26. Genevieve
Chapter twenty-six
Genevieve
The SUV curved into a private campus. We hadn’t just pulled into an office building: this was a kingdom.
Glass towers. Sculpted gardens. Security checkpoints that waved Reid through like royalty. His entire empire stretched in sleek, minimalist architecture; people outside paused, eyes widening when they recognized him.
This wasn’t New York or the failing Newman halls. This was his world and everyone in it bowed to him.
Making it to the main building, we entered the polished lobby before entering the elevator.
We ascended smoothly, the doors opening to the private executive floor.
Alexander approached, already rattling off schedules, meetings, planned legal briefings, everything Reid missed or needed to refine since he’d left the valley. And he absorbed every word like oxygen.
I absorbed almost none of it.
When we reached his office, Alexander pushed open the glass door. “Give me ten,” Reid told him.
Alexander nodded and disappeared into the conference suite. Reid set his briefcase on his desk, already pulling out reports, files, whatever he’d been reviewing in the span of our six-hour flight.
“Sit,” he ordered again, without looking at me, and I did without hesitation in the chair across from his desk.
He stepped to the far side of the room, sliding into a call with someone, his voice holding clipped commands, that CEO tone that was as powerful as it was absolutely terrifying. I could hear only half of it, but the urgency and dominance were unmistakable.
As I waited, I let my gaze drift.
His office had no photographs or personal artifacts that showed who he was. The emptiness of it felt cold almost.
His desk was sleek, organized, nothing out of place. But one folder wasn’t tucked into a stack. It lay slightly crooked, like he’d dropped it there in a moment of distraction.
The top page was facedown, but the corner of the second sheet peeked out, showing a name that was all too familiar.
Jamie Newman.
Curiosity piqued my interest, and before I could convince myself to mind my own business, I was reaching for the folder. My fingers slipped beneath the first page, lifting it just enough to see what lay beneath.
On the front of the page was a typed summary of the pages that followed:
Billing Summary: Oncology Department
Projected Treatment Costs
Surgery Estimate
Chemotherapy Cycle Adjustments
Palliative Care Costs
Line after line. Number after number. Bills no ordinary family could ever survive.
Amounts that no ordinary person could pay without drowning and that no one had told me about.
I never thought to even question Jamie’s care costs…
I thought her bills were somehow covered by whatever insurance she’d had.
But as I flipped the page, every single line item had the same notation beside it.
PAID IN FULL — R. KAUFMAN
I could only blink as I flipped through. Jamie’s hospital stays, her experimental treatments, chemotherapy appointments, surgeries, therapy, medications, specialist fees… Reid had been paying for all of it?
My throat went dry, burning as I scanned further. More dates, receipts, follow-up consultations, new scans.
…Her second tumor.
The same tumor Raymond had told me about and that Jamie had kept hidden from me.
My vision blurred for a moment. Jamie had tried to act strong. She smiled through it and brushed off my concerns with soft jokes and motherly dismissals.
And all the while…
Reid had been paying for everything.
In secret with his own resources. With no recognition or as much as a simple thank-you.
I recalled briefly picking up Eugene while she watched him and Reid having a small chat with her before we left. Was it to talk about this?
My throat tightened, burning as I flipped to the next page. This one wasn’t medical. It was administrative.
A billing transfer form from… two years ago?
Effective immediately, all statements and payment responsibilities to be forwarded to:
Kaufman Industries, Attn: R. Kaufman.
My heartbeat skipped. The signature authorizing the transfer beside Reid’s wasn’t Jamie’s or the hospital’s… it was Raymond’s.
The signature date seemed familiar, around the same time Gregory had started being reckless with the company investments. At the same time Jamie was admitted for one of her heaviest surgeries. That was when the perfect picture family began to crack.
I could only let out a scoff… So Raymond knew.
He knew Reid was paying and that Jamie was getting worse. He knew Gregory was failing the company… and he didn’t say anything. Not even a word. No wonder he was ready for Reid to save his drowning legacy… That’s because he was already saving us from the beginning.
This family hid everything. Everything except their failures.
A wave of nausea crawled up my throat.
I set the folder down in my lap, my fingertips pressed into the paper until it crinkled.
