Dirty Secret (The Burke Brothers #1)(5)
Author: Emma Hart

I trudge forward with the knowledge she’s really never coming back. That she’s staying wherever the hell she is, and I’ll probably never find her again no matter how hard I try.

She’s gone. I should have accepted that two and a half years ago, but every time I come home I half-hope she’ll be here, like a sad fucking kid hoping his lost dog will be home when he gets back from school.

Home comes into view with the gentle sound of waves crashing. Salty air overcomes woodland as we move closer to the sprawling property, expanded after we “made it.” I pick up the pace. Getting to the place I love in this fucking town I hate is my priority. Being around my crazy-as-fuck family.

Leila is waiting on the back porch, and the second she sees us, she jumps and claps her hands over her mouth so she doesn’t shout out. I guess she got the memo about the back-way homecoming, too.

She hugs us, one by one, her hold on me lingering longer than on the others. The babies of the family, we’ve always been the closest, and leaving her every time we need to record or tour hurts a little.

Then our parents are there, a whirlwind of hugs and kissed cheeks and smiles. Two months since we saw them when we flew them to Vegas. Too long.

Mom produces her famous meat pie, and a smile stretches across my face. Oh yeah. That’s a fuckin’ homecoming all right.

We sit at the dinner table and go over the tour details. Yes, we’re tired. No, we’re not overworking. Yes, we got our eyes tested last week like we promised her we would, and nearly caused a fucking riot in the optician’s. But no, we’re not overindulging in women or alcohol, Tate lies on that last one.

I chew my way through dinner, quieter than the others. My mind is stuck on Sofie’s house. Did they really sell it? Is someone else really living in the house where I fell in love with her?

“Lei?” I nudge my sister. “Can I ask you something?” I whisper.

She nods, still chewing.

“Did Sofie and Ste sell the house?”

She shakes her head, then swallows. “No. Why?”

“I saw someone there when we walked past. Ste isn’t back yet, is he?”

She opens her mouth, then shuts it again. Her throat bobs as she swallows.

“Leila. What are you hiding?”

She shakes her head for a second time, her eyes widening. Shit. She’s a terrible liar.

“Tell me. Now!”

Everyone looks at us, but my eyes stay on my sister. My chest tightening. My stomach clenching.

Because I know what she’s going to fucking say before she does.

“She’s back,” she murmurs. “Yesterday.”

“Fuck!” I push my chair back and stand.

The hell? After all this time, she’s back now? What kind of fucked-up bullshit is this?

“I didn’t know she was coming back,” Leila says quietly. “And it’s not my place to tell you. Besides, she kicked me out.”

My fists clench at my sides. Shit. I’m angry. I’m pissed. I’m so fucking lost I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.

“Conner,” Aidan warns, standing.

My lips thin into a line. “Don’t,” I say, backing toward the door. “Just fuckin’ don’t.”

I push it open and jump off the porch, heading back for the woods. It hurts, the desire to see her. It burns through my veins, consuming me, until I have tunnel vision. I see only the end destination as I run through the trees, and that destination is her. Her house.

Her.

The truth I know she won’t give me.

The truth she fucking owes me.

I stop at the edge of her yard. There’s no defining line, so it spills over into the woods, which always made it easy for her when she’d sneak out to meet me.

I lean against the nearest tree and inhale deeply. Shit. No. This isn’t about how I loved her. It’s about why she left me. It’s about why I’m standing here, half an hour after getting home, floundering like a little bitch outside her house.

With another harsh inhale I push off the tree and storm up to her back door. I rap my knuckles against the glass before I can change my mind. And again when an answer doesn’t come.

I’m lifting my fist for the third fucking time when it opens.

And she’s there.

Blonde, wavy hair, wide blue eyes, quivering pink lips, shaking hands.

My eyes drink her in. I run my gaze over every inch of her like a man starved, desperate for the only thing that will ease the pain. Shit, she’s fucking gorgeous. Even more than I remember. She’s not the girl I fell in love with, all awkward and soft.

She’s a woman now, smoothly curved in all the right places, rougher, sexier.

I bring my eyes to hers and see the shock there.

She’s still my fucking Sofie.

“You’re back.”

She parts her lips but nothing comes out.

“Why?”

“I have to sort things here.” She drops her hand from the door and wraps her arms around her waist.

“Then what, you’re going again? Disappearing like you weren’t ever here?”

“I haven’t decided what I’m doing,” she whispers. “I just got here yesterday.”

I run my eyes over her face. Those lips. Fuck. Over two years, and I want to kiss them as much as I did then. “Took you fuckin’ long enough.”

“How do you know I’m here? You just got back yourself.”

“Keepin’ tabs, Sof?” I lean against the doorframe and raise my eyebrows. “Leila told me you were here.”

“I thought as much. And no, I’m not keeping tabs on you, Conner. Why would I?”

I lean forward, and unable to resist, I push some hair back from her face. “I don’t know, princess. You tell me.”

She smacks my hand away. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? That’s what you are, isn’t it? Untouchable. Fuckin’ unreachable.”

A fire roars in her eyes, a mixture of anger and despair. “Get the hell away from me.”

“Pushing me away again?”

“Go, Conner!” she yells, her eyes fixed on me. “I don’t want you here.”

Her eyes tell me different. Her eyes tell me she wants to grab me and hold me, fold herself into my arms the way she used to. Her eyes tell me she wants to lie next to me and trace the lines of the tattoo on my upper arm until my skin is raw from her touch.

Her mouth is a fucking liar.

“Tough shit. I’m here all summer.” I can’t help the smirk, the knowing.