Vengeful Secret (The Burkes Mafia #3)

13. Sutton

13

SUTTON

Gray’s so upset. Rightfully so. But I know I made the right decision, the only possible decision at the time.

I’m trying my best to keep my emotions in check.

“I missed everything. I missed all her firsts?—”

“Her first word was cheese.” I chuckle.

Gray pauses at the absurdity of it, turning to face me. “It was what?”

“Cheese. My mom opened up the fridge, and she saw a block and screamed it.”

Gray chuckles despite the anger on his face, but then he rubs a hand across it.

“You shouldn’t have kept her from me. I should have known the second you got pregnant.”

“Maybe I should have. But you don’t understand what it was like for me. You are here, in a fortress. I was out there in the big, bad world. What if someone got me? Got her? Any tie to you and a giant neon target would have been hung over our heads, on our backs. You know how dangerous your life is. Can you really blame me for wanting her to be safe?” I say quietly, and hurt flickers across Gray’s handsome face.

“It wasn’t like that,” he says quietly, but it was like that.

“You were different back then.”

“Different how?”

“Wilder, a bit of a loose cannon. You had a daredevil complex. I couldn’t trust that you wouldn’t get either yourself or one of us in danger. Or worse. Then what? As soon as I found out I was pregnant, my priorities shifted.”

“When did you even get pregnant?”

“On my birthday.” A smile tilts my lips up at the memories. “Or somewhere around there. Remember, we went to that little bed and breakfast?”

“Sullivan’s.” His eyes go tender for a moment. “Of course, I remember. That was a couple months before you broke up with me.”

I nod. “When I found out I was pregnant. I had to think about her, Gray, not just you or me.”

“Would it have been different? If you’d made the decision for yourself?”

I nod. “Of course, it would, Gray. It would have been us, all three, as a family. But you weren’t the kind of guy to?—”

“To what? To be a father? To keep her safe? What, you thought I’d take her along when I worked?”

“Of course not! But it’s just… What kind of life would she have had so far with a target on her back, Gray? If I had stayed, if I had chosen anyone else but her, she would never have been the free and careless little girl she is now. She’d be constantly watched. By your men, by your enemies. Never free to just be who she is.”

My face is burning up.

I was wrong in hiding her from him, but I was not wrong in wanting to keep her safe. That will always be my priority.

And that I can’t seem to make him understand my position is so frustrating, but I realize that I’m in the wrong here.

I take a long breath to calm down.

“I understand. But that doesn’t mean I’m not angry about it.”

“You have every right to be angry, just please try to see it from my side. Just as I’m now looking at it from yours. And I really am sorry.”

Gray is right. I kept this secret from him. A piece of him that he lost so much of because of me alone.

“All I’ve ever wanted was to protect you, Sutton. Did you think it’d be any different if I knew you were pregnant with my baby?”

“I don’t know . We were still getting to know each other, still young and reckless and… It all happened like a whirlwind. I knew what you did for a living, and I got scared. Of the world, your world, and what that would mean for me and the baby. That’s why I made this decision.”

“You made the wrong decision.”

“Maybe. But I can’t take it back.” I pause. “I wondered if the choice was right so many times. I couldn’t work for so long, and my mother couldn’t help since she was so sick when Ciara was a newborn. I was completely by myself, and in the wee hours of the morning, when Ciara was still screaming bloody murder, I used to wonder what it would be like if you were there, if I had made a different choice.”

But I don’t wonder anymore.

“You wouldn’t have had to do any of that?—”

“Like I said, I made the decision and lived through the consequences. Am still living through them as we speak. No pun intended.”

He nods, his shoulders slumping. “But now I want her to know I’m her father. I want to be there.”

I nod slowly. “All right. We’ll talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Sutton. She’s my daughter.”

I nod once again and swallow hard as I leave the room, guilt and other emotions washing over me.

She should know she is her daughter, and he has the right to be her dad now that he knows about her. But his life hasn’t changed at all, has it? The danger is still there. The risk. The targets waiting to be set on our backs.

And she needs to get to know him a bit before being told he is her father.

She isn’t mature enough to have a revelation like this and not be overwhelmed. He is a stranger to her. Her whole life is changing, she was just taken from her home, and he wants to do this now?

