“I am.”
There’s a long moment where he looks me over, before he asks, “Why should I hand them over to you?”
I take my time mulling over his question before responding—silence is more powerful than words after all.
“I know as well as you do, you’re never getting out of here. You might have the cutthroat personality for this business, but you can’t run it from a prison cell. You need someone who can fill your shoes, who can not only carry on the Hayes legacy, but can make it more prominent than it has ever been before.”
“And you think you’re the one to do that?”
The catch is, I’m the only one who could fucking do it. The idiot only had one son—me. My sister is too young to have to deal with any of this shit, not that my father would even consider a woman to continue on the Hayes legacy. So, there’s no one else, and he fucking knows it. The sick fuck just wants to make me work for it.
With my expressionless mask in place, I curl my lip in a confident sneer. “I know I am.”
***
The second I’m back in the dorm, I shrug off my suit jacket and pull the tie over my head, needing to divest myself of this fucking suit as soon as possible. I feel too much like my father, dressed like this, with the grimy air of the prison still stuck to my skin. Shucking off my trousers, I head straight for the shower, not wasting a second as I turn on the faucet and stand under the hot spray. Pressing my hand flat against the tile wall, I press my chin to my chest, and let the water just wash over me.
Today was a win. My father agreed to sign over the shares, but it took a lot out of me to go toe-to-toe with him in that room, alone. Since I started Pac and moved out from under his roof, I’ve rarely had to spend time alone with him. And as much as I like to think I’m over what he did to me, when I’m face-to-face with him like I was today, it’s difficult not to remember the way he made me feel as a little kid.
I feel a warm hand on my back, and I don’t even have to turn around to know who it is. She stands on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around my upper arms, clinging to my shoulders and pressing a kiss to my shoulder blade. The two of us stay like that for a long moment, and I just let her nearness take the edge off my jitteriness. I can understand, now more than ever, how Lawrence’s presence had such a debilitating effect on her. It doesn’t matter how much you tell yourself you’ve come to terms with your past, that you’re bigger, stronger, more powerful now. When you come face-to-face with that one thing, that one person that has always gotten under your skin, it tears through every barrier you’ve ever constructed, breaks apart every positive thought you’ve repeated to yourself, and strips you bare of the armor you’d carefully placed around you.
It doesn’t matter if you’re five years old, twenty-five, or fifty. Trauma is trauma, and no matter how much you tell yourself you’re over it, that you’re stronger than the ghosts that haunt you, you’re always going to be weakened in their presence. They are always going to have a hold over your inner psyche. Which is why you need people around you, people you can rely on, can lean on, who can stand up beside you and remind you that you’re not that weak kid anymore.
Hadley is my strength, just as I hope she can now see that I am hers, as are the others. Together, we can face any challenge and come out stronger.
I turn in her arms, pulling her in flush against me, and resting my head on her shoulder. She strokes her fingers through my wet hair, the gesture soothing, and I feel the last of the tension leave my body.
Eventually, she shuts off the shower and grabs towels for us, and silently, she leads me to my bedroom, and we settle on the bed. I drag her into my arms, and she slots in perfectly against me.
“Tell me about today,” she whispers. It’s not a demand, and I know if I told her I didn’t want to talk about it, she would let it be, but she deserves better than that, and honestly, now that it’s done, I feel like I have gained some closure. Today drained me, but I feel stronger for having faced my father. I feel fucking great for having deceived him. He’s going to be absolutely furious when he discovers the truth, but by then, it will be too late—not that he can do anything about it from behind bars.
I bury my nose in her hair, breathing in her vanilla and honey scent. “I got the shares.”
She doesn’t say anything, waiting me out. She doesn’t care about the shares, not really, and that’s not what she meant anyway.
I sigh, relishing in the feel of having her pressed up against me. It’s not easy for me to talk about my feelings. It’s not something I’ve ever really had to do before, and it doesn’t come naturally. But slowly, I open up to her, telling her how it felt seeing my dad again today, and once I start, the words just flow out of me, until I’m telling her all about my past, and the dark cloud he shrouded our house with.
The whole time, she just lets me hold her, and silently listens to me, and by the time I’m done, I feel lighter than I ever remember feeling. Huh, maybe there is something to be said for this whole talking your feelings out.
She’s silent for a long moment before she speaks up, her voice husky and clogged with emotion. “You’re never going back there.”
Abso-fucking-lutely.
“Have you had any more, uh, episodes?” I ask her once I’m all talked out. I have no idea what to call those moments when she’s not in the present, but finding her beating up that kid scared me. Not the fact she was attacking him, but the vacant look in her eye. It was obvious she wasn’t aware of what she was doing.
“None like the day you and Hawk found me...but sometimes I struggle to remember I’m not back there. It’s like, I can be here, in the present, then something small sets me off—a certain smell or noise—and all of a sudden, I’m trapped in that cell again. Usually it’s only for a second or two, but it’s terrifying.” Her admission is a quiet whisper, like it’s something to be ashamed of, but I can’t begin to imagine how difficult that must be, to feel so out of control. It certainly explains her need to burn herself out in the gym.
I pull her in closer to me, feeling her snuggle into my side, and it’s not long before we drift off to sleep.
Chapter 19
For the third fucking time in as many weeks, we’re all sequestered back in the boardroom at our parents’ offices. Honestly, I’ve seen enough of this fucking building to last me a lifetime.