This was Reid. The Reid they cast away, the bastard child, the man who pretended he didn’t care. Who kept his voice cold, distant, clipped… he was paying every bill, every surgery, every treatment to keep his mother alive.
And he never once said a word. Not out of pride or out of hurt. My vision blurred, a tear falling before I could reel it in.
This… this wasn’t the Reid I left… This wasn’t the man I built my escape around, the one I convinced myself I didn’t need… that he didn’t need me.
This was a man who loved harder than anyone ever gave him credit for. Who would’ve been a better father from day one. Who would’ve never abandoned me.
And I—
I let them erase him.
Guilt surged, hot and suffocating, tightening around my throat.
When he walked back over to his desk, face stoic from his call, I stood from the chair, breaking the silence as I held the folder in my hand.
“You really paid for everything…” I whispered, so soft I almost didn’t hear it—but he did. He glanced over to me before looking down at the folder, then back to my eyes. He placed his hands in his pockets, giving a nonchalant shrug.
“Why wouldn’t I? She’s my mother. Besides, it’s not like it would’ve made a difference.”
“Of course it would’ve.”
“How?” he asked, and all of a sudden I felt rendered quiet.
He took my silence as his cue to press further.
“How would this have made a difference, Genevieve?” I froze, gazing up at him as he towered over me.
I swallowed, the folder trembling faintly in my grip.
“Would it have deemed me worthy enough to come back?” he asked quietly, his anger simmering but controlled. “Fixed what happened?”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“You’re saying it mattered,” he pressed. Another step, invading my space. “So tell me how. Tell me why it suddenly matters now.”
My breath hitched. The room felt smaller, hotter. Every lie I’d ever told was clawing up my throat all at once. Suffocating me, blurring my vision, weakening my knees.
“It just… would’ve changed things,” I whispered.
“How?” His voice sharpened, slicing through me. “How would it have changed what you chose? You left me, Vieve.”
“I know—”
“You left,” he repeated, jaw tightening, stepping close enough that his breath grazed my cheek.
“And you stayed gone. For years. So tell me, how does this—” his hand shot out, fast, grabbing the folder from my trembling grip.
He lifted the papers between us, eyes burning ”—change what you decided back then? ”
My heart slammed against my ribs. Tears burned hot at the corners of my eyes. His words dug claws into everything I’d buried. Every lie, justification, every night I told myself I hadn’t chosen the wrong man.
It all surged at once—
Gregory stumbling home drunk and miserable. Missing milestones, school meetings, promises. Him choosing everyone, everything but us.
Me lying beside him, making excuses, playing the supportive fiancée, pretending his constant failures didn’t hurt. Pretending his absence wasn’t an open wound in our relationship and that I hadn’t traded the one man who showed up for the one who never did. And meanwhile…
Reid was keeping his mother alive from a thousand miles away. Paying bills he shouldn’t have had to pay. Carrying responsibilities no one ever gave him credit for after what he went through. Showing up in ways Gregory never could.
“It just would have,” I choked.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the truth—”
“Well it isn’t enough,” he seethed. “You want it to matter now. It didn’t matter enough for Raymond. For the man who raised me just to throw me aside for the sake of the family name. It didn’t matter then, so why should it matter now?”
“Because it proves Greg never deserved what I chose him over you for,” I choked. “Because you—”
The truth slammed into my teeth, but I clamped my mouth shut.
No. No. No. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
Reid’s gaze sharpened instantly. “Because I what?” he asked, voice low and lethal. “Finish it.”
My pulse lurched. “Nothing,” I breathed.
“No,” he countered, crowding me until the back of my legs hit the chair.
I fell into it, and he followed, hands braced on either armrest, caging me in, his body heat swallowing mine. “You don’t get to hide anymore.” My eyes widened, my pulse jumping, my skin hot.
I shook my head, chest tight, throat burning. He leaned in, voice a razor:
“Say it,” he commanded in a desperate plea for the truth.
My lips parted. The words clawed up my throat—
Because you would’ve been the better father.
Because you were the better man.
Because I ruined you and you will never forgive me.
The words slammed against the back of my throat. They burned and they begged to be let free. And I swallowed them whole.
Because saying them out loud, saying the truth, saying what I’d kept from him meant facing the one thing I couldn’t survive… that he would never love me the same way again.
My voice broke around a single, useless breath.
“I… I can’t.”