Dirty Secret (The Burke Brothers #1)(9)
Author: Emma Hart

Words that have been all too common in the last five minutes.

He snorts and leaves me to it on the deck, ever the caring older brother. Remind me not to deal with his health care when he’s shitting in adult diapers.

I drag my eyes from the door and toward the beach. Since I left, touring across America, I thought the first thing I’d do when I got home was sit on the beach and take in the fierce rush of the white foam against the beach, the echoing crash of the waves against the sand.

I thought I would breathe it in, the scent of home. Of the rich, enticing aroma of Mom’s cooking mixing with the saltiness of the sea. I thought I would relish it, that I’d close my eyes and relax as the stress of the tour washed out of me.

I thought I’d stand in the farm-style kitchen, laughing with my family. That I’d sit out here on the deck with my sister and get all the gossip. That Mom would need another spice rack put up in the kitchen or a bookshelf in Dad’s office.

I thought wrong.

I get up to grab another beer and twirl the bottle, resting my feet on the porch fence again. I drink it quickly, too quickly.

Dark descends, bringing with it a slight chill, but no silence. No silence in my head from the raging thoughts of Sofie and that kid.

That kid that could be mine.

I get up and let the empty bottle drop to the floor. The woods are eerily quiet, as if they can sense my anger. As if they know the bitterness that lingers in my veins, as if they know the burn of not knowing anything.

Like the woods, I’m left in the dark. Completely.

Branches and twigs crunch under my feet as I increase my pace to a gentle jog. And again, to a slow run. Then to a sprint.

The need to know increases with every footstep, as evenly paced as the ticking of the clock. It doesn’t matter that I’ve probably drunk too much beer to be here or that we’ve only been back for a matter of days.

I can’t be in this shithole full of memories without knowing. I can’t move on until I know. I can’t forgive her for a single fucking thing until I know—and even then, maybe I won’t be able to.

Maybe she’s unforgivable.

Instead of knocking on the back door like I did yesterday, I come around the side of the house to the front door. The front room light glows softly through the curtains, but the rest of the house is dark.

My chest heaves with the exertion of my run here and I grab the doorframe to balance myself. I’m definitely too fucking drunk for this conversation, but what the hell.

I bang on the door, once, twice, again and again and again. “Sofie! Open the fuckin’ door!”

“Shut up!” she hisses, yanking it open. “The hell’re you doing here?”

I smirk, leaning against the wall. “Shouldn’t I be askin’ you that, princess?”

“Are you drunk?” Her voice rises a little at the end, and her eyes widen.

Those eyes. Fuck, those baby blues that have always undone me.

“Drunk? No. If I was drunk I’d be sitting at home like a miserable bastard and not here facing the cause of my misery.”

“You’re being an asshole. I don’t have to listen to this.”

She pushes on the door, but I wedge my foot in front of it. I let go of the wall and grab the edge of the door.

“Actually, you do.”

She can’t overpower me, and she knows it, because she lets up and the door swings open. “Why are you here, Conner?”

“You have a kid.”

She smacks her lips together. “Yep.”

“When? When did you have her?”

Sofie takes a deep breath in and presses her hands to her stomach. They’re shaking, even as she links her fingers to hide it. I can see that fucking tremble.

She whispers something but I’m too preoccupied by her hands to hear it.

“What?”

“August two years ago,” she repeats, still a whisper.

August. Two years ago. My stomach clenches as I meet her eyes. “When? When in fuckin’ August, Sofie?”

“August fifteenth.” Her voice hitches halfway through the “fifteenth.”

Almost seven months to the day she walked out on me and the rest of Shelton Bay.

Adrenaline hums through my body, and I stare at her. At the tears building in her eyes, the quiver of her lips, the bob of her throat as she swallows harshly.

It’s no different from the burn in my chest, the twisting of my stomach.

“Is she mine?”

She shudders and a tear drips from her eye.

“Sofie. Is. She. Mine?!” I yell, resting my hands on either side of me in the doorway.

She hesitates, and just when I think I’ll have to pin her to the wall and physically make her answer me, she nods. It’s barely a movement, but enough to answer my question.

But no. It’s not fucking enough.

“Yes or no, Sofie. It’s not fuckin’ hard.”

“Yes,” she rasps. “Mila’s yours.”

I draw in a deep breath and shake my head. Pushing off the wall and stepping back, I start, “You—” I swallow the lump in my throat. “I can’t even fuckin’ look at you right now.”

Her cry follows me onto the street as I run away, and for the first time in my life I don’t give a shit. I don’t give a damn if she’s hurting.

She took a part of me away. My daughter, a person I helped create, the very person who’s literally half of my heart. She took smiles and memories and laughter. She took a life. She took someone who is mine.

Something she had no right to do, she did. Without a word or even any hint. She stole that from me.

“Fuck!” I yell into the night, leaning against my back porch. I barely remember the return trip through the woods.

“What?” Tate steps out of the back door, followed by Aidan, Kye, and Leila.

“Conner? What’s wrong?” My baby sister steps forward.

“She took her. She was pregnant and she took my fuckin’ daughter away from me!” I kick the porch.

I need an outlet for this. Shit. I can feel the rage burning through my veins, desperate to get out. I’ve never felt an anger or a pain or a fucking betrayal that stings as acutely as this one does.

The girl I loved so much I’d have given her anything has broken my heart so fucking spectacularly.

“Shit.”

“Mine! And she fucking took her!” My voice cracks and I grab the posts on the porch, my muscles clenching almost painfully.

The anger streams down my cheeks in hot tears, because I’m not too proud for this. I’m not too proud to let my family see this pain.