“I’m so sorry, Hayley. I-” His voice shaky. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Do you want to hurt me? Is that it?”
“No, of course not. Fuck, Hayley, I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks and his face falls into his hands. He slouches against the desk, repeating the word ‘sorry’ over and over again, softly.
I take a step towards him and take hold of his wrist, pulling his hands away from his face. He looks up at me, a single tear falls down his face and I catch it with my thumb, as he had done for me only a few nights ago.
“I’m so sorry. I get angry sometimes, I can’t stop it, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“What’s so bad you didn’t want me to see?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t say.”
“I need you to explain it to me. You’ve got to give me some answers.”
He takes my hands in his, holding them to his lips, kissing my fingers, his lips brushing back and forth over them softly. “I would never hurt you, Hayley, you have to know that. Never. I couldn’t. I’d hurt myself before I ever hurt you, and God help anyone who thinks of laying a finger on you. I won’t be like him, I can’t.”
“Like who?” I ask.
He brings my hands down away from his lips but doesn’t let go, instead, he grips my hands tighter and looks up at me, his lips pulling tight over his teeth. “My father,” he spits out. “My real father.”
He stands up and guides me by the hand into the living area and over to the couch where I perch on the edge. He releases my hands and moves to sit in the large armchair directly opposite me, the coffee table the only thing separating us. He rests his elbows on his knees and holds his head in his hands, rocking back and forth softly.
I wait for him to speak and after a moment, he looks up at me, rubbing his jaw, as if he’s on the verge of saying something but doesn’t know how to say it.
“The reason I don’t talk about him, is because it’s not something I’m proud of. I’ve spent so many years pretending, trying to block the thought of him out of my mind, but, every now and then...”
“Kyle, look-”
“No, I need you to hear this. I need to show you that I would never lay a hand against you, ever. I just need you to understand.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“I found out I was adopted when I was fifteen, my parents never really told me anything about my real mom, at that point I didn’t really care about them, after all they left me, gave me up... or so I thought, that was until about five years ago. I’d just graduated college and landed a job at my dad’s company. I don’t know why but one day I woke up and wanted to know more. I spoke to my dad and he told me that my birth mother committed suicide a couple of months after I was born, she hung herself.”
“Oh my God, Kyle...” My insides twist with hurt.
“From what I've been told, she was lovely. Kind, caring, clever, a student at NYU. She’d just turned nineteen when she had me. She gave me to my parents before she died.”
“So, your parents knew her?” I ask.
“She was my mom’s younger sister, so technically, my mom is actually my aunt, but they adopted me anyway, took me in as their own. At that point they were struggling to conceive, and my mom desperately wanted a baby, so...”
“Is there a reason why she kil- why she did what she did?”
He nods slowly. “She was... raped...” He hesitates, “by my real father.”
I gasp.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
“And I’m the result. I’m the child of a- a rapist.” He covers his face with his hands. “She couldn’t handle it, what he did to her. No wonder I am the way I am, it’s because of him. I’m just like him.”
I rush over to Kyle and kneel down on the carpet in front of where he sits. I take his wrists and pull his hands away from his face, forcing him to look at me.
“Don’t you dare say that! Kyle, you are nothing like him. Do you really think I would be here now if you were?”
“I tricked your father so that I could have you, forced you to spend the week with me, I forced you into it when you didn’t want to, I might as well be like him.”
“You saved me from those guys in the alley... if you were like him at all, you wouldn’t have stopped them, you wouldn’t have come to save me. You haven’t done anything to me, you haven’t forced yourself on me or took advantage... you are not him, do you hear me?”
His eyes well with fresh tears.
“I’m so sorry for what happened to your mother.” I tear my eyes away from his and place my hands in my lap. “It happened to me too,” I say quietly, almost inaudibly.
“What do you mean?”
“I was seventeen.” I begin. “It was a few months before my mom died. I was in my room doing homework...”
I tell him my story, and he’s the perfect listener. He doesn’t speak at all. The memories flood back to me as if it only happened yesterday, vivid like a dream, pouring out of me. I’ve never once told my story, of what happened to me that day, just kept it bottled up inside, trying to block it out of my mind, I’d convinced myself that maybe if I didn’t think about it, or talk about it, I could pretend it didn’t happen, that it was only a nightmare.