I get it he wants to be her dad without restrictions, but we need to respect Ciara’s feelings too. Her timings.

Except this is not the time to explain this to him. Not when he’s already so angry, so betrayed by me.

Ciara is downstairs with Marisol, making popcorn necklaces, and she’s humming a little song as she picks out the best pieces for the necklace.

“Come, Ciara, it’s time we go upstairs.”

“But, Mama, I’m not done yet!”

“I see that, honey. But you can pick it back up tomorrow. It’s almost time to go to bed.” I turn to Marisol. “Thank you.”

She nods and smiles, even if a slight frown is forming.

But I can’t explain, not now.

Ciara pouts and starts to cry, so I just pick her up, taking her up the stairs even as she fights and protests.

I know Ciara’s just acting out because we’re in a new place and there’s new people around. And now that includes her father.

God, I have no idea how to tell her that Gray is her father.

All I can hope for is that he understands that it is not easy and what it will do to her if we do it cold turkey, so he’ll agree that for now, we introduce him as a friend.

I try to imagine it, Gray being a father, giving her piggy backs just like she wants, and a tidal wave of regret at what could have been fills me.

I walk past Gray’s study into the suite I picked out for her, and Ciara changes moods almost instantly when she sees the huge bed.

She vaults to it, jumping up and down, and I just let it happen, picking my battles and unpacking her bath things along with a pair of pajamas.

“I can’t go to bed!” Ciara cries. “I’m in a new place, Mama.”

“I can tell you are really excited about it. But a bath with Effie will help.”

Effie is Ciara’s sacred baby doll, the one she’s had forever. Ciara only bathes with her, and I’ve gotten her out of the habit of carrying her everywhere.

“Okay,” she says gloomily, jumping down on off the bed. “Wow! This tub is huge! Everything in this house is made for giants!”

Two people could fit in the big clawfoot tub comfortably, so Ciara will be practically swimming around. She’s small for her age, and it’s kind of funny watching her splash around. My mood starts to shift from guilt to amusement.

I laugh. “Yeah, it kind of is.” I run her a bath, putting in some lavender bath salts to hopefully calm her down.

By the time the bath is filled, she’s already undressed and grabbing Effie, who floats around.

Kids and their comfort toys.

I let her play in the bath for nearly twenty minutes, until the water has gone cold. I want to wear her out and make sure she’ll actually sleep through the night even in a new place.

I’m frustrated. This whole thing is my fault. For lying to him, for coming to him for help.

What was I waiting for? For him to develop selective blindness and not recognize his own features on Ciara? She also kind of has his attitude, confident and sometimes overbearing, and that shines through. It’s not a surprise that he knew instantly.

“That man with the same name color as me,” Ciara pipes up as I dress her in her pajamas, and I freeze.

“Gray?”

“That one,” she says easily, throwing Effie in the empty bathtub to dry with a clunk. “He’s your friend?”

“An old friend,” I tell her, and my guilt ratches up a knot that I’m now hiding this from her.

That is her father she is talking about, and I’m not letting her enjoy him as such. But how do I tell her Gray is really her father?

She hums. “I thought he might be a prince.”

I chuckle. “A prince?”

“Yeah. He kind of looks like one.”

“Don’t I know it,” I mutter, drying off her hair and making her giggle by pretending to pop her with the wet towel. “Get on the bed.”

“I’m sleeping in your bed?” she asks incredulously, and I laugh.

“Yeah, for this vacation. Unless you want your own room.”

“I could have my own room?” She gasps. “With my own bed?”

“With your own bed,” I agree, but she climbs up on top of the bed anyway.

“I think I’ll sleep with you at least tonight.” She yawns. “Will you tell me a story about a prince?”

“What kind of prince?”

“A prince named… Green.” She giggles.

I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling, and I tell a story about a prince named Green who takes a little girl out on a hayride.

She’s snoozing halfway through the story, and I trail off, lying down next to her, exhausted.

I look up at the ceiling, wondering if I’ll fall asleep at all tonight.

Gray is clearly upset with me, and we will tell Ciara the truth, I just want to discuss the details with him first, and he misunderstood my intentions. My fault for putting all of us in this position and breaking his trust.

“Mama, what happens next?”

A mother never sleeps, I guess.

I continue the made up story about prince Green and the hayride, wondering how our own story will unfold.