Page 44 of Broken

Kai looked up at Danielle, and back to me. The expression on his face told me everything I had been avoiding for years. I was fucked in every way but the way I liked.

"Who's her father?"

"He isn't in their lives." Danielle didn't put two and two together yet. I'm sure in the next few minutes she would, but right now her tone was max mama bear level, and she was being very protective of me, and my secrets. Secrets she only knew half of.

"Sinclair. You gave your daughter my mother's name. So, who is her father?"

"Kai, please." Darkness was swallowing my carefully constructed world. The darkness that I fought and sacrificed to keep away from my daughter.

"Ooh shit. I think I'm going to leave the two of you to talk." The invisible light bulb above her head turned on and she fucking bailed on me. The similarities were hard to miss once you got a good look at Kai's face, his blue eyes identical to my daughter's, down to the eyelashes. Her smile, his. Her nose and those perfect cheekbones, all him.

I watched Kai and waited for him to answer his own question. I couldn't speak. I needed air, I was drowning in the darkness of my past, of all the things I fucked up. Aine had always been the one perfect thing in my life.

"Who is her father?"

"Kai. Don't do this. Go back to your girlfriend. Please, leave us alone. She's all I have. She's the only good in me." I was sobbing, begging him. I needed him, and everything he represented, to leave. I needed to keep my daughter safe.

"I don't have a girlfriend. What are you talking about?" Kai shook his head, seemingly confused. "How old is Aine."

"Eleven."

He seemed to be thinking, doing the math in his head. When our eyes met a moment later, anger replaced the pain. Something I'd never seen on Kai before, at least not directed toward me.

"I have a daughter." His voice barely rose above a whisper.

"Kai." I fucked up. I fucked up so badly in my efforts to not fuck up. I should be used to fucking up by now, I'd been doing it my whole life, but this felt different, and this hurt more. I hurt the one person who had always made my pain go away, the one person who cared and loved me regardless of how broken I was.

"I have a fucking daughter, and you didn't bother to tell me?" "I tried."

"When, Sinclair? When did you try? Because you had so many

chances over the years, and you didn't bother once."

"You don't understand, every time I tried, I just, panicked. I wanted to tell you."

"When Sin? When?" He closed the gap between us, his voice steady. "Was it when I fucked you in your old bedroom? Or what about when you moaned my name with my head between your legs? I know, you planned to tell me the day I went to see you at ASU. You were pregnant then, right? Or what about the day you fucking ran. Both times, graduation, and last week?"

I know I fucked up by not telling him, but at the mention of me leaving town last week, I used my escape to get out of telling him about Aine. I exploded.

"Fuck you, Kai." I yelled "Fuck you and go back to that stupid ass fucking redhead that I caught you with. That's why I fucking left. I brought you lunch, but when I got to your office, you were on the way out with your fucking girlfriend!"

I was crying, it hurt to think about that day. Sure, it didn't seem like much to most people, but it was everything to me.

"Girlfriend? What are you talking about, Sin?"

"Who is she then? The redhead outside of your office?"

He looked like I slapped him across the face when the recognition set in.

He combed one hand through his hair as he laughed at me. "You mean Millie? Oh, yeah. I'm totally fucking the girl my brother has been pining for since the day she started working in his fucking bar." His words dripped with anger and sarcasm.

"I haven't been with anyone but you Sinclair. Not in a long fucking time. If you don't believe me, whatever. You've obviously been keeping secrets of your own." I never saw him so angry. He waved my picture at me; I didn't notice it was still in his hand until that moment.

"Kai, let me explain. Please." I was pleading with him. My biggest fears were coming true. All the years of running from my ghosts, hiding from the darkness that threatened to destroy me; they converged on me now, ready to collect what was due.

I reached for him, my hand open to take the frame, but he pulled away. My body trembled, I needed someone, something to anchor me. I couldn't fucking breathe, my heart settled in my throat, and my world spun out of control.

"No. Sin, I can't right now. I can't believe you kept this, kept her from me." Kai turned his back on me and walked to the door.

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