“After it happened, when he’d gone, I just lay there, in shock.” Tears stream down my face, my voice beginning to falter, “I couldn’t move. I just lay there for hours before I found the courage to get up. I walked into the bathroom, and looked in the mirror... the bruises...” I sob, my face falls into my hands.
Kyle kneels down in front of me, his knees either side of mine and wraps his arms around me, letting me cry into his chest, my hands clutching handfuls of his shirt.
“It’s alright.” he reassures.
It feels good to be in his arms, it feels safe. I feel safe with him.
Regardless of everything that has happened between us, I know he would never hurt me.
I trust him.
He rests his chin on the top of my head and holds me until my tears subside.
I pull back slightly, his shirt is soaked. “Oh my God, I’m sorry.” I wipe my eyes on the back of my hands.
“You have nothing to apologise for.” His hold tightens around me as he kisses the top of my head. “Fuck,” he mumbles into my hair. “I want that bastard dead. I want him to pay for what he did to you.”
“He’s long gone. Nicholas disappeared, we never saw him again,” I say.
“Nicholas?”
I nod. “Yeah. Nicholas Payn.” The edge in my voice fills with disgust as I spit out his name.
Kyle remains silent, staring off into the distance as if deep in thought.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
His eyes flick to mine. “Hmm? Oh, yeah. Fine.” He cups my face in his hands, staring deep into my eyes. “I will never hurt you, ever. I need you to know you’re safe with me. You can trust me, I promise.”
I nod slowly. “I never got to thank you, for what you did for me in that alley, for saving me. I was so sure it was going to happen all over again.”
He shakes his head softly. “No thank you needed. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.”
I rise up and wrap my arms around him, my face buried in his neck. My lips graze the skin on his neck, sending a shiver through his body. “I trust you.”
Chapter 14
Kyle
I jump in my car and speed off down the street, Guns ‘n’ Roses’ entire Appetite for Destruction album blasting through my sound system, filling the car with noise, the deep bass reverberating through my body and pounding in my eardrums.
I had to get out of there.
I couldn’t stay there a moment longer.
That apartment felt too small all of a sudden, claustrophobic.
After Hayley fell asleep in my arms from all the crying, after the revelations and secrets we both shared not even an hour ago, I carried her to my bedroom, laid her down in the middle of my bed and left her to sleep.
I left a note in case she woke up before I got back saying that I’d gone for food, that was partly true, but as I stood and watched over her deep in sleep, the pain, and the guilt and the anger flooded in, cutting me up from the inside.
My head is swimming, unable to focus.
Nicholas Payn.
Fuck.
I knew that name.
My heart stopped beating once it left her lips.
Time stood still.
I thought I would never hear that name again, I hoped and prayed that I never would. But here I was, the name plaguing my thoughts all over again.
My hands grip the steering wheel so tight my knuckles are beginning to turn white.
I turn sharply and pull up to the curb, turning off the engine. I pound the wheel with my fists, hard, before resting my forehead forward, taking slow, deep breaths.
This was too much, just too damn much to handle, even for me.
My stomach twists.
Sickness rises from my stomach, working its way up into my throat.
I force it back down.
I can’t tell her.
This will kill her.
At first, getting close to her was just a game, a ploy to draw her near to me. But she’s under my skin, spreading like a wildfire through my veins, seeping deeper and deeper into my soul, no matter how much I fight against it.
It seems the more I fight, the tighter the hold she has on me.
After what I just found out, I can't bring myself to hurt her.
If I tell her she’ll leave, and I’ll never see her again.
But how can I look her in the eye knowing what I know?
If I tell her it will destroy her.
I can’t tell her.
I won’t.
I’ll keep this awful secret to myself.
She doesn’t need to know, there is no point in her knowing when she is just starting to move on with her life, learning to trust again, it will only hurt her.
No good will come from her knowing.
She can trust me.
I’ll protect her from the truth.
From everything.
∞∞∞
When I get back to the penthouse, I begin setting the table.
I bought way too much food, but I don’t have a clue what food she’d like, so I bought everything. I spread out the boxes of food in the center of the table, along plates and cutlery.
“Hey.” I hear behind me.
I turn to see Hayley leaning against the island in the center of my kitchen, her fingers fiddling with the countertop awkwardly.
“Hi, you just wake up?”
“A while ago, I saw your note.”
“I left it in case you woke up before I got back.”
“I can’t even remember falling asleep.”
