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So moving back to Belmont in Canada was her last resort.
And seeing Cole Belmont. Sweet lips, Cole Belmont.
Hope swallowed hard when she thought of Cole. She was lucky Cole took a liking to her and liked her enough not to do a thorough background check on her when she worked for him after she finished college. But she’d earned his trust then—until she broke it.
Her heart turned over in her chest at the thought of seeing him again. Cole was the only man who made her feel as if she were the only woman in the world. That’s why it disturbed her to inadvertently hurt him the way she did, but she had no choice. Things were moving too quickly for her. Hope couldn’t risk him finding out what she’d done during her studies in college. Lives could be ruined. Her lungs squeezed at the chilling thought. Why couldn’t her life have been simpler?
One silly mistake.
One night of confusion.
One decision.
A decision she was haunted with for the rest of her life.
Hope had not one but two overwhelming secrets she was harboring…
The first was that thing she was forced to do back in college to hide her dark past, while she was a student. She was sure Cole would never understand.
And the second was that she’d found out that she was pregnant after she and Cole broke up.
She looked back to see her daughter sleeping in the car seat in the backseat of her gray Ford Escort.
The Belmonts were respectable people, rich and powerful and had connections everywhere. Would they understand the choices she had to make? Would they try to take her daughter, Mia, away from her if they found out what Hope did in college before she even met them? Would they wrongly label her unfit to care for a Belmont child? She didn’t want to think about it. They were good people but she’d been less than honest with them because she felt she had no choice. The very thought of what Cole’s family might do made her head spin.
One step at a time, Hope.
Still, she had no choice but to return to the town. But what would she do about her daughter?
She could feel her blood pumping hard and fast. This wasn’t the life she’d planned. But her father had messed up things for her and her mother. Now her mother was deceased. Hope had no one to whom she could turn.
She felt so alienated.
There was a time when she wondered if she could go on…
But one glance at Mia and she knew she had every reason in the world. Her greatest blessing in life called her “Mom.” Her heart melted at the thought. She loved Mia more than she valued her own life—or anything in her life.
It was extremely difficult raising Mia on her own, but thankfully she’d had the support of her friend Jewel and Jewel’s husband, Giles. They were married after Jewel dropped out of college to have Giles’s baby and to become a stay-at-home mom. Their son was now six, so Jewel had been there to help Hope as a single parent. Hope didn’t know what she would've done if she didn't have any close friends. She was sorry Jewel was going through a rough patch, too. Especially when the economy was tough. All it took was a layoff and everything could go downhill. Savings and resources could easily go dry in a heartbeat when a steady flow of income was suddenly halted. She just hoped she herself could move into a better apartment.
Jewel was perhaps her only friend. At least the only friend Hope could trust. The only friend who knew her two little secrets, one of what she'd done in college, along with everything about her past, and the other was about her daughter.
But still, Hope longed to be with Cole. Every day and every night, Hope had dreamed about what it would've been like if they had been together—as a loving family. But she knew that would be nothing more than a fantasy, because if he ever found out about her background, her life would be all over, and he'd probably take Mia from her.
She squashed that thought from her mind. It was early in December, a few weeks to Christmas. She had to think about Mia and making the best holiday she could for her precious little girl while praying and hoping that one day her daughter would forgive her for what she had to do and understood the tough choices she had to make.
Hope turned the steering wheel of her vehicle through the slushy roads of Coverton Avenue. She almost lost control of the car as she panicked to reach her destination before it closed.
How on earth did she end up this way? Hope had blown through her savings. She pondered as she drove down Main Street in her car—that she could now no longer afford to run if she didn’t get a job soon—and looked for 32 Sybil Street as the crisp snow fell hard on her windshield.
Who was it that said: Tough times don’t last, but tough people do. Hope could only pray that this tough time wouldn’t last. But she didn’t know any other way.
