Forever We Fall: Broken #4 (The Broken Series) (15 page)

"The job's good," she said sardonically. "If you can get over the fact that the boss is a total ogre."

"Funny," I smirked, my smile dropping when I thought of how I'd been treated because of my age.
And how he'd been treating me lately…
"Has Kyle been mean to you?"

"Oh, I've had the odd run in with him," she chuckled. "He tried to force me into babysitting you last year. I thought he was gonna fire me when I refused." Frowning she added, "I felt like I was walking on eggshells, waiting for the chop."

"What?" I asked flatly. I knew what it felt like to be under that man's scrutiny. Kyle had called me into his office once to fire me. It was in the beginning of our relationship when he was under Rachel's thumb. He'd fired me, then stripped me bare in his office, working me into such a state that I almost had my first orgasm up against his office door, before giving me my job back and running out of the room. "I'm so sorry if he's been rude to you."

"Forget about it," she said softly. "It was months ago…besides," she added with a chuckle. "He's never there anymore – much to the dismay of Theresa and the girls on the ground floor."

Scrunching her nose up in distaste, she added, "Those girls have no shame. It's actually pretty pathetic the way they used to leer at him all the time, and half of those women are married and twice his age."

"I remember," I said ruefully, feeling slightly sickened at the thought of what my former co-workers had said about Kyle. "It used to drive me insane. The nicknames were disgusting."

"I can imagine," Karen said, her tone laced with sympathy. "If I was him, I'd seriously consider filing a sexual harassment in the workplace order – especially on the old cougar on wash up."

"Yeah," I whispered, a deeper fear settled in my stomach, one Karen seemed to catch onto quickly.

"Lee," she said in a soft tone. "He's fundamentality blind to every woman in the hotel. You have nothing to worry about." Leaning forward she caught my eye and smirked. "And just so you know, the whole broody, alpha male thing he's got going on doesn’t do it for me either."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, curious at her straight-forwardness.

"Because I like you and I want us to be friends," she said in a serious tone. "And I don't want you to think that I'm anything like those bitches at work, or that Grayson woman." Looking me straight in the eyes, she said, "I'm not going to lie to your face and say Mr. Carter's horrible to look at. We both know he's gorgeous, and those eyes of his are hard-freaking-core, but I'm not a home-wrecker and my heart is already spoken for." Sighing heavily she added, "And my body and heart come as a package deal. All or nothing. No exceptions."

"So, you've been in love before?" I asked cautiously. I didn’t want to over-step the line, but she seemed so forth-coming it was too hard not to ask. "With Jordan's father?"

"Yeah," Karen sighed. "With Jordan's father. He's the only one I've ever – well, you know… I was crazy about him, I literally drooled after him for years, but he never saw me."

Pressing her fingers to her temples, she sighed and let the words fall out of her mouth in a rush. "He was the hottest guy in school – the
cliché
star-quarterback. In our small town everyone knows everyone and he was practically royalty, but I was two years younger than him and DJ's baby sister. Off limits…" She flinched as she spoke and I couldn’t help but think I was the first person to hear this story. "The night of my brother's high school graduation, our parents were in Australia, chasing after Colette, so DJ threw a party at our house. It was a huge deal… I remember feeling so upset that night," she confessed sadly. "He was going out of state for college and I felt like I'd lost my chance. I was so afraid I wouldn’t see him..."

"You don't have to tell me if it hurts," I told her. "Karen, I understand how hard it can be to talk about the past."

"No, I need to tell someone," she said almost desperately. "I got all dressed up," she mumbled. "Like a freaking hooker dressed up and I went downstairs and joined in the party, but it was obvious after a few minutes that I was as invisible to him as I'd always been, so I went to bed feeling like my world had ended…but then…"

"Then?" I asked, thoroughly enthralled in her story.

"He came into my room," she confessed with a blush. "He was drunk and mistook my room for the DJ's, but he didn’t leave…" She harshly blinked away the tears that were pooling in her brown eyes. "He laid down on my bed with me and just talked. I remember my heart was racing at a hundred miles an hour, but he didn’t try anything. He seemed quite happy to just lay with me and talk. He told me he was gonna miss me," she whispered. "We talked for hours about the silliest mundane things, Lee. And then he fell asleep…or so I thought."

She looked up at me guiltily. "I thought he was asleep so I leaned over and kissed him. His eyes flew open and he grabbed my face, lifted me off him and he just stared at me – like really stared at me like he was looking at me for the first time – and then he was kissing me back." Shuddering she smiled and whispered. "He set me on fire, Lee. I've never felt anything so intense in my life."

"Oh…wow…" I squirmed, feeling disturbingly aroused with the whole thing. "Well, keep going."

