Dirty Secret (The Burke Brothers #1)(36)
Author: Emma Hart

“Mila? Mila, baby, please take your fingers out of your nose.” I sigh and reach forward to dislodge them.

She screams and smacks the sofa. “No!” She immediately shoves them back up.

“Mila Lou!” I pull them out. “Do it again and you’re on the naughty step!”

She stares at me defiantly and shoves two fingers of her other hand back in her nose.

“That’s it. On the step.” I remove her fingers for the hundredth time today and lift her by her armpits.

I deposit her on the step and set the timer. I leave it on the counter and go back into the front room, dropping to the sofa with a heavy sigh and rubbing my temples.

Three days of this back-and-forth thing with Conner is driving me mad. Not only do I miss him ridiculously, Mila does, too, and she’s making it known with bad behavior. Three hours of sleep last night has left my patience paper-thin, and I’m ready to leave her in her crib and let her scream it out.

She’s screaming on the step, so it’s not like there’ll be a difference.

She screams extra loud. I get up, pick her up, open the baby gate, and stomp upstairs. I put her in her crib with her blanket and leave the room. Five minutes, so I can breathe and won’t kill her. And God, do I need to breathe.

I walk into the kitchen and make myself a coffee. The easy option, of course, would be to call Conner and have him come calm her down. But it’s been two weeks since I got back, and she was with him for eight days straight. Now she’s going to have to adjust to him not being around all the time, because soon enough, he won’t be here at all.

I step outside and Leila appears from around the corner of the woods. “What are you doing here?” I ask her.

“Giving you this.”

I take the magazine in her outstretched hand and look at the front cover. There’s a picture of me and Conner outside the diner four days ago with his arm around my shoulders. I’m shielding my face, but not enough that it’s hidden. Anyone who knows me will recognize me instantly. I look at the headline:

IS THIS CONNER’S BABY MAMA OR HIS NEW FLING?

“Ugh.” I throw the magazine against the fence, panicking inside.

How long will it be before the media circus sets up a big top outside my house and imprisons us?

“Has Conner seen it?”

Leila shrugs. “I dunno. Unless he’s had Mila, he’s spent all his time in his room or the garage working on some new song.”

“Yeah. He was asking Mila for lyric opinions when she stayed over.” I swallow and let that thought go.

“Figures. Not his strong suit. Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads-up. I have to go to work now, but I’ll call you later, okay?” She looks up when Mila screams particularly loud. “Are you harboring a banshee in your attic?”

“A two-foot, dark-haired one? Close. In her room.”

“Yikes.” Her lips twitch into a pained smile. “Well, you have fun here. Talk later.” She turns back into the woods and waves over her shoulder.

“Bye.” I wave back and lean against the side of the house. My pulse is racing, and even though I don’t want to, I pick up the magazine and flip to the article.

Dirty B.’s heartthrob Conner Burke has been in the middle of a rumor tornado lately. Word is he has a baby—one he didn’t know about, no less. His management is keeping quiet on the topic, not returning any calls, especially since it was proposed that the mom of his child is someone he met while on the first tour with the band. Sources believe she’s leaking information slowly, in an effort to get him to pay child support.

Now, though, less than a week after that story broke, he’s been photographed eating out with an unfamiliar blonde.

The biggest question we’re asking here is if she’s the baby mama or a new squeeze. And, indeed, who is she? Does anyone know? If you do, we’d love to know.

Either way, we all know that isn’t the picture we want. Conner, if you’re reading this, where is your baby?

“What garbage.” I open the trash can and drop the glossy magazine in, letting the lid close with a clang. “Leaking information, my ass. I don’t want his damn money.”

I head upstairs to Mila, my little secret, and hold her to me, waiting for her sobs to become gentle sniffs, and for “Dadda” to change to “Mama.”

Ten p.m. Eleven thirty p.m. One a.m. Two fifteen a.m. And now, three a.m.

I walk into Mila’s room on autopilot, shaking a bottle of milk, and lift her out of her crib. Maybe she’ll take this now. Hopefully it’ll settle her. If she stops crying long enough to drink more than a mouthful.

And damn, I hate using a bottle. I’d rather she used her sippy cup, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Shhh.” I pat her butt and sit on my bed with her.

She stretches out, screeching, and I curl her into me, bouncing my knees. She closes her mouth around the rubber nipple and sucks. It offers me a blissful two minutes of silence before she knocks it out of my hand onto the floor and resumes her crying.

“Mila, shhh, baby.” I stand and hold her in front of me, swaying.

She sobs “Dadda” over and over, but I shake my head. I hate seeing her like this, but I can’t give in to her. It’ll make it harder in the long run. I kick my door shut and leave her on the floor of my room while I open my laptop.

I open Spotify and find my Dirty B. playlist. I double-click the first song and it starts playing. Mila quiets down a little at the sound of Conner’s voice coming through the speakers, but she’s still inconsolable.

She crawls to me, tears streaming down her cheeks, and pulls herself up my legs. I gather her into my lap and cuddle her in, swaying her side to side.

I close my eyes, running my fingers through her hair the way my mom used to with me. Whether I’d lost my blankie or teddy, or there were monsters under my bed, she’d come in and hug me while Dad slayed the monsters. When Ste would laugh at me, Dad’d tell him to be quiet, because I was a princess, and princesses don’t fight monsters.

If only those mom hugs could have lasted past age five, and those super-daddy monster slays could still happen.

Now, in the dead of night, holding my own baby, I wish I could call for my daddy to kill the monsters under my bed.

Mila sniffs, her eyes drifting closed. I breathe a quiet sigh of relief.

Then she wakes up. And screams.

I mutter a very bad word.

An hour and a half later, I think she’s finally asleep. She hasn’t cried or moved for five minutes. Maybe I can put her down and finally get some sleep myself.