I’m not pissed because you worry about me and you’d act on that even if you do it judgmentally. I know you’re in the middle. You love me but you’re Dad’s old lady and your loyalty is with him, you have to take his back in what he’s feeling and stand at his side when he does what he feels he has to do. That said, you should know the reason I’m pissed is because you and Dad and even the guys, you didn’t even give him a chance.” Her face paled, I knew my aim was true but I still drove that home. “You didn’t give him a chance.”

I saw her face soften when that sunk in then I went in for the kill.

“You know you’re Dad’s one-and-only, Tyra, and if you don’t know this, seeing as he had kids before he met you, I’m sorry to tell you but even though you’re his one-and-only now, you weren’t his one -and-only.”

Her head jerked, she flinched, and I finally saw it.

Understanding.

“You feel me,” I said softy. “I get I’m not Shy’s one -and -only but I still… fucking… am.”

I pulled open the door, moved through it, and turned back.

“I’ll leave you with this, since you all are so up in Shy’s business. How many women has he fucked since he came into my life? You can think hard and you can ask around, but I know the answer. Two. A woman named Rosalie and me. People change, Tyra, he changed, and part of that change was for me. If you don’t see that as beautiful, then you’re fucking blind.”

On that, I slammed the door and stormed down the steps toward the Compound.

I gave Tyra an earful, now Dad was going to get one, and if I had any fire left, I was going to lay into Big Petey.

I heard the door to the office open behind me and my name called but I was in Crocs. She was in heels. No way she was going to catch me.