“Are we there yet?” The innocent, little voice in the backseat of her car interrupted her thoughts as she drove through the dark, snowy night.
“Soon, baby.” Warmth swept inside Hope and she melted at the sound of her three-year-old daughter’s voice. She was tired after a long day at the daycare. A pang of guilt struck Hope as she glanced through the rearview mirror to see Mia clinging to her teddy with her left hand with her right thumb in her mouth. Her pink sippy cup was off to the side and now empty. The cup was very special. Hope had seen it at a fair. It had an image of a brown cuddly teddy bear on it holding a bunch of flowers. The red flowers reminded Hope of the roses Cole had given her a few years earlier after their brief engagement.
She wondered if she’d tried harder to get in touch with Mia’s father, if things would have worked out between them, if things would’ve been different. At least she would have a two-income family—Ha! That was an understatement. Cole was listed as one of the wealthiest, young bachelors on the planet, not that money attracted her to men like it did for most other girls. Well, at least she would have had a strong emotional support system. A good Christmas, instead of lonesome holidays with her daughter, alone, while she looked over her shoulders and suspected her neighbors of finding out about her past.
It was very fortunate Cole never did a thorough background check on her to learn about her dark family secret. Hope figured he was so impressed with her work as a student and knew her affluent family background from Lendovia that it wasn’t necessary. She still had feelings for him and she knew he’d thought the world of her before she fled, at least. But if he found out about her secret life before Mia was even born, he’d go digging into the real reason she walked out on him and never looked back—and it had nothing to do with her blessed pregnancy.
Hope sighed heavily. It could have never worked out. Besides, they’d had such a difficult breakup.
No use trying to rewrite the past to feel better. She dismissed the thoughts in her mind and sent them marching to the bin of forgetful lane.
She switched off the ignition, grabbed her purse and looked lovingly over her shoulder at her adorable, sleepy three-year-old daughter, Mia—the true pride and joy of her life. The food bank was located in the basement of the church; they’d be closing soon. Hope sighed at the thought. Not that she didn’t appreciate their support and having such a wonderful service in times of great need, but she just couldn’t help herself.
Begging. Relying on handouts. This was not how she had planned her life, but being laid off wasn’t in the plans either, neither was being a single parent. Cole and Hope broke up just before she found out she was even pregnant. In fact, before she could tell him she was pregnant. Yet he’d given her the greatest gift she’d ever received in her life—Mia Morgan. Hope swallowed hard, thinking that she really wanted to name her Mia Belmont but she couldn’t. Belmont was a very special name, and Cole would’ve found out fast.
Her mind went back on that night at the office. A fax had come in from a detective agency. And she’d destroyed it. It had to do with Charlie Xszykee from Xszykee Financial Inc., the company that swindled billions of dollars from the Belmont Empire, not to mention billions more from other unsuspecting clients. Xszykee was currently serving a life sentence in prison for multiple counts of fraud, embezzlement and murder. Hope told Cole it was an error, but that was stupid of her because of course the detective agency would have more copies. He was disappointed with her—and who could blame him? Still, she was only trying to spare him from heartbreak later down the road. It wasn’t what it looked like but she couldn’t explain it to him at the time why she’d inadvertently shredded the documents, thinking it was something else.
Hope was determined to not live the rest of her life being miserable—for Mia’s sake. As one minister once said, “Disappointment happens but misery is an option.” She was determined to be happy for her little girl, no matter what curve balls life threw her and no matter what happened.
She needed to be strong for her little girl.
This was only a temporary glitch, a tiny setback. Hope believed in hard work and perseverance paying off. She had to believe in good things; it was necessary to motivate her and keep her going, if nothing else. Reality was biting cold on this early December night but she had to keep her spirits warm with some shred of optimism for Mia’s sake as much as her own.
“Mommy, I’m tired,” Mia said yawning. Hope lifted her out of her car seat; the effects of a long day at daycare while mommy was busy attending job interviews.
