Chapter 18
Nate
I sit up abruptly, turning away from Maddie, unwilling to see even a flicker of pity in her expression.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” I mutter. “My past isn’t an excuse for ending it how I did. I take full responsibility.”
She circles the lounger and bends until we’re eye to eye. “Nathaniel,” she says, barely above a whisper.
“I mean it.” I move my gaze to the skyline. “Forget I said anything.”
Her hands cup my cheeks, tilting my face down to hers.
For a moment, I let myself relish this feeling, with Maddie’s hands on me and the intensity of her gaze.
It’s everything I’ve wished for for years.
Only now, it feels different.
“Now’s the time to talk,” she pleads, her voice cracking. “I wish you’d confided in me years ago, but I understand maybe you weren’t ready. I’m here now.”
I swallow hard. “I wanted to. But I buried that part of my life deep down. I’m shocked at myself, saying it out loud.”
She rises, reaching for my hand. I don’t hesitate, naturally intertwining our fingers.
“Let’s sit over here.” She maneuvers us to the couches in the corner, which has me spinning in the other direction.
“Nope.” I tug her in the opposite direction. “Let’s sit on this one instead.”
She frowns. “What did that couch ever do to you?”
“The better question is what haven’t my brother and Juliette done on that couch?” I widen my eyes to get my point across.
Her eyes dart from me to the couch and back again, and her face twists with disgust. “How do you know that?”
“Juliette hosted a girls’ night a while back, and after a few too many glasses of wine, they were all confessing places they had sex. Harrison and I were in the next room, watching the Yankee game, and heard everything.”
“Okay, so add ‘deep clean couch’ to my to-do list tomorrow.” She chuckles, but the sound is flat.
We get as comfortable as possible on the other couch, and for a while, we’re silent, enjoying the warm fall night, but one can’t deny the tension in the air, buzzing with unsaid things.
New York City with Mads. After all these years, it feels surreal.
I only wish the circumstances were different.
When neither of us speaks, I break the silence.
“My “parents” never wanted children, especially not me. I’ve told you that before.
One child was expected, but a second was unthinkable for the Davenports.
I was a mistake, and they never let me live it down.
” I lean my head back and stare up into the night’s sky, hating that I have to replay this story again.
This is the last time I do it, I vow. “Caroline realized she was pregnant with me too far along. It was too late to abort me once she found out. She loved to tell me that last part repeatedly. How I ruined their life, and I wouldn’t have even been alive if she had known earlier. ”
Maddie sucks in a shocked breath. “God, I hate them. But I hate her so much more.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
I stare up into the sky for a while, regretting how I handled everything in the past.
“When was the last time you spoke to her or your dad?”
“Anderson,” I correct.
“Huh?”
“Anderson is the man you’re referring to.
I have not spoken to Caroline since I moved out after camp.
I don’t attend events I know they’ll be at, and if I do, I stay far away.
I’ve run into Anderson at Abbott, our grandfather’s asset management company that Harrison runs, maybe once a year, but we don’t speak. ”
“Harrison is still in contact with them?” I don’t miss the hint of accusation in her voice.
“He’s not. However, since Anderson was CEO before Harrison, he still feels like he runs the place and shows up unannounced. And…”
“And?”
I hesitate. “Harrison is not aware of my past.”
She maneuvers herself, curling onto her side to face me, head resting against the cushion, mimicking mine.
Her long, dark hair spills over her shoulders, and I shouldn’t, but fuck it, I reach forward and run my fingers through the ends. I twirl a strand around my finger, tug gently, and smile when it pulls a grin from her lips, causing her dimples to pop.
God, what I’d give to lean forward and kiss them.
“The bangs suit you,” I murmur, brushing her hair from her face.
She grins but doesn’t let me divert the conversation. “What about your past? What wasn’t Harrison aware of?”
“Most of it,” I admit. “Remember, Seb and Harrison are seven years older than Leo and me. By the time things got bad, I was six. Harrison was a moody teenager, always out with his friends. When I was ten, he was about to graduate from high school and completely distracted. That’s when it got worse.
When they’d leave me alone for hours and hours, locking me in one part of the house.
Or how’d they leave, forgetting they’d fired the nanny only one week ago, so I’d be left with nothing.
Or when they thought I was at my grandparents’, but I was in my room and left to go to parties all night long. It was fucking scary as a kid.”