"Well, you know how it goes," she said with a smirk. "He spent the night in my room with me –like
all
night with me…"

"I think
I'm
in love," I teased as I fanned myself.

"Don't be. When I woke up he was gone," she whispered. "I waited three days for him to show up. To stop by and see DJ. He didn’t. Finally, when I couldn’t take anymore, I rode my bike over to his house, like the fool I was, and his brother told me he'd decided to leave for college early. He wanted to get settled in before college started."

"No," I whispered, feeling my eyes dampening.

"Four weeks later I took a pregnancy test," she confirmed sadly. "Nine months later Jordan Derek Valentine was born weighing a hefty nine pounds four ounces."

"What did he say when you told him?" I asked, smiling to myself at her choice of middle name. "Did he come home?"

Karen shifted uncomfortable. "Nothing, because I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t know."

"What?" I asked in shock. "Did you tell anyone?"

She shook her head.

"What?" I gasped. "Not even your parents or your brother?"

"Our fathers were in business together, Lee – still are," she mumbled. "Let's just say that it was safer for everyone that I kept quiet. If my dad or my brother knew they would have killed him and that's not an exaggeration. They would have
killed
him for getting me pregnant. I was sixteen at the time – seventeen when I gave birth but still...he was eighteen when I conceived. You can imagine the uproar it would have caused between our families."

"Kyle's almost four years older than me," I whispered, hoping she knew I didn’t judge her or that I would never judge her. "I was nineteen when I had Hope."

"I know you're not judging me, Lee," she said softly, catching my meaning. "That's why I'm telling you this. You kind of remind me of myself."

"So, who did you…"

"Who did I blame?" she asked wryly. "I told them I didn’t know who the baby's father was. I told them I had been drinking and I couldn’t remember his name."

"How did you cope on your own?" I asked.

"With great difficulty," she replied. "It was one of the hardest times in my life."

"Did he not come home for a visit?" I asked.

"Yeah," she whispered. "He came home for a week of winter break during freshman year, but DJ was away with the band and he never bothered to stop by the house." Rubbing her stomach absentmindedly she added, "I was so tempted to rush over to his house and tell him, but he brought his roommate home with him. They were joined at the freaking hip, and I couldn’t deal with the audience. I was also six months pregnant by then, so any kind of running would have been difficult."

"You should have told him then, Karen," I told her, hoping I didn’t sound like a judgmental bitch. "He should have been there to help you. You shouldn’t have had to do it alone."

"After the baby was born," she whispered. "I went to see him. I drove all the way to his house. Pulled up out front…but when I was getting out of the car, he came out with a woman."

"Oh no," I whispered, tears streaming down my cheeks, as I grabbed her hand in sympathy.

"She was so beautiful." She chewed on her bottom lip nervously. "And he looked so happy – so in love with her…"

"So, what did you do?"

"I got back in my car and drove home with my son." Wiping her eyes, she sighed. "And I promised myself I would leave him alone. I loved him so much, Lee. I didn’t want to ruin his life. I promised myself I would never tell him, but…"

"Jordan started asking questions," I guessed.

Karen nodded. "He's been asking about his father since he could talk. In the beginning I was able to sweep it under the rug with a new toy or distract him somehow, but then he became so adamant that I knew I had to do something..."

The sound of the front door slamming drilled through my ears and I jumped. "Hang on," I mumbled as I rushed out to the hallway, but Kyle stalked past me without so much as a sideways glance.

"I need to talk to you," I called after him as he started to climb the stairs.

"I'm not interested, Lee," he shot back without turning around.

"It's important," I started to say, but Kyle swung around and the look in his eyes caused my throat to dry up.

"I said I'm not interested," he snarled. "I have a lot on my plate right now, so just back the fuck off."

I stood frozen to the spot, willing myself not to cry, as Kyle disappeared up the stairs. Pressing my hand against my rib cage I strived to keep calm and not break down, but I honestly didn’t think I could take much more of this…

"We're gonna go." Karen's voice broke through my thoughts and I turned around to see that she and Jordan were standing by the door. Her eyes held the world of sympathy as she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. "We'll do this again soon, okay?" she coaxed.

"Yeah," I whispered, blinking back the tears. "I'd like that."

****

Chapter Twelve

Lee

"Thanks for the ride," I muttered when Kyle pulled up outside the entrance to the cemetery.

He didn’t answer me, just stared straight ahead, and I knew the only reason he'd given me a ride was because I'd beat him to the car this morning. When I'd asked him to drop me off to visit Cam, Kyle hadn’t blinked, flinched or batted an eyelid. He'd just cranked the engine and tore off without responding.

