Risking Fate (Mitchell Family #4)(81)
Author: Jennifer Foor

Conner ran his hands through his hair. “It doesn’t matter. There ain’t nothin’ goin’ on between us. I’m not even sittin’ here to talk about that. I think you both need to hear the truth.”

Miranda looked confused, but from the look on her brother’s face, I knew exactly what he meant. “Fuck.”

“What Ty? What is going on now? You two and your secrets are really pissing me off.”

Conner put his hands down and looked at his sister. “I’m goin’ to start from the beginning so you don’t think I kept anything from you. Don’t open your pretty little mouth until I’m finished, you got it?”

Miranda shrugged. “Whatever!”

“The night that all this shit started with Heather, you were right, I knew about it. I was the person Ty called when he needed advice and I am the one who convinced him to lie to you. It was all my idea for him to move on and forget it ever happened, even though I knew he couldn’t do it forever.” Miranda started to talk, but he held up his hand. “You see, when I saw Ty that night, he wasn’t right. When he told me he was drugged, I knew that he was telling me the truth. You didn’t see him that night, Randa. He was tore up somethin’ fierce. The whole time he kept sayin’ that he never touched her, so I suggested that she set it all up. I knew Heather didn’t know who I was, so I asked Amy to set us up. She knew all along that I only wanted answers, but that girl loves you like you’re her sister and she wanted to be able to fix things.”

“You told Amy?” Miranda looked genuinely hurt.

“I had to. Just shut up, please.” He shook his head before continuing. Miranda refused to look my way and I hated reliving the events in my head. “I knew I had to get her to trust me if I ever wanted to find out if Ty was telling the truth. Nothing against you, Bro, but either way I wanted answers. Just so you know, I never doubted you for a second. I’ve cheated on my fair share of women and I never left any of the other women’s beds so tore up.” He looked back at Miranda, who was already crying silently to herself. “Heather took the bait right away. Within a week, she was calling me all damn day, wanting to hang out. I took things slow, making her think I wanted something real. Since she thought I was living out of a motel, it was always her idea to go there, but one night I finally got her to take me to her place.”

“Jesus Christ, Conner, you slept with her too?” Miranda stood up and walked over to put Jake in his chair. She immediately began pacing around the room crying. I rushed to her side, but she pushed me away. “Why are you telling me this? Do you have feelin’s for her? She’s never comin’ here. I don’t want her near my family…”

“Will you calm down. I ain’t got feelin’s for that slut.”

I removed my hands from my face and watched my wife walk back to the table. I was shocked that Conner had gone through with his plan and actually bedded the enemy. He really had taken one for the team. “Please get this story over with. If I have to move in with my parents a day before my daughter’s birthday party, I am really going to kick your ass.”

“You two need to just chill and hear me out. After I had spent the night there a few times, she started leaving me alone in the house. Every time she showered or ran to the store, I snooped around. I found her camera first that had even more pictures then she gave you, but what I did see was this.” He pulled the camera out of his back pocket and slid it across the table. “I know you don’t want to look, but I think you need to see the one’s she didn’t show you.”

I flipped through the pictures. Each one was like a knife being stabbed into my heart, until I came across the ones where two people were trying to pose me in different positions and I was clearly not awake. “Son of a bitch. I knew it.”

Miranda, who seemed scared to death of the camera, yanked it out of my hand. She began staring at the one I left on the screen. Sure enough as she flipped through it was obvious that I wasn’t conscious. There were even pictures of Heather laughing while trying to pose. She finally sat the camera down between us and looked to Conner.

He cleared his throat. “Randa, she walked in on me lookin’ at those pictures and I flat out asked her about them. She said that her and her friends wanted to pay back an ex-lover that pissed her off and if that isn’t enough evidence for you, on the first night I slept with her, she said she hadn’t been with anyone in over a year and it was with a girl. You can be as mad at me if you want, but your husband never cheated on you. He was tellin’ you the truth the whole damn time. Now instead of bein’ all pissed, I think you have a little secret of your own that he deserves to hear about.”

She put her hands over her face and kept them there. I just sat there in total shock. Conner slept with Heather. He actually went through with it to help me and his sister. I looked at my wife and thought about Conner’s last words. “What secret?” Miranda reached over and grabbed one of my hands, but I pulled away. “No, what secret?”

She put her head down and started crying. “When she brought those pictures I was so pissed at you. I wanted you to suffer for what you did, but then the accident happened and everything just got so busy.”

I stood up and clenched my fists, thinking about everything I had gone through. All of this shit could have been avoided. I never cheated on my wife. “You better start making sense.”

“Heather didn’t just drop off the pictures and her lies. She left the paternity papers too.”

Her words ripped through my heart. “What?”

Miranda cried more, but she wasn’t making me feel sorry for her. “It’s not what you’re thinking, Ty. I swear it isn’t. I can prove it to you.” She jumped up out of her seat and ran toward the kitchen desk. A white envelope slipped across the table and set in front of my face. I looked down on it and saw that it was from the lawyer’s office. The case had been dropped, so I had no idea what she was showing me.

“You’re goin’ to want to open that.” Conner sat back in his chair and smiled.

Since he seemed confidant, I opened the envelope. My hands began to shake when I pulled out the official paper, including the Seal of Kentucky. I knew what I was looking at, but I couldn’t believe it actually was happening. The altered test had worked and I was now listed as the biological father of Isabella Mitchell. I put my hands in my face as the tears poured out of my eyes. I felt Miranda wrapping her arms around me, but I didn’t budge. “Now, no one can ever take her way from you.”