Page 101 of Misguided

“Feel better?” He laughs sadly, tucking his chin to his chest so he can look down at me.

I push up on my elbows and stare in his darkened eyes. “Nope.”

“Well, fuck.” He chuckles. “Waste of time that was then.”

I smirk, reaching out to caress the line of his jaw. “I don’t feel better, because I hurt for you. That sucks he blames you for that.”

“He said if I hadn’t broken her heart, it would have kept beating.”

“Do you think you broke her heart, though?” I shift a little so I’m closer.

He stares up at the roof of the tent for a while, his brow twitching in and out of a frown as he works things through in his mind. “I don’t think so. She was the one who encouraged me to go out and explore who I was before I got tucked under Dad’s wing at the company.”

“Your dad wanted an apprentice.”

“So to speak. He wanted somebody to beat into shape who couldn’t just resign and walk away.”

“Harsh.”

“The truth.” He reaches for my hand, pulling it higher to his lips and places a kiss on the back of my fingers. “You feel that way? Being the club princess?”

“Sometimes.” I lay my left arm on his chest, propping my chin on it. “Daddy had strict ideas on how our lives would go. He let us be ourselves, but only as long as that fell within the boundaries of the person he saw us as, you know?”

“Completely.”

“He wanted to pick my husband, somebody to sit to Hooch’s left when he took the gavel. It’s why Crackers and I had that awkward … thing. Why I stormed out the first time.”

“Arranged marriage. That’s some fucked up medieval shit right there.” He smiles and then kisses my fingertips.

“Right?” I smile back, amazed at how he always manages to turn my mood around by just being himself. “I’m sorry I was rude to you before.”

“Water off a duck’s back, babe.”

Maybe. “It’s not your fault though.” I let my head drop to his chest again and relish the feel of his fingers in my hair as he strokes it away from my temple. “It wasn’t so much that I miss them—I mean, I do—it’s more that I feel lost. Like, I don’t know who to be now I’m not ‘Judas’ daughter’ or ‘Mel and Dana’.”

“You’re in charge of your own future for the first time.”

I chuckle. “Stupid, isn’t it, when I spent the last year on my own, that I feel lost.”

“Not really.” His hand stills. “That was different. Being alone physically and mentally are two massively different things.”

I push up again, scooting so I’m close enough to kiss him if I wanted to—which I do. “Why do you hide this side of you?” I ask again.

“What side?” His eyes crinkle at the corners.

“You’re so smart. So … insightful.”

“Ain’t much place for that in an MC club is there, babe?”

The sadness in his eyes slays me. “Who says?”

“The culture. The men who make up our numbers.”

“King’s smart and insightful.”

“And look what that did to him.”

Almost killed him.There’s a certain detachment required if a brother is going to make it at the top, a safety-switch that allows the person to shut off the emotional toll such hard decisions take on a man.