Page 40 of Vengeful Secret

Thank God for the Burke’s massive pool. It will probably keep Ciara busy for a good portion of the time.

I chuckle as she wiggles down and runs to her room.

I grab a few suitcases and start packing my things, only to find I really only need the big one for my clothes and shoes. I put my toiletries in a zip-lock bag and put it on top of everything else.

“I can pack by myself, Mama,” Ciara says confidently when I take a suitcase to her room, but of course I check to be sure she’s packed more than just her dolls and a swimsuit. Everything of hers fits in two suitcases—one for her dolls and accessories and other toys, of course.

This isn’t like a normal trip, where packing is sort of fun imagining the different situations you might be in on vacation. Everything feels so final, so serious, and this little home that I’ve built for myself and Ciara seems small in comparison to the Burkes’ sprawling estate.

“What about school?” Ciara asks me, and I hum in the back of my throat.

“You'll still go to school.”

I would never take her out of school, because she loves it so much. She’s made so many friends there that she gets upset when she can’t go to school for any reason.

She wrinkles her nose. “I have to dohomeworkon vacation?”

I can’t help but laugh. “I’m sure it won’t be too much. Just don’t want you to get behind.”

“Okay,” she says, but she pouts a little as we put all our things in the back of my car.

I look back at the house, wondering if I’ll ever see it again.

Things seem so dire, and I don’t know if I’ll make it through this, but I’m determined to try.

Gray will help us. I know he will. He’s never lied to me, and I know how protective he is over people that he cares about. This proves that he still cares about me.

But it’s still bittersweet, leaving my little house behind.

I remember the first day I moved in, when Ciara was just a newborn.

“Where are you going to put Ciara’s things?” Mom asks, and I blink at her.

“In my room, of course.”

She scoffs. “You can’t have the baby in the room with you all the time, honey.”

But I’ve been a single mom since the day Ciara was born, and I want her with me all the time. It feels awful to be away from her. Always has. Even just in the other room with my mother. I’d been living with my mom since the birth, and I was a little scared to be on my own.

“This can be her room,” my mother says, opening the door to a small bedroom next to mine. The sunlight streams in just right, and I can see my future little girl, only a fat baby now, playing in the floor, on the window seat.

That lifetime seems so far away now that we’ve had our house for years, and it feels like some door is closing.

I look through the window of Ciara’s room, seeing it look neat and empty through the glass, and take a deep breath.

“You okay, Mama? You sure you’re not sad?” Ciara asks in a small voice, and I turn the rearview mirror so that she can see me smile.

“I’m not sad,mo stóirin. Don’t you worry your pretty head about that.” I pause. “Now you’re the one who’s thinking too hard.”

She giggles. “Granny says I always think too hard.”

“Maybe Granny’s right. The only thing you need to think about is where you’re going to put your dollhouse and what tricks you’ll do in the pool, okay?”

“I’m gonna do backflips!”

“I bet you will, honey.”

I drive down the long, winding road to the Burke mansion, and it seems like my house getting smaller and smaller behind me means it’s gone forever. It’s like I’m losing everything that I built over the last five years. Every tough day with Ciara screaming with colic as a newborn, every time I overcame an obstacle at work… All of it.

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