Free Decipher (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #3) by Michelle Irwin Page A

already had Phoebe in her seat and was looking around anxiously for me.
    “Fucking vultures,” I muttered under my breath before forcing my mouth into a smile as I pulled the door open.
    “What happened?” Alyssa asked.
    My smile fell. “Nothing. I told him to piss off.” To stop myself from uttering a hundred other curses that were on the tip of my tongue, I clenched my teeth together until my jaw ached.
    “Are you okay?”
    “Fan-fucking-tastic.”
    “Dec,” Alyssa’s voice held an admonishment, no doubt for my swearing.
    I held up my hand just to ask for some time. I needed a moment in my own head, as dangerous a place as that could be.
    “Daddy, where was you?”
    The sound of Phoebe’s voice should have calmed me, but it didn’t. It only reminded me of the fact that I’d have to contend with the fucking paparazzi for the foreseeable future. That they’d be trying to get photos of me fighting, in any compromising position at all, but the money shot—the ultimate prize—would no doubt be a clear photo of me and my daughter.
    My mind travelled back to the days after I first learned of her existence, of looking into the mirror and trying to decide whether I should inflict my screwed-up life on her. Had I made the wrong decision? Not because I didn’t want to be in her life, because I wanted that more than anything, and more than ever, but because being near me would see her caught up in the whirlwind of fuckery. I closed my eyes tightly and squeezed my hands around the steering wheel until my knuckles ached and protested holding on even a second more.
    “Daddy just needs a minute, sweetie,” Alyssa said.
    My jaw clenched tighter. Their lives may not have been perfect before I came back, but at least they weren’t hunted by the fucking media.
    Alyssa’s hand came to rest on my arm, causing my eyes to jolt open. With a frown pinching my brows together as all the reasons the two of them would be better off without me ran through my head, I turned to glance at her.
    “Let’s just go home, yeah?” Even as she said the words, her hand traced the length of my arm. When she reached the steering wheel, her fingers closed around mine. My traitorous body followed her lead and my grip on the steering wheel loosened until she was able to pry my hand away and hold it in her own.
    “Lys, I—”
    She met my gaze and shook her head. “No. I know what you’re thinking—”
    “I—” I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say, but I had to say something.
    “I know, Dec. I can see it, and you’re wrong. Just like you were wrong when you thought it in Brisbane.” She leaned across the car and whispered in my ear, “She needs you. I need you.”
    The intensity that burned in her eyes when I met her gaze was too much for me to deal with on top of everything else. Without another word, I turned away from her and started the car. The drive home was tense. To try to alleviate some of the stifling silence in the car, Alyssa turned on the radio, but it wasn’t enough to distract me from my thoughts or break the stilted atmosphere.
    When I turned down my street, the first thing that caught my eye was the two cars parked in front of my house. The circular drive down to the garage was long enough that they wouldn’t be able to see everything, but with their telephoto lenses, they’d be able to capture enough. I’d never wanted, or needed, a six-foot-high fence to enclose my front yard, but having to pull into my property and see just how open and vulnerable it was, I wanted one more than anything. 
    “Fucking vermin,” I murmured as a camera lens poked out one window, confirming my suspicion about the purpose of the cars.
    I drove down the drive and into the garage. After I’d killed the engine, I glanced in the rear-view mirror as the garage door rolled down.
    It was when the door was completely closed that I noticed Phoebe was asleep in the back seat. I blew out a sigh of frustration. It should have been easy