by Sofia Finn
“Stop that!” I yelled, and he finally shut up. “Listen, I don’t know whatever screwed up shit mom and dad told you but…but you can’t let that shit define our relationship, okay? You think they didn’t tell me the exact same shit? You think they didn’t tell me all the time how musically gifted you were while I had no real talent at anything?” My voice was suddenly hoarse. “You think it didn’t fucking hurt? But I ignored all that shit, and you know why? Because you’re my brother. My brother. I didn’t give a shit about them because, as far as I’m concerned, you were the only family I had.”
My chest had grown tight, and by the end of the speech, I realized tears were rolling down my cheek. I heard a choked sound at the other end of the call that sounded like a sob.
“Are you crying, you idiot?”
“No,” Ben said, but it was clear he was.
Look at us. Bunch of saps.
Sappy brothers.
“Why her?” Ben asked after he had collected himself a little.
I sighed. “I don’t know. I just fell in love, Ben. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but she and Ela mean the world to me.”
“Ela?”
Shit. That was the other thing I forgot to mention. “Oh yeah. Uh…Maddie has a daughter. Her name’s Ela. She’s yours…”
“It can’t be mine,” Ben said.
“Look, Ben, she told me you said you didn’t want kids, but I’m not going let you deny Ela-”
“I’m not denying anything. I’m flat out saying that child is not mine. I can’t have kids. I had a vasectomy when I was eighteen. I was hooking up with random chicks in bars at the time, drunk out of my mind, and I didn’t want any accidents, so I got snipped.” The bomb dropped between us was met with silence. “Maybe, she hooked up with someone after she left me.”
I shook my head, trying to make sense of what my brother was saying, a feeling of dread building in me. “No. The child is turning four this Saturday, so that timing doesn’t work.” It didn’t make sense. She looked exactly like Ben. “Vasectomies can fail.”
“Yes, but in like .01 percent of cases. You’re the doctor, you know that. Plus, the timing doesn’t work with either. Like I mentioned, we hadn’t banged in months. I was with this other chick. The kid can’t be mine.”
Disbelief built until it turned into betrayal, which then turned into rage. So, Maddie had lied to me. Ela wasn’t Ben’s daughter. She was another man’s.
My mind fought against the assertion.
It made no sense. Aside from the blue eyes, Ela looked exactly like Ben.
Blue eyes.
Wait. Maddie had green eyes. Ben had brown eyes.
Ela had blue eyes. Same as…me.
Peaches and cream.
The realization slammed into me like a trailer. Everything started to come to me in flashes—all the feelings and memories I had been suppressing. How familiar it felt when we had sex for the first time. How I’d dreamt of the mystery woman several times since I started dating Maddie again. It was almost as if my subconscious had been trying to make the connection my conscious wasn’t ready for. I had short impressions of a night years ago and thought it was a dream with a woman who looked and smelled like peaches and cream.
Peaches and cream.
As the explanation unfolded and the truth sunk in, I realized what a fool I had been for ever trusting Maddie Flynn.
17
Maddie
Before I left the hospital, I went to find Tate.
I wanted to assure him that he wasn’t going home and could stay for another month. I didn’t really know what would happen after that, but I’d figure it out. I knew that I would do anything to keep that little boy safe.
“Hey, Tate….” I halted my greeting when I saw his foster parents were in the room. They had both been leaning over him but backed away when I entered and gave me a wary look. I stormed over to Tate, who was holding his wrist in his hand and avoiding my gaze.
I turned to glare at them. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing,” the father said in a mild-mannered tone. “When is the discharge gonna be ready? We would like to get on the road before it starts getting dark.”
Never. I wanted to say, but I had to be diplomatic about it, so I pasted a smile on my face. “Actually, the doctor wanted him to stay under observation, so we’re going to be keeping him for another month.”
“What the hell?” Mr. Collins blurted out angrily, then quickly reformed his mask of civility. “It’s just that we don’t have the money to afford….”
“Don’t worry about it.” My smile was starting to feel tight, but I kept it on anyway. “It’s already covered under the hospital. And I would like to apologize for my earlier scene Mr. And Mrs. Collins….rest assured I have been appropriately dealt with.”
Mr. Collins held my gaze for a really long time, a cold threat in his eyes. I didn’t flinch.
Mrs. Collins glanced between her husband and me anxiously. “Jacob, let’s just go.”
Mr. Collins didn’t budge. “Tate is fine.” His voice was hard as steel. “He has already been here for a month, way longer than the standard healing time. I don’t understand why we cannot take him home.”
“Well, Tate’s case was a very…special one. And we would like to make sure he’s completely healed before we send him off.”
“That’s not standard procedure, Miss... nurse.” He smiled, evilness twisting his expression. He knew. He knew that I knew what he was doing to Tate. He smiled because he didn’t think I could do anything about it.
I really itched to smack it off his face.
“Keeping a child away from his parents is against the law, nurse.” His tone was smooth and threatening.
“Feel free to take it to any court you want.” I’m pretty sure my eyes were showing my fury. “Now, are you going to leave by yourself, or will I have to call security?”
