Chapter 39 The Reckoning
THE RECKONING
EMMA
Zoe's couch is not made for sleeping, but I managed a few hours between crying fits and wine.
My phone sits on the coffee table. I've been staring at it for twenty minutes.
Twelve missed calls. Eight texts. One voicemail.
“You're going to burn a hole through that screen.” Zoe appears with two mugs of coffee, hands me one, curls up on the other end of the couch. “Have you listened to any of them?”
“Read the texts.” I wrap my hands around the mug, let the heat ground me. “Haven't touched the voicemail.”
“Do you want to?”
I shrug.
Zoe sips her coffee, watches me over the rim. She's in full best friend mode since last night.
“He's a Hammond,” I say finally. “His father is Victor Hammond. As in Hammond Industries, as in one of the most powerful families in the country.”
“I gathered that much through the sobbing last night.”
“He never told me. Months together, and he never told me his real name.”
“Why do you think he hid it?”
The question catches me off guard. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, there's hiding something because you're ashamed of it, and there's hiding something because you're protecting yourself from it.” Zoe tilts her head. “Which one do you think this is?”
I stare into my coffee. I don't know. That's what terrifies me.
“Brianna said he ran. When things got hard, when she needed him, he disappeared.” My voice sounds hollow. “She said she got pregnant and he left her to face his family alone.”
Zoe's eyebrows shoot up. “And you believe her?”
“I don't know what to believe anymore.”
“Emma.” She sets down her mug. “This woman ambushed you in a bathroom at a charity gala. She knew exactly what she was doing. That doesn't sound like someone trying to help you. That sounds like someone with an agenda.”
“Maybe. That doesn't mean she was lying.”
“It doesn't mean she was telling the truth either.”
I pull my knees up to my chest, curl into a ball. “He admitted it, Zo. When I confronted him, he admitted he was a Hammond. He didn't even try to deny it.”
“Did you give him a chance to explain?”
The question stings because I know the answer. I was so hurt, so blindsided, that I shut him down before he could say anything.
“I couldn't.” My voice cracks. “I looked at him and I didn't know who I was looking at. The man I fell in love with, or a stranger wearing his face.”
Zoe is quiet for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“What are you really afraid of here?”
I look at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, yes, he lied about his name. That's huge. But what's the thing underneath that? The thing that's really eating at you?”
I open my mouth to answer, nothing comes out. The truth is ugly, and I don't want to say it out loud.
Zoe waits.
“I'm afraid he didn't tell me because he doesn't think I'm good enough.” The words taste like ash.
“His family is wealthy and powerful. I'm nobody.
A girl with no family, no connections, nothing to offer except student debt and emotional baggage.
Maybe he kept me separate from that part of his life because he knew I'd never fit.”
“Emma...”
“And I'm afraid that if I let him explain, he'll twist it around somehow.
Make me feel like I'm the one who overreacted.
Like I'm crazy for being hurt.” I swallow hard.
“James used to do that. Every time I caught him in a lie, he'd spin it until I was the one apologizing.
And I can't... I can't go through that again.”
Zoe takes my hand. “You're not crazy. And you're not overreacting. He lied about something massive, and you have every right to be hurt.”
“But?”
“But…” She squeezes my fingers. “Kaiden isn't James. I've seen the way he looks at you. The way he treats you. James made you smaller. Kaiden makes you bigger. That has to count for something.”
“Does it? If the foundation is a lie?”
“That's what you need to find out.” Zoe meets my eyes. “Not for him. For you. If you walk away now without hearing him out, you'll always wonder. That kind of wondering will eat you alive.”
I think about the texts on my phone. The voicemail I haven't listened to. The way he said I love you last night.
“What if he can't explain it? What if there's no good reason?”
“Then you'll know, and you can walk away clean.” Zoe shrugs. “But what if there is a reason? What if he was trying to protect you from them? What if the lie wasn't about you not being good enough, but about him not feeling good enough?”
I hadn't thought about it that way.
“Fine.” I exhale. “I'll hear him out. I need to know the truth. All of it.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“I'm terrified.”
“Also healthy.” Zoe smiles gently. “Do you want me to come with you?”
I shake my head. “This is something I need to do alone.”
I finally press play on the voicemail.
His voice fills the room. Rough. Exhausted. Nothing like the polished man I thought I knew.
