Dirty Secret (The Burke Brothers #1)(67)
Author: Emma Hart

“Is this is how it is all the time for you guys?” I ask.

“In LA? Pretty much. Not so bad everywhere else. This is only because of Mila. Otherwise they’d basically leave us alone on our tour break.”

“I’m sorry we made your break crazy.”

“You made my break beautiful. Crazy beautiful, but still beautiful.”

“Good. Because your daughter is roughly five minutes away from destroying your bank balance.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He smiles slyly.

“No, of course you don’t. You absolutely won’t buy her everything she asks for, will you?”

“Toy toy toy toy toy,” Mila sings in the back. “Oooh, toy tore!”

I glance at Conner and burst into giggles. “I think she got my musical talent and not yours.”

He leans his head back against his seat. “Dammit.”

Mila’s been sitting at that damn desk coloring since we got back yesterday. Never mind the cartful of other toys Conner left the store with, she’s only interested in the Peppa Pig drawing desk.

Peppa’s blaring out of the television, the monotonous snorting of her and her family giving me a headache. I sneak the remote and turn it down a little. Mila glances up but doesn’t say anything.

Obviously redesigning George Pig in shades of orange and purple is more important.

“I think he’s crazy wanting to take Mila to the concert tonight. It’s not like she’s not going to go to one soon.”

“I haven’t decided if I’m going with them on tour yet, so it’s not that crazy.” I look at Leila. “Going with them is just . . . I don’t know. Kind of nuts, isn’t it? Taking a two-year-old on a seven-state, eighteen-city tour over two months? Eh.”

“It is, but it isn’t.” She shrugs a shoulder and glances at Mila. “Look how much she loves him. You think she can be apart from him for that long? He’ll be able to fly back maybe once for a couple days, then he’ll be gone again. It’s long and tiring for them. I went with them for a month once, and they worked so, so hard.”

“That’s another reason. He’ll be so busy workin’ he won’t have time to see her. That isn’t fair.”

“You’re makin’ excuses, Sof. She’ll love it. Stop holding yourself back again.”

I open my mouth. Then close it. She’s right. I’m the one holding back.

It’s about our relationship just as much as it is about Mila and Conner’s. If I go, and it doesn’t work, I’m stuck with it until we all come home. It could be destructive or it could be beautiful.

“I’m thinking about it, okay? If I think about it any harder my brain will explode.” I lean back on the sofa. “I’m going to take her because he asked me to. We’ll be right at the front anyway, so she’ll be safe.”

“You haven’t seen them in the masses,” she murmurs.

“We’ll have Ajax and my new friend Carlos.” I grin.

“Okay, none of them will fuck with Ajax. Not even their screaming, fangirling, obsessive asses are that dumb.”

“Wow, you make it sound appealing.”

“Hey, if you’re the girlfriend of a Dirty B. boy, you gotta accept that.”

“I never said I was his girlfriend. We’re just being . . . us.”

“So next time you argue, we’ll all know to leave the house? Awesome.” Leila laughs and dodges my playful swipe.

“Whatever. How did your date go?”

She snorts. “Terrible. Awful. I swear, I’m a serial bad dater. All the guys I meet are just . . . wrong.”

“You just have really bad taste in guys. You know that?”

“Yeah. I’m like a douchebag magnet.”

I crack a smile. I try to fight it, I do, but it’s impossible. It’s so true. No matter how hard Leila tries, she’s always been into the wrong guys.

“We gotta go,” she says, standing up. “Mila. You wanna go see Daddy sing?”

She looks up from her picture. “Dadda sin?”

“Yeah, baby.” I grab Bunna. “Dadda’s gonna sing.”

“Oooh yeah!” She climbs out of the desk and runs over. I give her Bunna and put her shoes on, then lift her up.

I carry her to the car, leaving Leila to lock the door, and put her in the back. There are only a few cameras at the end of my yard now. Tate was right—as soon as they found out we posted the picture of her ourselves, their stalking became much less lucrative.

Leila in the front seat, I drive down to the beach easily. Kind of. If you ignore the mass of cars taking up every available parking space.

Leila dials Ajax. “Where are we supposed to park? . . . Uh-huh . . . Right . . . Got it.” She hangs up. “We have to drive down the street to the private parking lot. He’ll meet us at the entrance and get us in with VIP badges.”

“Suits me.” I make the turn. The road is jammed. “We probably should have left earlier.”

“No kiddin’, Miss Indecisive.”

I tap my fingers against the steering wheel incessantly. It takes us forever to get down the street and make the turn into the lot. Ajax is waiting as promised, and we’re waved straight in.

I pull into a space and get out. Ajax approaches us just as I lift Mila onto my hip.

“Here.” He loops a badge around each of our necks. “These will get you in and out of all the private areas. Conner’s backstage right now. He told me to bring y’all down to him when you got here.”

“Sure.”

Mila grabs my badge and plays with it as we follow Ajax. I smile at her as he leads us through the security setup and into a large tent behind the stage. Like he said, all the guys are sitting there, tuning their instruments and waiting for us.

“Dadda!” Mila shrieks, scrambling to get out of my arms.

“Hey, little girl.” He picks her up. “You been good?”

She nods. “George.”

“You colored George?” he asks, and she nods. “What color?”

“Onnige.”

“Orange?”

“Yeah. Onnige.”

Conner winks at me. My lips curl, amusement controlling them. For a guy who, two weeks ago, couldn’t understand her when she said “cussel,” he’s doing real good with toddler-speak.

“Oh, Tay! Atar! Atar!” Mila flaps her arms and makes Conner put her down. She runs over to Tate and stops in front of his guitar. “My touch?”