“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.”
