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CHAPTER 7
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Dirty Little Secrets CHAPTER 8
Thump. My heart pounded almost painfully, and it took everything I had to turn around. Because as much as I could stare at him all day, I didn’t want to.I didn’t want to look at him and remember lying on the beach. I didn’t want my mind to be flooded by memories of late nights in the woods. I didn’t want to remember my dad smiling knowingly the next morning but never wringing my ass out. I didn’t want to remember Conor’s touch or his kiss or his smile or fucking anything about him.Yet I turned, because his gaze was anything but avoidable. It was compelling, pleading, conflicted, like he wanted to drink me up but pushed me away at the same time.I swallowed, running my eyes up his body. I couldn’t help but notice the way his jeans hugged his hips or the way his T-shirt clinged to his chest and arms or the way a few teenage girls were standing feet behind him giggling into their hands.His gaze traveled from me to the only child in the park—mine. Ours. I watched as he stared at her ha
Dirty Little Secrets CHAPTER 9
He snorted and left me to it on the deck, ever the caring older brother. Reminded me not to deal with his health care when he was shitting in adult diapers.I dragged 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 Mama’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 there 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 got up to grabbed another beer and twirled the bottle, resting my
Dirty Little Secrets CHAPTER 10
Two and a half years. I couldn’t even fantasize what I had missed because of her.Leah wrapped her arms around me from behind and laid her cheek against my back. I turned and crushed her in my arms. She rubbed her hands up my back and let me cry into her.I was right.Chloe was unforgivable.My vision was blurred. My head pounded with emotion and a hangover, and I rubbed my temples in a vain attempt to ease it. Titus walked in the room with a glass of cold water and Paractemol, and I took them, throwing the tablets to the back of my throat before drinking the whole glass.“Thanks,” I croaked.“No problem. Mom wants to know how you are, but I won’t insult you by asking.” He smirked.I laughed bitterly and leaned back against the bed. “The fuck do I do, Titus? Two and a half years and she shows up in town, with my kid. Did she think I wouldn’t find out?”“She was hoping you wouldn’t,” Leah said softly from the doorway.“Did you know?” Titus snapped. “I swear to God, Leah . . .”“No!” sh
Dirty Little Secrets CHAPTER 11
“We need to talk,” he demanded. There was no room for arguments in his tone, but I was going to give him one right now.“It’ll have to wait. Milka’s not asleep yet.”“It’s okay. Leah came along. Said she’ll watch her.” He motioned to his truck, and seconds later his sister stepped out.“I don’t . . . I mean . . . She doesn’t really know her,” I finished lamely. That was a pathetic reason.“And whose fault is that, Chloe?” Conor’s eyes hardened, ice edging his voice.I opened my mouth and closed it again. “I know,” I said on a swallow.“The least you can do is let our daughter get to know her aunt while we try and sort out the shitstorm you created.”“Watch your language!” I snapped.“If you want me to watch my language, I suggest you get your ass into my car in the next five seconds.” He pulled his keys from pocket. “You’ve already taken enough of her from us, so cut the crap.”“Conor!” Leah smacked his arm. “You can’t say that!”“No, he can. He’s right.” I sighed, running my fingers
Dirty Little Secrets CHAPTER 12
“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 met mine with an intensity that made me step back. “What if you were my dream, Chloe? 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 Milka. I would have done it to give you and her the best life I could have.”I shook 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 threw my arms out and fought back the tears that had 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 t
Dirty Little Secrets CHAPTER 13
I needed, just a minute, to know if she was still my Chloe.I rubbed my hand down my face. I’d gotta stop thinking that shit—she was right in what she said. This wasn’t about us, not really. This was about our daughter, our baby girl.“I’ll take you home,” I said, nudging her in the direction of the truck. She shuffled towards it with her shoulders hunched and her arms wrapped around herself.It hurt me to see her hurting this badly. It sliced through me. But she fucking should feel it. She should feel the pain I was feeling.I still couldn’t believe she kept my daughter from me. And I didn’t buy her reason—not entirely. There was more to it than just what she was telling me.I got in the truck after her and pulled away from my house. There wasn’t a part of me that gave a shit that my brothers were watching from the porch or that they heard me tell her I was still in love with her. They knew that shit.They knew I loved her when she was seven and fell off the rocks into the sea. They
Dirty Little Secrets CHAPTER 14
And that didn’t just disappear.My chest tightened as I breathed in the candy-smell of Milka’s hair. As I breathed in a past I missed and a future I never will. As I breathed in heartbreak and hope.Milka suddenly gasped and wriggled of my arms. “Son? Dadda son?”My eyes flicked between her and Chloe. Chloe laughed on a sob.“Song,” she whispered. “She wants you to sing her a song.”“Oh! A song! Let’s see . . .” I swooped Milka up in my arms. “Row, row, row, your boat . . .”“No!” She laughed anyway. “Dadda son.”“One of yours,” Chloe clarified, hugging herself. “She doesn’t like nursery rhymes. She’s your kid, for sure.”Milka grinned.“Okay, what one?” Am I seriously asking a two-year-old what to sing? “Oh, I know. This one.”I hummed the melody and she squealed happily. I took that as a yes. I launched into the opening line, singing softly. I knew it because I wrote it, and I knew Chloe knew it, too, because she was there when I did.That night, she switched out half the words beca
Dirty Little Secrets CHAPTER 15
I nodded and sipped the coffee.“Smart-ass,” he muttered. “Is she going for a nap soon?”I knew where this was going. “Yes, after lunch, and yes, we’ll talk then.”He sipped his drink slowly, his eyes on mine. “Good.”Silence hovered between us for a long moment, and then . . .“Mama? Mama? SARS!”I sat on the sofa to the daily “no nap” chorus being shouted from upstairs and brought my legs up, wrapping my arms around my knees and hugging my thighs to my chest. My chin rested on the top of my knees, and I stared at a spot on the wall over the top of Conor’s head.“She do that often?” he asked, breaking through the silence.Without Milka there, it was tense. Unfortunately his words didn’t snap that tension, just the silence.“Every single day,” I replied. “Give her two minutes, and she’ll give up and go to sleep.”“Stubborn, huh?”“She learned from the best,” I muttered to myself.Conor caught it anyway, and his lips twitched. “You said it.”Before, I would have flicked my foot out and
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