But how could I have known? Maybe I was too emotional now, but I could not remember an instant around the time I had believed we had conceived Pualani when she seemed off, different.
What was so fucking important that she would rather sleep with—no, I corrected myself—be rapedthan tell me about?
Fuck. She’d been raped.
I scrambled across the kitchen floor, half sliding and half crawling, to get to her. I pulled her from the chair and down into my lap on the floor. With her legs draped over one thigh and her ass on the other, I clung to her. Buried my face into her neck, and broke.
Kalea offereda beer bottle to me. The idea of getting drunk right now certainly had an appeal, but I needed to be clearheaded for the remainder of this conversation. Kalea put the glass bottle on the table before sitting back down on the kitchen floor between my legs. I wrapped my arms around her middle as she laid her back to my front. Her long hair tickled my nose when she dropped her head on my shoulder.
I didn’t know how long we’d stayed on the floor before Kalea had excused herself to go to the bathroom. I heard her vomiting again, and as much as I wanted to go to her, I also felt like she’d earned her privacy. She’d been invaded upon enough. When shereturned, she headed over to the fridge to grab out a tall can of iced tea and a beer for me. I scooted back against the wall as she came over, and without hesitation, she placed herself down between my legs. It settled something in me that she felt comfortable being there, being so close to me, when I had failed her so spectacularly.
I opened the can and took a sip before handing it to her. “You know this isn’t over with. I’m still going to need my questions answered.”
Kalea raised her head from my shoulder long enough to take a small sip from the can before resting it back down. “I assumed as much. I don’t know how much more I can tell you.”
That stung like a sea urchin’s barb to the heart. “Why not? Why are you still protecting him, after what he did to you?” My brows drew down. “He’s the one blackmailing you. Are you still…” Fuck, I couldn’t even say it out loud. But she’d suffered through it, all on her own. I could be man enough to say it. “Is he still raping you?”
“No,” Kalea shook her head. Her voice was soft, almost resigned. “He stopped about the same time Pualani was born. Shortly after you left, he started to demand money.”
BecauseI had left or because Pualani had been born? “Does he know about Pua?”
She shrugged. “He’s never asked about her, if that’s what you’re getting at. Nor have I allowed him to meet her.”
I didn’t know how that made me feel. Should I be proud that she didn’t allow her daughter to meet her rapist father? Fuck me. Pualani was the product of rape. All that time that I’d felt nothing for her. I hadn’t hated her, but I hadn’t claimed her either. Nearly two and a half years old, and I’d never checked in on her, never asked about her. I’d written her off just as easily as I had her mother.
How was I to have known? Yet, I was appalled by my behaviorthe past two years. It felt deplorable, like I’d been the one in the wrong instead of the one wronged.
“And before you ask, he did not use protection. I begged, but he wouldn’t.”
Fuck, that hadn’t even been one of the questions on my mind, though it should have been. Had he beentryingto get Kalea pregnant?
“Why didn’t you come to me?” It was the answer I both needed to know and dreaded to find out. “Even if you kept your secret, whatever it was or is, why didn’t you come to me? Didn’t you know I would have protected you from anything, no matter the consequences?”
She spoke so low that I thought at first I hadn’t heard her correctly. “Not from this.”
Fucking fuckery on a pogo stick. What the fuck did that mean? Why did it feel like she was digging my heart out with an old, rusted spoon? “Then why didn’t you go to Aloiki, if you couldn’t go to me?”
She didn’t answer, just fiddled with the rim of her iced tea can.
“You didn’t even contest the divorce. How could you let me walk out on you like that? How could you not tell…” My voice trailed off and I had to raise a hand to my face to wipe it.
“I knew I deserved to lose you. I prayed she was yours. I wanted her to be our medical miracle, but when I woke up and saw that paternity test, I knew it was what I deserved.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t what either of us deserved.” I looked down at her on my shoulder. “Kalea, I need to know. I need to set this right.”
“You can’t make this right,” she told me, her voice a whimper of suppressed pain and hatred. “There is no ‘right’ in my life anymore. I love Pualani. She’s my whole world, but I hate knowing her existence tore us apart.”
My frustration tasted like acid on my tongue. “I would haveloved Pualani as my own. Regardless of her conception, I would have loved her. But you weren’t honest with me, Kalea. Then or now. Your insistence on keeping your secrets is what tore us apart, not Pua.”
Her chin trembled as she nodded. “You’re right. But it changes nothing.”
“It changes everything. Because I don’t give a damn if I ever find out what your secret is that he’s blackmailing you with, but I sure asfuckam going to discover who he is. From now on, I’m your shadow. And if he ever comes near you to collect again, I’ll know and I’ll end him.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that.”
I didn’t argue that I only spoke the truth. Aloiki’s wedding was now in six days. I could hold off on telling him about all of this until I discovered more. My promise not to tell Aloiki did not extend to his sister admitting she’d been repeatedly raped and blackmailed. But with Kalea still keeping secrets, it was going to take time for me to discover the identity of Pualani’s father. I hadn’t been bluffing when I said I’d start collecting DNA samples. Aloiki and Lu deserved the happily ever after I thought I’d had. I wouldn’t ruin that for him; I owed him that much.
And perhaps it was pride that also drove my decision. Kalea had beenmywahine. I didn’t know what this revelation meant for our future—an untouchable young brunette still haunted my every dream and waking thought—but I did know I was going to right the wrong done to my ‘ohana, my family.