Page 106 of The Only Heart that Matters

Knox takes the hand his brother offers and we all follow them through the massive L.A. mansion. It’s time to leave fantasy land behind.

In the limo, Knox bitches about women only wanting him for his money. All the way to his place. Angus stays to take care of the drunk award winner, while the rest of us go back to the hotel. Watching Angus help his brother inside his palatial estate at 4am after the biggest night of his life, I can’t help but wish it had been him who locked himself in the bathroom with me.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Angus

Knox is Sawyer’s father.

Of all the things that could have come out of Mia’s mouth, that confession never crossed my mind.

Knox is Sawyer’s father.

Knox is Sawyer’s father.

Knox is Sawyer’s father.

This is why she said I would hate her. Because he had her first. My big brother has been inside the woman I’ve loved my entire damn life. He fathered her child.

When I pull up to the barn, I have no idea how I got there. My bag is on the passenger seat, although I don’t really remember packing it. The moment the words came out of her mouth, I blacked out, functioning on autopilot, arriving here.

The crisp April air hits me as soon as I shove the truck door open, and I think I might be sick. Not allowing myself to pause long enough to lose my spaghetti, I stumble into the barn as though I were ten shots of tequila deep.

The first thing I spot is the tack room door. The door that leads to one of the best nights of my life. My life that is now fucked. In so many ways.

My stomach wants to empty itself as my heart aches and my eyes begin to leak, but that’s not my style. Instead, I let my fists take over. The instant the skin on my knuckles splits open against the oak wood of the door, my shocked stupor turns into a white-hot rage, all of my feelings rising to the surface.

Left. Right. Left. Right. Left.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” an angry voice bellows in the distance, not breaking through the roar in my head. I keep pounding on the door.

“Angus! Stop!”

I don’t think so.

A freight train tackles me from my left side, sending me flying to the ground on my right. “Christ, Angus! Enough!”

Callen.

He shifts me to my back but stays on top of me, pinning me to the ground. This happened a lot when I was a kid, but eventually, I bested him. Today, I don’t even try.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Fuck off, Cal.”

“Sorry, bro. Not gonna happen.”

“Dude, get off me!” I struggle under him, but my heart isn’t in it, because it’s been torn out of my chest and trampled on.

“Tell me what’s going on and I’ll think about it.”

I want to scream that Knox is Sawyer’s father. But then the look on Mia’s face the night she told us she was pregnant flashes in my mind. It’s not my story to tell. And just like she said, this news changes everything for everyone.

“Get off me.”

“Tell me what the damn door did to you first.”

“I can’t.”

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