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“I did it for me, Kingsley. I did it for my own legacy. You should understand that better than anyone.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She shrugs, her fingers sliding cold, detached, out of mine. "It’s done. Hamilton is in my blood. Just like Baxter is in yours. Haven't you told me a hundred times that you'd do anything to save your company? Do anything to give it that edge ahead of other companies? I saw an opportunity and I took it. This is going to change the future for The Hamilton Group. Didn't you tell me you'd do whatever was in your power to help your company in any way you could? I listened."
My own words echo back at me, but haunting in her detached voice.
"No. Not at the expense of who you are. Of lying, of breaking a trust. I never ever meant that."
Her heartless chuckles sends shivers down my spine. "Then that's where we differ. Maybe this is where I'm willing to do something you wouldn't. Maybe this is something my father taught me that he never taught you. Maybe he knew you'd never have the stomach for it. Maybe you are so used to having everything that you don't see that there are things as a Hamilton, I have to do things that a Baxter doesn't."
The words, they're in her voice, but they're not coming from her. She doesn’t have it in her to be this cruel.
This isn't her.
I grip the side of her bedrail, to stop myself from shaking her. “You didn’t have to do this. Why did you do this?! Why didn’t you just ask me for help?”
I comb through the conversations we’ve had. All the times we talked about what she wanted for her future, what her father had wanted, what she could do to continue his name. Did I miss something? Had she actually reached out and I’d said no?
“Would you have helped me help Hamilton? You never helped Alex, your grandfather never helped my father. Why would I have believed that you and I would be any different?”
Pain and anger splinter like an imperfect bone break, jabbing into my beating heart.
My words spill blood as I say them.
“Because I would have given you anything. All you ever had to do was ask.”
She shrugs. "Turns out, I did it myself, without your help." The words are simple, more brutal than I thought she could ever be.
The world tips upside down and I’m straining against the rails for support.
I need to get out of here. I need air, I’m drowning. But I need more answers first.
“When did you decide to do this, Luna? When we first met? After the night at Watergate Bay? After I fucked your brains out the first time? The first time I made you get you on your knees and choke on my cock?”
Betrayal sears my lungs, dissolving the last of my civility and the ferocity of my own words scares me.
She winces, and her eyes glaze over, a teary sheen betraying the cold in her voice. But she doesn’t take back her words. “It doesn't matter. I got what I needed. I'm sorry you got caught inthe crossfire. I hope it won’t affect your CEO vote too much. You deserve i—”
My hands blister on the bed rail from gripping too tightly and I tear them away, my hands scraping through my hair. "I don't care about the fucking CEO position! I care about why you did this! I trusted you. I gave you everything I had. I gave you more of myself than I ever thought I was capable of giving someone else. ”
I stare at her through tears stained eyes, a choked sob cracking my voice. “Don’t you know what I would’ve done for you? Who fucking cares about a measly business deal? If you’d wanted my company, I would’ve given it to you. All you ever had to do was ask. If you’d needed space, I would’ve bought you the moon. If you’d need time, I’d have stopped the turning of the earth with my bare hands. If you’d needed air, I’d have sucked the oxygen out of my own lungs for you. And when you begged to get to know me better, I laid myself bare at your feet. I cut myself open and bled from every vein for you. All I ever asked was that I could trust you. All you ever had to do was trust me to put you first."
She flinches at my words, a single tear falling from her left eye but she still doesn't look at me.
And when she finally speaks, all she says is, "Maybe you should be careful who you trust next time."
Forty-Four
Kingsley
"Should we be worried?"
"I don't know. This actually looks kind of par for the course."
"The Baxter Eighteen holes of A Female Ripped My Heart Out course?"
"That's the best name you could come up with?"
