Fall To Pieces: Broken #2 (The Broken Series) Read online

I shook my head.

  Of course, it all started to make sense now.

  Kyle and Mike’s hostility toward each other had always seemed so…personal.

  Mike’s last name was Henderson. Duh, The Henderson Hotel Chain…

  How had I not but this all together sooner?

  Because you’re stupid, that’s why. Too wrapped up in Kyle Carter to see or even think straight.

  Different surnames because they had different mothers… Mike had been claimed, Kyle had been abandoned. I’d been so freaking blind.

  “I’m sorry, princess, I should have told you earlier.”

  Yes, you damn well should have.

  Kyle should have warned me and so should Mike.

  Mike and I were friends. It hurt me, more than it should, to think that I’d sat and ate lunch with Mike every day at work, and he’d never once mentioned the fact that he and Kyle were brothers. I wouldn’t have expected their whole life story, but a heads up would have been nice.

  I blocked out my thoughts and tried to listen to Kyle, who was rambling on quickly.

  “When we got back from visiting your dad in Louisiana, after everything we’d been through… I couldn’t take anymore, Lee. I had you. And Lee…You were more than I’d ever bargained for. I wanted you so damn much, but I was so fucking trapped. I needed a way out.

  “I confided in Linda, told her everything. She dug around, contacted Rachel’s mother and found out the truth about her surgery. If I hadn’t told Linda, I would still be trapped right now. The night I left you at the party, was the night I found out the truth. Linda had phoned me that day and told me that everything I had believed for two years, was a lie.”

  He stopped talking for a moment, leaned down and grasped my chin gently, forcing my eyes to meet his.

  “I left the party with Rachel, because I was desperate to finish things, and for no other reason. I didn’t lay a finger on her, and I never will again. I wanted to be with you. Still do.

  “It’s always been you, Lee, from the second I saw you in my kitchen that very first night. You fucking broke me that night, baby. You took the air right out of my lungs that night and I haven’t breathed since.”

  He was talking, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. This was not okay.

  ‘If I hadn’t told Linda I would still be trapped right now.’

  I suddenly felt cold to the bone.

  Those words, that one simple admission of betrayal, surpassed all his guilt and apologies.

  Whether he intended it or not, that one sentence was the nail in the coffin for our relationship.

  I couldn’t be around him anymore. I didn’t know the stranger in front of me. He knew all of the darkness inside of me. I knew nothing.

  “No.” I blinked back the tears. “No, Kyle.”

  He leaned away from me, surprised, “No? What do mean?”

  He didn’t get it, didn’t understand a damn thing.

  “I can’t do this. With you, I can’t,” I whispered.

  I just wanted him to go.

  He ran his hand through his hair almost roughly. “You don’t get to push me away. It won’t work. I’m yours, you’re stuck with me. I won’t leave you again.”

  How could he say these things to me? Was he crazy?

  I looked up at him; there was a determined glint in his eyes.

  “Well, I’m not yours and I’m not playing this game with you anymore, Kyle,” I said weakly. “I always lose and I’m too tired to get back up again.”

  I needed to be alone, to think everything through. I couldn’t do that with him pressuring me.

  I knew that if I he didn’t leave soon I would submit. I would cave, and hate myself for it.

  He had made a choice at the party, and every other time he’d deliberately tricked me and lied.

  I had one to make now.

  “It’s over. Whatever this thing is between us, I don’t want to be involved in it anymore.” The words tasted bitter on my tongue and my heart was screaming at me to stop.

  Every instinct and urge in my body, protested my decision. But my brain-the critical tool that had been absent for my previous Kyle Carter, decision making moments-was set.

  My mind was made up, and there was no going back.

  He visibly shook at my words. “You can’t mean that, Lee. She doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything from the start. But you came along and…I didn’t know…I’ve never felt…” he hissed. “Shit, it’s all so complicated.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether I know what happened this time or not,” I sobbed. “I know what happened every other time, and all of the lies and secrets? I can’t deal with it anymore. She told you terrible lies, Kyle, awful ones, but you did that to me. You lied to me, time and again.