For the longest time, Mr. Collins didn’t move despite his wife’s urging. My finger itched to hit the call button and request security. Before I could, he finally dropped the staring contest and said, “You will be hearing from my lawyers.”
“Of course.”
I was glad to see the back of them as they left before I turned to Tate, who had tears in his eyes. He was looking at me like I was an angel.
“Do I really get to stay another month?”
“Oh baby…” I couldn’t help it. I went to him and gave him a hug. He froze at first, but eventually, his gangly arms wrapped around my waist, squeezing me tight. He buried his face in my chest and wept.
Running my fingers through his hair, I rocked him from side to side as he cried, feeling the tears falling down my own cheeks. He cried for several minutes until slowly, his sobs ebbed away, and he coughed.
He released me, ducking his embarrassedly. “Sorry.”
I sniffled. “It’s okay. I think we both needed a good cry.”
“Yeah.”
I ruffled his hair. “They’re never going to hurt you again, okay? That I promise you.”
“It was much worse at the orphanage,” he whispered. “I really don’t want to go back.”
“Don’t worry. You won’t go back to the orphanage either. I’ll figure something out, okay? Trust me?”
He nodded.
“Good. Now let me go get you some ice cream. All that crying made me hungry.”
“Yeah, I’m kinda hungry too.”
“Look at you, making demands,” I said.
He giggled.
After I’d gotten Tate his ice cream, I started to leave, and that was when Tessa and I crossed paths in the lobby.
I decided to be the bigger person and approach her. “I’m sorry I slapped you in the face, Tessa. But you really shouldn’t have said that about my daughter.”
“Oh please, don’t give me that bullshit,” she spat, glaring at me. “Just because you’re fucking the boss doesn’t mean you’re anything special. Trust me, he’ll get sick of you soon enough. You and that brat
of yours.”
Ooh, I wanted to slap her again. But I resisted.
It took everything in me to just continue on without retaliating. But I did it anyway.
I called Hope, the new nanny, and told her to take Ela to the park for a little bit in the afternoon to give Cage and me a little alone time so we could talk. After our declarations of love to each other, it was finally time to come clean. He deserved to know that Ela was his daughter no matter what happened, and it had been selfish of me to keep it from him in the first place. I had to tell him.
On the way home, I practiced what I would say.
Cage, I have something to say. It’s a little crazy, but… I know I led you to believe that Ela is Ben’s daughter, but she’s not. She’s yours. You probably don’t remember it, but that night, when you came back really drunk and has sex with the strange lady in your bed? Yeah, that was me. I’m the strange lady. And we conceived a child that night Ela. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, but I was scared that if I did, you would take my daughter away from me, and I would never see her again. I was so scared, Cage, you see? That’s why I didn’t tell you. And I know you’re probably mad, and you’ll probably hate me, but I just hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.
God, I hope he did. He had to. I didn’t know what I would do if he didn’t.
But I was not prepared for what I found when I got home.
I opened the door to a trashed apartment. There was glass on the floor like someone had smashed it. A bottle of brandy too. Good brandy by the smell of it. And someone had overturned the entire blue centerpiece, and it lay in broken tatters on the grown.
Amid the chaos was Cage. He sat on the couch, legs folded, seemingly calm, but it was the expression on his face that made my heart leap into my throat.
That was not the Cage who had declared his love for me earlier today.
The man before me was a stranger who only had pure venom in his eyes
He knew.
I don’t know how he did, but he knew.
“Cage,” I started, stumbling over his name. “Let me explain…”
“How…” He got up and walked towards me slowly, his voice like a sharp dagger to the heart. “How long did you think you could lie to me, huh? You thought you could just deceive me indefinitely?”
“Cage, I never meant to….”
“You never meant to.” His voice was still soft, but it wrapped around my neck like a vice. “You fucking told me that Ela was Ben’s daughter when you knew she was mine. But you never meant to?”
“Cage….” I squealed as he struck out, but his hand collided with the wall behind me instead with a loud thump that probably broke both bone and plaster. “Cage, I’m sorry….”
“Sorry? Sorry?” He got loud now. “Let’s see, Maddie. What are you sorry for? Because, first, you took advantage of me when I was drunk….”
“I was drunk too-!”
“Secondly,” he barked, “You left and never told me what happened. And then, when you got pregnant, you left without telling me that I was the father. And when I finally found out about her, you fucking lied and said it was my brother’s daughter! How the fuck could you do that?” I had never seen him so angry before. It was like watching an earthquake. “I lost three fucking years with my daughter because of you! And that’s all you have to say? That you’re sorry? God Maddie? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Yes!” I finally shouted back. “Yes, I know. I know, ok? and I’m so so sorry about it. But I thought if I told you, you would take her from me.”
“Of course I would,” he admitted angrily. “Because you’re a fucking alcoholic!”
“I’m not anymore!” Hurt scraped through my chest, and I felt like my heart was bleeding inside, but I still tried. I tried to salvage this. “She’s everything to me, Cage, and you would have taken her from me. I needed her.”
