The girl suddenly looked up.
“That’s because he is my father.”
Silence fell over the street.
I stared at her.
“What?”
She swallowed, her eyes shining with tears.
“I’m sixteen.”
For a moment, I thought I had misheard her.
Sixteen.
I looked at her face again, searching for something that would make her words less shocking.
Then I turned toward Mark.
“You brought a sixteen-year-old girl to a jewelry store and put a ring on her finger?”
Mark’s expression twisted with disbelief.
“Allison, she’s my daughter.”
The world seemed to tilt beneath me.
His daughter?
Mark had never told me he had a daughter.
As far as I knew, he had no children. In six years together, he had never mentioned a former relationship that had resulted in a child, never spoken about being a father, and never suggested that someone might be searching for him.
I stepped away from the window.