“Oh my god. No…” Maddie’s voice hitches, and I can’t look at her to see her crying.
I keep going before I lose my nerve.
“They’d tell me it was no big deal, that I had eaten, I had a bed, bathroom, and water from the sink.
That kids around the world didn’t even have that, and I should be lucky.
Sometimes they’d try to tell me they were only gone for an hour, and I must have fallen asleep and gotten it wrong.
But it would be four, five, six hours. I would sit there, watching the clock.
I never fell asleep; I’d always be waiting for them to come home, jiggling the door handle, wishing it’d open.
The worst nights were when they’d come home, and I could hear their music and laughter with friends they were enjoying a nightcap with.
They couldn’t hear me over the music, and they’d forget to unlock the door until morning. ”
“They should be in fucking jail,” she spits in anger. “My god, Nate. Why didn’t you tell Harrison?”
A sardonic laugh slips through my lips. “Because I was a fool. A part of me thought if I was good and didn’t tell anyone, they’d start to love me. What a shit idea that was.”
“You were a child. A little boy,” she says fiercely.
I can’t ignore her tears any longer.
I turn and reach over and swipe as many as I can with my thumbs. “It’s okay, Mads. I’m okay now.”
“How?” she sobs. “How is any of this okay?”
I shrug, showing no emotion. “They don’t deserve my sadness, anger, or my resentment. They don’t deserve the satisfaction that they affect me in any way. They don’t get to have that power over me. Not anymore. My grandparents showed me love. Rosa raised me into the man I am. That’s what matters.”
“What happened to Rosa?” she sniffs.
“When I was eleven, Harrison and Seb had just graduated from high school and left for a European road trip with their friends. Leo, Camila, and I were home; we didn’t want to go to camp that summer.
I think we were all bummed that our siblings were leaving.
Earlier that day, before I left to spend the day at the Moraleses’, my parents told me I couldn’t sleep over, and I had to be home by five.
My grandma was sick, and I remember that because I was begging to sleep there at least. I was old enough now to know that what they were doing was wrong.
Especially since that morning, I had overheard my parents discussing a party in the Hamptons and how they were taking a helicopter there.
I was a kid, but I knew from going myself the Hamptons were far, helicopter or not.
” Maddie scootches over, and she lets me wrap an arm around her.
“I don’t remember the details, but I was upset enough that I told Camila that I didn’t want to be alone anymore. ”
“And she told Rosa?”
I nod. “But not until later on that night, when Anderson and Caroline were already gone. Rosa was banging on the front door, but of course, I couldn’t answer; I was locked on the other side of the house.
Luckily, I was able to pry open the window and yell down to her.
It took all my strength; those windows were fucking heavy and double my size.
When she found out I was locked inside, sheer anger took over, and she broke into the house. ”
“Thank God she did.”
“I am forever grateful for her. Though she triggered the alarm and was arrested for breaking and entering.”
Maddie bolts upright. “You were a minor, alone. Where was CPS in all of this? It was neglect. Rosa was only trying to help.”
“My parents were the ones who called the cops. They lied to cover their ass. And because the Davenport name holds clout and promised funding to the police, they let it go.”
“I-I…I need some air.”
“We’re outside,” I deadpan, and her glare…if looks could kill…
She gets up and starts pacing. “This isn’t funny, Nathaniel.”
“Mads.” I sit forward. “I know it’s not funny. But, to me, this is just a small part of my story. One that does not define me.”
After a small stare-off, she asks, “Whatever happened to Rosa?”
“She never said, and my parents never mentioned it. Rosa sat me down the next day, had me tell her everything, and then we promised never to speak about it again. The only people who know the truth are her, Javier, and Camila. But from the bits and pieces I overheard, there was some threatening—”
“From Rosa, no doubt.” That gets a smile out of her.
“Oh, I’d bet my life on it. Rosa doesn’t back down.
CPS was never called, but from that day on, I spent most of my time with my grandparents or the Morales family.
My parents still had legal say but used it more as a means of control than a responsibility.
It’s why the day I turned eighteen, Harrison asked me to move in with him and Seb. ”
“But I thought Harrison didn’t know?”
“Not everything. But you didn’t need to know every detail to see something was wrong. They didn’t treat him well either. It just wasn’t as bad.”