“I wanted to tell you, but I was so scared of losing you.” He takes a step forward but I back away.
“Don’t come near me,” I warn. “Our entire relationship has been based on lies and secrets.”
“Baby, please.” His eyes are becoming bloodshot and glassy.
“I’ve got to get out of here.” I back out the door and take off towards the front door. Kyle’s footsteps close behind me.
“Hayley, wait, please.” He grips the top of my arm, but I wrench out of his hold.
I fling open the door and break into a run, as fast as the tight dress and these ridiculous heels I'm wearing will allow. I bolt down the corridor towards the elevator that is just beginning to open.
Nathaniel steps out of the elevator heading towards me, the look of shock written across his face as I come barrelling towards him, my eyes streaming with tears. “Hayley? What’s wrong, are you alright?”
“Ask your son,” I spit as I dart pass him, slipping into the elevator just as the doors begin to close, pressing the button for the lobby.
“Hayley!” Kyle calls, his voice cracking as he comes to a stop.
I lean against the wall opposite the doors, through the small crack, I see Kyle fall to his knees, crying, crying harder than I've ever seen him cry before as he watches the doors glide shut.
I slide down the wall of the elevator and hit the floor hard, hugging my knees against my chest. I howl as the pain radiates through me, my heart wrenching, shattering into a million tiny pieces.
I trusted him, more than I thought I ever could after what happened to me, told him more than I'd ever told another living soul, put my faith in him.
That too was broken, along with my heart.
Before I know it, the doors open as I reach the ground floor. I stand up and stumble my way through the lobby, it’s late so it’s deserted except for the staff on the reception desk and the concierge. My vision is blurred by the tears, but I manage to make it out of the front doors and out into the street.
I flag down a cab and head home.
Chapter 33
Kyle
5 Years Ago
"Mr King. Here’s the information you requested," William, the private investigator I hired says, handing over a handful of files, placing them down in front of me as I sit at my desk in my apartment.
“Thank you. So, what did you find out?” I ask.
“It seems Miss Godfrey, your birth mother, was sexually assaulted.”
“What?” I sit forward on my chair, my forearms resting on the desk.
He nods, regretfully. “Yes. We found her statement to the police, reporting that she was raped by a man that goes by the name of Nicholas Payn. The report was filed on June 15th, 1993, around a year before she committed suicide. I did some digging and there are no records of anyone by that name, no birth certificate, not official documents at all. I also looked at all the unsolved sexual assault cases over the past two decades and found that a lot of them mentioned names, false names, but all matching the description Miss Godfrey gave, mid-to-late twenties, short dark hair, broad, handsome, only now he’s older… my guess is, this guy uses an alias to cover his tracks, Nicholas Payn being one of them.”
I sit back in my chair and take a deep breath. “Was there no DNA evidence, no idea as to who he is?”
“No. Her report never amounted to anything as they had no leads or evidence to go on. Miss Godfrey didn’t report it on the day it happened, she went to the police a few days later. She claimed she was too scared and shaken up at the time, by the time she went to report it, all DNA evidence was long gone.”
“Fuck,” I curse.
“I’ll keep digging, look into Payn more.”
“Great. Thank you,” I offer him a weak smile.
William bows his head, taking a deep breath. “I also followed up on some leads concerning Miss Godfrey. A few weeks after she reported the assault, she went to visit her doctor, where she was told she was pregnant.”
“This was June 1993 you say?”
“That’s correct.”
My stomach twists. Oh my God. “I was born nine months after it happened.”
“There’s nothing to suggest what you’re thinking.”
“She didn’t have a boyfriend right, she wasn’t with anyone at the time?”
“No, but-”
“Then I’m right.”
I feel sick.
Bile rises in my throat.
I jump up from my seat and rush to the bathroom, reaching the toilet just in time for me to vomit. My eyes burn with tears, not just from vomiting, but from what I just learned.
My mother killed herself because she was raped. She couldn’t live with what he did to her. She couldn’t live with looking at her child and seeing him, having a part of him so close to her as a constant reminder of being raped.
And the man that raped her… Nicholas Payn… was my father.
Chapter 34
Kyle
I fall to my knees.
I watch as the elevator doors close on the most important person in my life, taking her away from me.
I sob, my face buried in my hands.
I don’t remember crying so hard in my entire life. My chest feels like it is being punched, repeatedly. It feels like my body is being torn apart, piece by piece, starting with my heart, my heart that belongs to her, my heart that Hayley just took with her.
“Hayley,” I whisper into my hands. My palms are soaked with my tears.
“Kyle, what the hell happened?” My dad comes up behind me and crouches down, his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly.
“I lost her. I fucked everything up, dad.”
I hurt her.
I fucked up like I always knew I would.
This is what I was afraid of all along.
My dad grips my shoulders and pulls me to my feet, walking me back into my suite. He sits me down on the sofa and perches on the coffee