  “Months went by, where you could have told me the truth, but you didn’t. How am I supposed to get over that? Our whole relationship was based on a lie. But the worst part of this whole mess, is that you told Linda.”

  I stopped and sniffed away my tears. “You trusted and confided in Linda instead of me and I think that’s what hurts the most, the fact that you thought so little of me. I’m in love with you, Kyle; it would have made my life so much easier to have known the truth. I would have understood. If you had just been truthful with me from the beginning…You didn’t give us a fighting chance.

  “I’d no idea what I was getting involved in, or whom I was getting involved with…and if Linda hadn’t found out the truth, you would still be lying to me, hiding me. And the day would have come when you would have left me.”

  I knew that was true, he had already done it to me, many times over.

  “You would have left me for Rachel. You would’ve had to because of your stupid agreement and I would have been cast aside, like an old toy. Maybe it’s only now because I’m pregnant, that I can see it clearly, but it’s wrong, we’re wrong, Kyle. You led me on; I won’t be that girl anymore.

  ****

  Kyle

  Lee pushed farther away from me in the bed, curling her hands around herself defensively.

  This was not happening. No fucking way. I’d fought too hard to be with Lee, to have her walk away from me.

  I stared at her pale face, tears were filling her eyes.

  “You’re having my baby,” I whispered.

  I was going to be a father. Lee was having my child.

  I had hope. She was mine, there was a part of me growing inside her that she couldn’t deny and my heart swelled with hope.

  I felt like a bastard for thinking like this, but I was desperate. I was silently thanking god for my momentary blip in safe sex. It was my only way back to her now.

  What could I say to her about the miscarriage, to make her feel better? Absolutely nothing…

  Twins.

  She’d been pregnant with twins for three fucking months and it’d almost killed her, and I hadn’t been there.

  All those promises I’d made to her, that I’d been so sure I could keep, and the one fucking time she needed me, I hadn’t been there.

  I was so full of self-loathing I was afraid to be alone right now. My thoughts were tormenting me, and the image of Lee’s blood all over the bathroom floor, was killing me.

  I didn’t want to go home. I would never forgive myself.

  For Christ’s sake, I’d known she was sick. I’d fucking known, and still, I had left the party, too fucking intent on revenge that I’d been ignorant of my sick girlfriend.

  She’d called for help. I remembered.

  Some guy at the party, had told me there was a girl calling for me…I had known it was Lee and I had still walked away.

  The dark sickened pain inside of me was suffocating. I didn’t deserve forgiveness.

  Derek had told me about Lee’s condition. He’d called it a concurrent ectopic and intrauterine pregnancy.

  I had no fucking clue what those words meant, only that the doctor had removed the baby that had died, and Lee’s fallopian tube
.

  I was torn apart over the miscarriage, but I knew whatever I was feeling, Lee was feeling it tenfold.

  I was so grateful she was still pregnant, but Jesus, I was terrified something else was going to happen. We had no goddamn luck.

  It was more than not having luck, it was as if there was a force determined to keep us apart; first Rachel, and now Lee herself.

  I watched the tears roll down her cheeks. She was not leaving me. Not now.

  “I know,” she whispered quietly.

  I waited for her to say something else, anything else, but she didn’t.

  What was I supposed to do? Shit, I didn’t know. I’d just told her everything, finally, and it wasn’t enough.

  I balled my fists together. “Don’t do this.”

  I was begging, but I’d get down on my hands and knees if it meant she’d come back to me.

  “What can I do to fix this?” I asked, the emotion obvious in my voice. “Tell me what to do, Lee, and I’ll do it.”

  She shook her head, her curls falling into her eyes. I moved closer to brush them back from her face. She gasped at the contact, she still felt something.

