Never Say Forever

I bring my hand to my mouth, not sure what to say. He looks so angry, almost as though the admission was his. But he would never—

“It’s not common knowledge and nothing I’d like to hear anyone say. It’s enough that finding out changed everything. He destroyed what I thought I knew about love. He destroyed what was left of my family. And if you ask my siblings what he died of they’ll tell you I killed him.”

“No. I don’t believe that.”

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

“You said we had a lifetime to find out,” I almost whisper, my eyes sliding to the big screen behind him. Whatever game is playing, I can’t say I’m watching as I wish with all my heart I’d kept those words to myself.

“And I meant it.” His use of the past tense makes my eyes sting, though I force the tears back. “But you’re right. I didn’t kill him. He had a heart attack after I confronted him. After I told him I would no longer work for him. I was supposed to head up the family business. Fucking groomed. I have his name, right? But I told him to shove it. That I’d tell everyone why, even if that last threat was a lie.”

He raises his glass as though toasting the sentiment before bringing it to his beautiful mouth. Light glints from his watch like a warning as he throws it back. Leaning back in his chair, he gestures to the waitress for another.

“And then he died, and everything came to me. Carson Hayes the fucking third.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” His eyes dip when I cover his hand with my own.

“Tell that to my family. Tell that to the people who lost their livelihood when I set out to destroy Hayes Industries almost immediately. I was going to have revenge. If not for those women, then for me.”

“You were angry. Suffering from shock and grief.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is betrayal. I felt betrayed. And I was going to make him pay, alive or dead. I’d raze Hayes Industries to the fucking ground.”

“But you didn’t.” I surmise, at least.

“No. I pulled my head out of my ass because it wasn’t his business anymore. It was mine. My responsibility. I was suddenly accountable to and for a workforce.”

For the first time I think I realise this is who he is. Carson Hayes is a man of principal, as odd as it feels to say given what’s passed between us. If I put aside my own anger and grief, I see he is a man who assumes responsibility for those around him, not for prestige, appearances, or accolades, but because he was born to. His men, his friends, and his employees. He’d taken me and Lulu under his wing long before he’d taken us into his heart. This time it isn’t so easy to hold back the prickle of tears, though I manage to stem the flow, gathering them against my fingertips before the inevitable flood.

“Given your shock and your grief,” I say, stifling a tiny sniff, “I’d imagine most people would forgive you.”

“I couldn’t tell my family the truth. I didn’t want them to suffer through it, and there was always the possibility they’d say I was making it up. Jealousy there, too, I guess. I was his favourite. He left everything to me, and they see this as a great injustice. Like some medieval fucked up patricide.”

“I don’t know what to say.” It sounds quite pathetic but it’s also very true. I am lost for words.

“Maybe not yet you don’t.” My stomach tightens as I watch his shoulders move with the kind of sign that seems to have been dragged from the depths of his soul. “Punishment,” he says next, leaving the word hanging in the air between us.

“What about it,” I answer eventually.

“You know the expression; punishment should fit the crime? It seemed prophetic the first time.”

I don’t know which hurts more, my stomach or my head. But as the waitress puts down his drink, I say nothing. What could I say? There’s no comfort for either of us.

“Ardeo was meant to be an outlet for the guys but I hung out there, too. You might not see or admit the symmetry in our cowardice,” he says, using a finger to gesture between us, “but it’s there. You withdrew from relationships after St Odile. I threw myself into sex to drown it all out.”

“I had nothing to do with this, you can’t—”

“Blame you?” He says fiercely. “How could I blame you? You were the one good thing to come out of that time and I think that on some level, my brain registered I was never going to get better than you. Better than that night. So then in—”