“Emma. I know you probably don't want to hear from me right now.
I need you to know that everything I felt, everything between us, was real.
I should have told you sooner. I should have told you from the beginning.
I was scared that if you knew where I came from, you'd look at me the way everyone else does. Like I'm my father's son.
“You're the first person who's ever seen me. Just me. And I was terrified of losing that.
“I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm asking for a chance to explain. To tell you everything and let you decide what happens next.
“Please, Emma. I'll wait as long as it takes.”
The voicemail ends.
Zoe watches me. “Well?”
“He sounds wrecked.”
“Good. He should be.”
I type out a message before I can talk myself out of it.
Me: My apartment. One hour. You get one chance to explain everything.
His response is immediate.
Kai: On my way.
I stare at the screen for a long moment.
“You okay?” Zoe asks.
“No.” I stand, legs unsteady. “But knowing has to be better than this.”
My apartment feels different. Smaller, somehow. Or maybe I'm the one who changed.
The knock comes exactly fifty-seven minutes after my text.
I open the door.
Kai looks worse than I've ever seen him. Shadows carved under his eyes, stubble darkening his jaw, shirt wrinkled like he slept in it. If he slept at all.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “For agreeing to see me.”
I step back, hold the door open. “Come in.”
He moves past me carefully. I close the door, lean against it. Keep distance between us.
“Before you start,” I say, “I need you to understand something. I'm not here because I've forgiven you. I'm here because I need answers. And if I catch you twisting this to make me feel like I'm the one who did something wrong, I will walk you out that door, and you will never see me again.”
He nods. “I understand.”
“Good.” I fold my arms. “Why didn't you tell me?”
He's quiet for a moment. “When we first met, I thought you were too good to be true.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means everyone wants something from a Hammond. Money, connections, access.” He laughs bitterly.
“My ex-girlfriend was literally planted by my mother to spy on me.
So when this beautiful, smart, funny woman shows up and seems genuinely interested in me, not my name or my money. .. I didn't trust it.”
“You thought I was... faking it?”
“I thought you might be. My father has done worse.” He meets my eyes. “So I kept my distance. Watched you. Waited for the angle to reveal itself.”
“And when it didn't?”
“I started to believe you were real. That maybe, for the first time in my life, someone actually saw me.” His voice cracks. “By then, I was already falling for you. And I was terrified that if you knew where I came from, you'd see the monster instead of the man.”
“That wasn't your choice to make.”
“I know.”
The silence stretches between us. I think about all the times he deflected questions about his family. The vague answers. The subject changes.
“Brianna said something else in that bathroom. About a pregnancy. About you leaving her.”
His jaw tightens. “Brianna is a professional liar. My mother hand-picked her. She was supposed to keep me in line, report back on everything I did. When I found out and ended it, she threatened to destroy me. The pregnancy story is her insurance policy. She trots it out whenever she needs leverage.”
“How do I know that's true?”
“You don't.” He holds my gaze. “I can't prove something didn't happen. All I can do is tell you and hope you believe me.” He sighs. “You've seen how I am with kids. You think I would have abandoned my own child? I don't run from responsibility. That's something you know.”
I nod. He doesn't run when people need him. He would have done a lot more for me if I had let him.
“There's something else,” he says. His voice drops. “Something I should have told you the moment I found out.”
The way he says it makes my blood run cold. “What?”
He doesn't answer right away. Moves to the window, stares out at nothing.
“After our second date, I asked Maddox to run a background check.”
“You what?”
“Standard security protocol when someone gets close to me. My family has enemies. I needed to know you weren't connected to them.” He turns to face me. “And what he found...”
“You investigated me.” The violation of it hits hard. “You dug into my life, my history, without my permission.”
“Yes.”
“What gave you the right—“
“Nothing. Nothing gave me the right.” He cuts me off. “It was wrong. I knew it was wrong when I asked him to do it. But Emma, what he found... I need you to hear this.”
So you get to decide what I'm allowed to know about my own life?”
“Emma, listen. I wasn't going to read anything. Maddox would normally vet people for me, but this was so important that I needed to know. That you need to know.”
“Fine! What's so important that made you wait months before telling me?”
“Your family's death wasn't an accident.”
The words don't make sense at first. Just sounds. Syllables arranged in an impossible order.
“What?”