  Thank God.

  “You can’t fix this, Kyle, can’t fix me... I need time on my own.”

  Like fuck I couldn’t fix her, I’d spend the rest of my life trying to fix her. I didn’t believe a word of her denial. I had screwed up phenomenally, but there had to be a way back from this…

  “No.”

  “Kyle,” she sighed, and I looked into those pale shattered gray eyes.

  I guess it’s true what they say; when you have everything, you have everything to lose.

  That quote never had a truer fucking meaning than my life right now.

  My heart sank. I knew whatever she was about to say would be bad.

  “If you care about me,” she mumbled, pausing as she inhaled a wobbly breath. “If you have ever cared about me, you will leave me be.”

  “If you have ever cared about me?”

  She didn’t know the half of the depth of my feelings for her, but if I told her how I felt now, she probably wouldn’t believe me, or worse; think I was lying to her.

  I shook my head, and opened my mouth to respond, but she spoke first.

  “I need to be on my own for a while. I need to make some decisions and I can’t think clearly around you. I need you to give me some space while I recover. Don’t come back here. Please.”

  I was torn apart by her words.

  Did she mean it? Was she testing my commitment to her?

  I thought about it, and realized, sadly, that she meant every word.

  Lee didn’t play games. She was the most honest person I knew. If she said something, she meant it. But fuck did it hurt…

  “I don’t want you to be alone on Christmas,” I said pathetically, holding back the tears. “Please don’t ask me to do this, princess.”

  Truth be told, I didn’t want to be alone. Everything was slipping away from me, and I was using anything I could think of, to get her to change her mind.

  “Is this really what you want?” I asked when she didn’t answer me.

  She closed her eyes, and slowly nodded.

  Tears slid down her cheekbones and there was a finality to this picture that I couldn’t handle.

  I jerked out of the chair, and paced the floor, unable to sit still any longer. I couldn’t breathe.

  How was I supposed to make my legs walk out that door and leave her and my baby?

  “How much time do you need?” I asked looking down at her.

  Her body was tensed, her eyes closed.

  “I don’t know.”

  I went to her.

  Leaning down, I clasped her face between both of my hands. “I’ll be here. When you are ready, you call me, I will be here.”

  I kissed her lips, tasted the wetness of her salty tears on my lips. I pulled away too soon, afraid I would push her too far. “Do you understand me? I will be here waiting for you, when you’re ready to let me back in.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lee

  I had a decision to make. I had many to make actually. The first and possibly most important one I had already made when I placed that phone call last night. I was now hoping it was a decision that wouldn’t come back to bite me in the butt.

  I rubbed the skin covering my swollen stomach and sighed. I’d been through hell and back in the past six weeks, but I’d survived, and most importantly, so had the child growing in my womb.

  “You got everything you need, Lee?”

  I smiled, it was a weak one, but it was all I could muster given the circumstances.

  “Yes,” I replied zipping closed my duffel bag.

  Mike Henderson stood in the doorway of my hospital room, tall, handsome and intimidating as hell, but offering me an escape; a temporary exit to this messed up life I had slipped into.

  When I’d phoned him last night asking for a favor, it wasn’t to hurt his brother, or upset my friends. I’d just needed someone to talk to, someone who wasn’t bias and wouldn’t judge me on my poor decisions.

  It hurt to think of the reasons why I was standing in a hospital room.

  Losing the baby and losing Kyle all in the same night was something I didn’t like to think about, couldn’t think about.

  It had been over six weeks since that night, the night my life and everything in it fell to pieces. I’d found out I was pregnant and then I wasn’t, and then I was again, all in a matter of hours.

  Twins, the doctor had said. One had died, one survived. And the man I loved, the man I trusted more than anyone in this world, had betrayed me.