Unfastening my seatbelt, I climbed out and retrieved Hope's stroller from the trunk before lifting her out of the backseat. When I had her strapped into her stroller, I walked over to his window. "Can you pick us up later?" I asked.

Nothing.

I tapped on the glass and waited for him to roll down his window. Eventually he did. "Can you collect us later, Kyle?" I asked as calmly as I could, forcing myself not to show weakness in front of him.

"What time?" He didn’t look at me when he spoke.

"Maybe an hour?" I replied quietly. "If that's okay with you?"

"Fine," he muttered before revving the engine and driving off without so much as a backwards glance.

Drying my eyes, I clasped the handles of Hope's stroller, inhaled a deep breath and made my way down the path of the cemetery.

"You asked me to meet you here," I puffed when I reached Cam's grave, out of breath and panting.

Leaning on the handles of Hope's stroller, I inhaled a few deep, slow breaths. Lord, I needed to get fit. It was disgraceful to be so out of breath from such a short walk – especially at my age.

"Yes, I did," David Henderson replied in a soft tone as he stuffed his hands into his pockets and kept his eyes locked on the gravestone of my best friend. "I thought it would be best considering I'm not welcome in your home."

I opened my mouth to protest, but I couldn't. David
wasn't
welcome at our house and if Kyle caught wind of the fact that his dad had phoned me this morning he would be furious.

"I assume, since I haven't received a haranguing phone call from my son, you haven't told him about your father?"

A haranguing what? "
I haven't had the chance to speak to Kyle lately," I whispered.

"And what about your test results?" he asked kindly. "Was everything all right?"

"Fine," I said with a blush. "My kidneys are fine. Dr. Michaels says I was very lucky."

"Well, I have some more good news, Delia," David said as he levelled me with a stare. "The police arrested your father yesterday. He's being retained in custody, pending a trial."

"Oh my god," I whispered, relief coursing through every inch of my body. He'd been caught. It was over.

Over... so why didn't it feel over?

"Where did they find him?" I asked. "Are you sure, Mr. Henderson?" I didn't want to get my hopes up if there was the slightest chance Kyle's dad was wrong.

"One hundred percent," David replied calmly. "Your father was arrested for speeding in Aspen during the late hours of last night, where the officer on call discovered he was in possession of a stolen car and a substantial quantity of cocaine."

"Cocaine?" My father wasn't a drug addict. An alcoholic yes, but never drugs. "Why would my father have drugs?" I shook my head in confusion. "This makes no sense, Mr. Henderson."

"Oh, I doubt Jimmy was aware it was in his possession," David chuckled. "The downside to stealing a car, Delia, is that you never know what may be hidden inside."

David's eyes darkened, his jaw strained, and when he spoke I felt a tremor of unease roll through my body. "Your father is facing serious jail time without the charges you intend to press against him," David growled. "He'll serve a minimum of twelve years for grand theft auto and drug possession alone."

"So what are you saying?" I asked nervously. "I shouldn't press charges?"

David shrugged his shoulders and sighed heavily. "I have a friend in the DA," he said in a hushed tone as he bent down to ruffle Hope's curls. "He guaranteed me they have enough on your father as it stands. He believes withdrawing your statement would be best for both cases."

"Withdrawing my statement?" David was the one who'd phoned the police in the first place. I stared blankly at him. "I'm not following you, Mr. Henderson."

"Delia, the Grayson trial goes to court next month," David said with a sigh. "Let's just say it won't do your friend here any favors..." He gestured to Cam's gravestone and hissed, "when it is revealed that you're involved in another case, especially when Rachel's entire defense rests on them exploiting you as an adulterating troublemaker."

"I never thought about that," I gasped, feeling sick at the thought of jeopardizing Cam's trial. Justice for my best friend was paramount to me. I didn't care if I didn't get it for myself – David said daddy would go to prison regardless of whether I pressed charges or not – but there was no way I would risk Rachel Grayson getting away with murder. "Oh my god, what am I going to do," I whispered. "This is such a mess."

"This is completely your decision of course, but my advice would be withdraw your statement," David replied softly.

Raising his hand he patted my shoulder gently. "Look, talk to Kyle and come to a decision together."

"I know what I need to do." I shook my head and blinked back the tears that were filling my eyes. "I'll withdraw my statement."

"Would you like a ride to the police station?" he asked politely.

"No." I shook my head and forced a small smile. "Kyle's collecting me soon. I'll wait for him, but thank you."

"You're welcome, Delia." Wrapping his coat around himself he nodded once before turning around and walking away.

"Oh." David turned around and smiled. "And happy St. Valentine's Day. Have a good one."

Valentine's Day.

The perfect occasion to taunt me about my failing relationship.

"Thanks, you too," I replied as cheerfully as I could while inside I was breaking apart.

****