“You fell asleep in my arms, so I carried you to bed, figured you needed to sleep.” I smile. “I got us some food, I didn’t know what you’d like so I got a little of everything.” I hint to the banquet in progress behind me.
She nears the table, eyeing the food in front of her, and takes a seat.
She lets out a little chuckle. “A little of everything? You have enough food here to feed an entire army.”
I laugh, taking a seat opposite her. “Hey, don’t underestimate my capabilities,” I say, patting my stomach.
She laughs, shaking her head. “There is no way you can eat all this food.”
“Care to wager Miss Roberts?" I ask, resting my elbows on the table.
“The stakes?” A devious smile touches her lips.
“If I win, you have to spend one more day with me. If you win and it turns out my eyes are bigger than my stomach, you decide, you can go home, or you can stay,” I explain.
I can’t force her to stay any longer, I can’t do that to her which is why I’m going to lose this bet on purpose.
From here on in, it’s her choice.
“Deal.” She holds her hand out to me and I take it, a sharp spark shoots between us where our hands are touching, just like it had the first time I met her at the casino.
We fill our plates with food and begin eating. With so much choice it’s hard to decide which to eat first.
The tension between us has seemed to ease off slightly, we seem somewhat comfortable in each other’s company, more specifically, she is more comfortable being around me.
“Tell me more about your family.” she asks.
I finish chewing on a bite before answering. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“My mom does a lot of charity work, particularly for children and families in need. She’s the best mother I could ask for, she’s kind, strong, fiercely loyal, not afraid to call you out on your bullshit.” I smile at the thought of my mom. “My dad, I know it’s going to sound corny as fuck, but he’s my hero. After finding out about my real parents, I couldn’t go to my mom, I didn’t want to upset her, it was my dad who held me together, I couldn’t have gotten through it without him. He founded King Corp back in the early nineties, built it up from scratch all by himself, he’s retired now so he passed the company onto me. My brother, Luke, is still learning, working his way through college, this week is a big test for him, running the company on his own. He’s a little shit but I trust him.” I laugh.
She smiles. “What does your company do?”
“We do a lot to different things, mostly we buy businesses that are struggling, turn them around and make them a success and then sell them on for double, triple the price we paid.”
“So, where does the hotel and casino fit in?”
“I always wanted to own a hotel. My dad wasn’t keen on the idea at first, it took a lot of convincing, but he let me take a chance on it and it paid off. I love this place. It was never just another business deal for me, it was personal. This hotel was going to be mine, fuck, I loved it so much I moved in here.” I take a bite of my food. “What about you, your family?”
“Well, my dad you’ve met. No brothers or sisters...” I take a deep breath. “My mom, she died three and a half years ago, she had cancer and they found it too late, when they eventually did, it had already spread too far, after that it was just a matter of months.”
“I’m so sorry, Hayley.” I lean over and take her hand in mine squeezing it comfortingly.
God, I love the feel of her hand in mine.
She squeezes mine gently before pulling her hand away from mine, and continues to eat her food. “So, what’s your brother like?”
I chuckle. “Luke is loud, annoying and stubborn.”
“Oh, come on, that can’t be all he is.”
I laugh. “He’s a good brother, really. Caring, funny, loyal, a hopeless romantic.”
“He and my best friend Gwen would get along well, you basically just described her.”
“Maybe we should set them up.”
“Oh dear.” She laughs, shaking her head.
∞∞∞
“I win,” Hayley says, laughing, “I told you, you couldn’t finish it all.”
I lean back in my chair and let out a long, deep breath. “What can I say? I tried my best.”
“Stay there, I’ll get rid of all this.” She gestures to the leftover food which she begins shovelling back into the bag. She throws the dishes in the dishwasher and goes back to tidying the table, where I’m still sat.
“So, what’s your decision?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“You won the bet, you get to decide what happens next.” I stare at her, eagerly awaiting her decision.
“So you’re letting me go? If I choose to leave I can?”
“Yes, you can leave, and the money is yours.”
I don’t want her to leave.
I want her to stay right her with me.
“Why now?”
“I just don’t want you to feel forced or pressured into staying. The deal I made with you dad was a shitty move, one that I regret. After today, what you told me, I can’t forc
e you to stay a second longer.” I take a breath. “In truth, I want you to want to stay here… with me.”
She takes a sharp intake of breath.
The Game Page 8
