Fall To Pieces: Broken #2 (The Broken Series) (2 page)

I shouldn’t have said that.

“Maybe.” Kyle smiled softly, looking down at our joined hands.

I was enjoying the way he stroked the back of my hand with his thumb far too much.

I pulled my hand away.

He frowned but didn’t question me.

Instead, he continued, delving into the darkest parts of his past; the past he’d blocked me out of for too long. “She told me the impact from the wreck had damaged her, that she’d had a hysterectomy. I didn’t question it. I was too absorbed in my guilt. It was so close to home
, you know? I’d ruined my mother’s life and then… I thought I had killed Rachel’s baby and any chances of her having another. I felt so fucking guilty, Lee. I thought I’d destroyed her, ruined her whole life.”

He looked at my face, his piercing blue eyes capturing me, pulling me in.

I was stupefied.

“None of it was true?”

He shook his head. “It was all lies. There was never any baby, and even if there had been, it wouldn’t have been mine. I used protection with her. I always use protection.”

Not always
. 

He hadn’t used protection the first time we’d slept together. The night I’d given him my virginity and he
, in return, had given me rejection issues and a seriously bruised heart.

God
, I was so stupid. I should have known that night; I should have walked away from him, instead of going back and forth with him for months.

“It was Rachel’s vindictive attempt at holding onto the affluent future she had planned in her head,” Kyle continued. “She had surgery on her spleen
, princess, nothing else.

“She knew I wasn’t serious about her, so she laid the guilt trip on me, forcing me into submission, using my guilt as a means to trap me into the fucked up relationship you’ve seen over the past six months.”

It was hard to hold onto my anger when I look at the pained expression in his face.

His voice had a tint of desperation, as if he was begging me to understand.

I wanted to…But I just couldn’t.

He sighed heavily. “At the time
, I would have promised her anything she wanted. I thought I’d ruined her life, giving up my freedom seemed the only redeemable thing to do. So, when she started crying about how no man would want a barren wife, I’d promised her I would stick by her.

“I agreed to an arrangement
, that when the time came for me to settle down…I would, with her.

“You have to remember, I wasn’t born into the life of affluence either. I didn’t understand what I was getting myself involved in when I met her. I didn’t grow up encountering gold-diggers. I was green and she knew it. I felt I owed her so I made that promise. I didn’t love her; I didn’t expect to love anyone. I never anticipated you walking into my life last summer and turning it inside out.”

Mike?

My mind was stuck on that one name. I couldn’t believe this
.

“Mike is your brother?”

Kyle nodded, looking puzzled. “Yeah, I thought you knew that?”

No, I didn’t. Because he didn’t tell me, he never told me anything. This was another prime example of Kyle blocking me out.

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.

E
very 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 fu
ck 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.”