Dirty Secret (The Burke Brothers #1)(12)
Author: Emma Hart

“That’s why I didn’t tell you! I knew you’d give it all up. I knew you’d walk away from everythin’ you’d ever dreamed, and I didn’t want you to do that. I couldn’t make you do that.”

His eyes meet mine with an intensity that makes me step back. “What if you were my dream, Sof? What if I’d have done anythin’ you’d asked?”

“But you wouldn’t have! You would have given it all up for her.”

“Anything you asked, I would have done it, even if it meant spending time away from you and Mila. I would have done it to give you and her the best life I could have.”

I shake my head.

“You don’t believe me? You don’t think I was so fuckin’ in love with you that you had me wrapped around your baby finger?”

Was.

Was.

Was . . .

“It doesn’t matter!” I throw my arms out and fight back the tears that have sprung to the corners of my eyes. “I made a decision based on what I thought was best at the time. Was it the wrong one? Yes. Hell yeah it was! I should have told you. You should have known about her from the start.”

“Damn fuckin’ right I should have!” He steps toward me, his fists clenched at his sides. “She’s my daughter, too. I should have been there for her birth, and her first birthday, and I should have been there every goddamn day since she was born!”

“You have been!” I scream at him, letting the tears fall. They stream down my cheeks, blurring my vision until he’s just a mass of tanned skin, blue shirt, and brown hair. “I kept her from you, but never you from her. She’s always known about you. Always, Con!”

“What?” His voice cracks.

“Every concert you’ve ever played—all ninety-six of them so far—she’s seen. I’ve found recordings and she’s watched them. She knows every single one of your songs. She won’t sleep unless I put our song on—the one you wrote and recorded for me? Yeah. It’s her lullaby. Every time your music videos come on she’s at the damn TV, dancing along with the biggest smile on her face!” I jab my finger at him. “Your picture is beside her bed! You are the first and last thing Mila sees every fuckin’ day! I made sure of it. I made sure she always knew who her daddy was. Always.”

I swipe beneath my eyes and blink to clear my vision. He looks stunned—completely stunned.

“Why? Why did you tell her about me when you refused to tell me about her?”

“Because I was never planning to keep her from you forever. I was always going to tell you about her when the time was right. The problem is that it never was. It was never the right time to tell you anything, because you might never have cared.”

He looks up to the sky. A long moment passes with only the distant sound of the waves crashing against the sand to fill the silence between us.

Slowly, Conner looks down and meets my gaze. His eyes are wet, shining with his own unfallen tears, and it hurts me. Like a knife in my back or a punch to my gut, it winds me, slices me. It damn near kills me.

“She’s a part of you. A part of us. How could I not care about her?”

I bend my knees and lower myself to the sand. I hug my legs to my chest and rest my forehead on my knees. I’m selfish, so selfish, but I can’t look at him anymore. I can’t look in his eyes and see everything I don’t want to, no matter how much I deserve it.

Because I say I want to, but I don’t.

I don’t want to see him hate me.

“You left, Sof,” he says, choking. “You just fuckin’ disappeared on me. I went batshit crazy wondering where you were. I looked for you for months.”

I get up as quickly as I sat down and walk away from him. My heart is hammering in my chest, threatening to burst free. I grab my sandals and spin to face him, running my fingers through my hair harshly.

“This isn’t about us—it’s about Mila!” I whisper in a thick voice, aware of the sound of his back door opening. “It’s about making sure she has what she needs. It’s about making sure you two can finally know each other, about finally making sure you have a bond. I fucked up, Con. Yeah, I fucked up big-time, but I was young and afraid, and I was stupid. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make it right. This isn’t about how you or I feel. It’s about our daughter. She’s all that matters here.”

It hurts to say it, because we do matter. We just don’t matter as much as she does, and if being heartbroken for the rest of my life means she can be happy, I’ll gladly live with that pain.

“She is my number one, always,” I whisper when he stops in front of me. “Everything else has to come second to her.”

I choke on a sob and he reaches for me. I shake my head and step back.

“No. I don’t want you to take this pain, because I need to feel it.”

“Fuck off.” He grabs me quickly and wraps his arms around my shoulders tightly. “You might want to feel your pain, but I sure as hell don’t.”

He rests his chin on top of my head, and I shudder out a breath, my arms hanging limply at my sides even as his fingers against my bare arms set my skin alight.

I don’t want to hold him, because this moment contradicts everything I just said.

I don’t want to hold him, because I might not let go.

I don’t want to hold him, because there’s nothing to hold on to.

“Sof,” he says. “Can I meet her?”

Sofie takes a deep breath in and nods against my chest. “Yes,” she whispers. “I don’t get to deny you that any longer.”

“We’re not done here,” I murmur into her hair, resisting the urge to turn my face to the side and kiss her temple. Shit, it ain’t right.

I hate her so much right now. I do. But all I want to do is hold her until she stops crying, because she soothes my pain, too. She caused it, but she’s soothing it, even though she’s not hugging me back, even though she’s stiff in my arms.

I exhale loudly. “Let’s talk when we’ve calmed down and can do more than cry and scream at each other.”

She nods again, and I let her go.

A chill runs across my bare arms as she pulls back and I look at her. Tears are streaking down her cheeks, her eyes puffy and her lips swollen.

Her lips, swollen, from me. From my lips against hers in a crazy moment. Because despite it all, I needed to fucking feel her again, needed to taste her, to see if she really is the same person, because right now she feels like a stranger.