“But did she need you?” His voice was cool steel once more. “Were you a good mother to her, Maddie? Because, last I checked, good mothers don’t keep fathers from their children. They also don’t keep things their children are deadly allergic to in their homes, knowing they could very well die from it.”
The blow struck clean, and I nearly shattered, stunned at the fact that he would throw that in my face. Would use that against me.
His next words destroyed any hope of reconciliation. “I’m getting custody, Maddie. And I’m taking Ela.”
“You bastard.” I attacked him with my fists then, just like I had last time. “This is exactly why I never told you! I knew you would have pulled bullshit like this.”
“Well, you were right about me,” His eyes looked dead and hollow. “But it turns out I was completely wrong about you.”
My heart was breaking for him, but I was so messed up inside a violent mixture of rage, sorrow, and pain.
And then he was gone, and everything within me splintered.
18
Cage
“Fuck,” I swore. “Meredith!” I yelled from behind my desk.
“Yes, boss?” The petite blonde secretary peeked in apprehensively, as if entering a lion’s den.
I sighed and tried to tune down my voice. I didn’t want to scare her. “This isn’t the document I asked for. I wanted last week’s total.”
“Accounting hasn’t sent it up yet.”
“Why the fuck not?” I snarled, and Meredith flinched. Shit. I really need to get myself back under control.
“I can go over there and ask them,” Meredith said quietly, but I shook my head.
“Don’t worry about it. You can get back to work. Thanks.”
After she shut the door quietly behind her, I rubbed my hands over my face.
It’s been a week since my fight with Maddie, and I couldn’t deny that I’d been a complete wreck since then. Luckily, Maddie’s suspension meant that I hadn’t seen her at work, and I hadn’t been home since I walked out. I guess it was an advantage of having several other condos around the city.
I knew I needed to talk to Maddie and tell her I’m wasn’t actually planning to take Ela away completely. Ela loved her, and I wouldn’t do that to them just to spite her. But I was still so furious about the whole thing. That was the only thing I could think of that would hurt her. And I had wanted to hurt her. Even though it had torn my heart out to do so.
I should just send over the joint custody agreement my lawyers drafted up and get it done with, but pain sears through me every time I think about doing it. I seemed to oscillate between fury and hurt at her betrayal and a regretful ache for how I treated her. The whole thing was driving me crazy.
What was even worse was that I still dreamt about her. Since I finally realized that she was the woman from all those nights ago, it felt like the most obvious thing. I didn’t know why I hadn’t even considered it before, or perhaps the thought that I might have betrayed Ben caused too much cognitive dissonance that I had to suppress it. But that’s where the scent had come from. The memory haunted me even worse than before. Certain things started reappearing in vivid detail, the feel of her hair against my abdomen, her teeth on my shoulder as she had climaxed. Every night like clockwork, past and present mixed together until I was so aroused, I thought I would go insane. The previous night, I had thought about calling up one of my old lovers, but I hadn’t. The mere thought of anyone else who wasn’t Maddie disgusted me. As much as I loathed it, I only wanted her.
Which left me back to where I was—In this miserable limbo. Nothing calmed me down, not riding at 80 mph, not getting drunk…nothing.
A prong spiked through my brain, and I nearly groaned. The headaches had gotten worse too. I knew it was probably because of the lack of sleep and food. Every day when I got home from work, I treated myself to a glass of whiskey after getting work done. Not enough to get drunk, just enough to dull the pain.
But that’s what Ben used to say, isn’t it?
Ironic.
But I had known she was dangerous from the start. Ma
ddie Flynn had destroyed my brother, and she was ruining me too.
I wasn’t going to let her. I was Cage fucking Burke. I wasn’t going to fall apart just because some damn woman got the upper hand on me. I would send her the custody papers, and then that would be it. It would be over and done. We’d both co-parent Ela, and that would be it.
I got up from the desk, thinking to stretch my muscles, and the room became fluid. Furniture spun and shifted, and I felt my body go down in a clatter that was like a distant echo. All of a sudden, I was staring at the ceiling.
Someone threw open the door.
“Dr. Burke!” They gasped. I also heard them yelling for help, but it seemed like the sound was coming from far away as the corners of my consciousness started closing in. The pain in my head spiked and then faded as everything went blissfully dark.
I came awake to a slap on my cheek.
Another one followed and had me growling.
“He’s good,” I heard Dr. Randy say, and my vision cleared to see the bearded giant staring down at me. “You good right, Burke?”
I shook my head to clear it, realizing that I was lying on the floor. I sat up and almost passed out again before Randy caught me.
“Woah, take it easy, Burke. We don’t want you passing out on us again.”
I shrugged his hands off my shoulders, bracing myself against my desk and pulling myself to my feet.
I was still a little woozy, but I said. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?” I now saw that Randy wasn’t alone. Apart from Mary, there was Tessa, Carol, and another nurse standing by the door. “Because Mary told us you took a nasty spill there. Maybe we should put you under observation for the day.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped again. The last thing I needed was anyone lecturing me. Plus, I still had more work to finish. Although, as I tried to get behind my desk, I swayed again. Maybe working isn’t a good idea right now. I should probably get some rest.