  For the sake of my sanity, I locked away those feelings and thoughts in a box, in the darkest part of my mind, the same box I kept the memories of my father’s beatings, and the petrified feelings that had engulfed me on the night of my highschool prom, when Perry Franklin had tried to rape me.

  Pretense was now my coping mechanism for carrying on, for surviving one day at a time.

  So, for the past forty plus days, while I healed from the surgery and the medical team monitored my pregnancy, I’d closed off my feelings and tried to adjust to my new life.

  I’d gotten a nasty infection after the surgery which had delayed my discharge by a couple of weeks, which had been a gift from god.

  Well, the infection was gross and that had sucked, but the relief of having an extra few weeks before I’d to face my roommates-one roommate in particular- had sweetened the deal.

  Dr. Ashcroft had warned me of the different complications and infections the baby was vulnerable to because of my intrusive surgery, but was delighted with how I was progressing.

  The baby was perfect, developing exactly as he should be.

  I had been offered to join a therapeutic group for teenagers who were struggling to adapt to motherhood, but I’d declined.

  I was grieving the baby I’d lost, not struggling to adapt to the one I had inside of me. This sense of despair would pass. I just needed to give it time. Not talk. I didn’t want to talk, I wanted to move forward. I thought that was a pretty mature response to the U-turn my life had taken. I was allowed to be sad. No one was going to tell me I wasn’t.

  I wasn’t upset about being pregnant, even though at my age, with my lack of qualifications and money, I should have been. Instead, I was excited, and terrified, in a good way, I think.

  I had waited my whole life to have someone who I could love, and would love me in return. The map of my life had shifted effortlessly, and was now focused entirely on the baby growing inside me.

  Even If I could never have his father, I would have my baby. Yeah, I thought I was having a boy… that was my gut feeling.

  Realistically, the thought of having this baby scared me to death, let alone having a boy.

  How could I raise a boy? I knew nothing about boys. Look at the man whose child I was carrying, I sure didn’t know a thing about him.

  I hadn’t’ seen Kyle since C
hristmas Day. For once in his life, he was doing what I asked him to do; leaving me alone and that depressed me deeply.

  So much had changed; so many incidences and bad choices pushed me towards my decision to call Mike to collect me today.

  I hadn’t told my roommates Derek Porter, or Camryn Frey, I was coming home today. I didn’t think my pride could take their pity, and I knew they would tell Kyle. They’d kinda have to considering the four of us shared a house-Kyles house.

  It was bad enough I would be returning to his house, I didn’t want an audience when I walked through that door with my tail between my legs.

  So, last night, when Cam came to visit I’d told her I had tests all day today so there was no need to visit.

  Cam, Kyle and Derek were seniors at CU, and all three of them had classes on Friday, which gave me a few hours before I had to face them.

  If I had any other option, I would run as fast and as far from that house as I could. But I was broke, and going home to my father was not something I could even begin to contemplate.

  Daddy was recovering from a lifetime of alcohol abuse, and the thought of arriving home, nineteen and pregnant, wasn’t something that filled me with warm, fuzzy feelings. I had a pretty strong suspicion that my pregnancy would derail daddy’s sobriety, not to mention my fear of what he would do to me. He had a nasty temper, and the man could flip as quick as a light switch.

  No, I was just going to have to save up as much money as I could before the baby was born, so I could get my own place.

  Cam was my best friend though, and I knew it should be her bringing me home. She was the one who had sat with me day in, day out, since I’d been hospitalized, well, her and Mike.

  But I just couldn’t face her…She wouldn’t understand my calling Mike; in fact she would probably be furious. I understood why; Mike and Kyle were brothers, a lieu estranged ones.

  Mike had played his part in the whole ‘make a fool out of Lee’ charade, but the difference was-and it was an important one-that Mike hadn’t lied, hadn’t hurt me, couldn’t hurt me. Not like Kyle had, or could.

  Mike didn’t own any piece of my heart and I knew I could trust him. He was on my side, he had said as much when he arrived at the hospital.