Page 58 of Restrained

“I know.” I feel like shit as I look down at the manicured grass of my front lawn, standing bare foot, and I notice she is too.

“But...” My eyes lift to hers. “We’re adults, and I want to hear your side of the story. I feel like I owe whatever we’ve had together... I owe us that.”

Us. The word makes my heart clench tightly in my chest. I take another step closer to her but try not to overwhelm her. “Ask me anything.”

“Were you looking for her?”

“No.” It’s the truth. I’ll only tell her the truth from now on, if she’ll let me.

She’s calmer than earlier, but not by a lot. I still see her anger under the surface and know I deserve her wrath. “Then how did you find her? You can’t tell me that hiring us was a total fluke.”

I take another step closer to her. “I have no one, literally no one. I’ve always been a loner. But around six months ago, I got drunk and started thinking about that. That I had no one.” She’s listening, but I don’t see pity in her eyes. “I hired a private investigator to find my mom.”

“She died.”

I nod. “So Penelope knew that?”

She nods her head. “She did.”

“I’m not sure why I wanted him to find her in the first place. I hated her. I still do, even if she’s dead and buried. But then, he found out she had a daughter after me.”

“How did you not know about her?”

“I’m older than her. I was out of the house when I was six years old. I never knew she existed, and I’m sure she had no clue about me. My mom... fuck. Let’s just say she wasn’t sentimental, not even about her own kid.”

She looks sad, but her guards are still up. She takes a step in my direction. “So why not just contact her like a normal fucking person, Hayden? Why the scheming? Why the lies?”

She’s back to fired up. “My mother was a shitty human being. So was my father. I don’t trust anyone with the same blood as my parents running through their veins.”

“Do you have the same father?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. My father left before I did, but I don’t know if he came back or even if he was my actual father.” Dear ole Mom really got around.

“Still. If you wanted to know her, why go through all the effort of hiring us?”

I don’t blame her for being suspicious. I know I would be. “I wanted to get to know her. See if she was a fucking shitty humanbeing too. Or if she was decent. Because if she was anything like my mom, I’d have run far, far away.”

“You could have done the same thing just meeting her, telling her who you were. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It does.” I’m now mere inches from her, trying to ignore the fact that I can smell my cologne on her from earlier today.

“It doesn’t.” She holds her chin high, elegant, stubborn and beautiful. “Explain it to me.”

“I didn’t want her to know who I was until I was sure she wasn’t a fucking bitch like our mother. I needed to know first. I just did.” I take her hand in mine, and she doesn’t pull away as I lift it to place it over my heart. “I thought I would work with her, ask her subtle questions and see what kind of person she was. But then you guys threw a curveball at me. I didn’t see you coming, Lola.”

I swallow as I look down into her eyes, the lump in my throat not disappearing as her eyes meet mine. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t know you.”

She pushes me away, angry again. “You should have told me when you started to know me, Hayden. After I handed you my virginity and then gave you my body over and over. You’re a coward.”

“You don’t know me, Lola. No one has ever called me a coward in my life.”

She pokes my chest with her finger. “I. Am. Because you are. You didn’t tell me the truth. I gave you something...”

“Something you said was no big deal.”

“Well, of course it was.” Fuck, I can’t win with her.

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