Damaged Read online

  Damaged

  Miley Maine

  Copyright © 2020 by Miley Maine

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a piece of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  If you are reading this book and book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  For any queries, reach out at [email protected]

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Special Invite from Miley

  Blurb

  The moment she had her head rest on my shoulder, I should have moved away.

  Instead, I enjoyed it.

  And just 2 days later, I gave in and kissed her.

  I wanted to claim her in ways unimaginable.

  And I was a fool to think I could get lost in her delicious curves for a night and then, just be friends with her.

  My wife and son’s memories still haunt me.

  Starting a new relationship is just…wrong.

  I’ll have to break Emma’s heart,

  ‘cause she’s fallen deep for me.

  But the baby she’s carrying?

  Could she be my forever?

  Chapter One

  Vincent

  I tried not to let my emotions get the better of me as I stared down at the picture in my hands. Both sadness and happiness filled me as I looked at the picture of my dead wife, Maya.

  She had passed away four years ago, minus a day, while giving birth to our beautiful son, Gavin, who was currently running around on the front lawn with his nanny.

  Every time I looked into his face, I saw her staring back at me. Every time he smiled, I could hear her laughter ringing throughout the mansion. While stories and fairytales might lead you to believe that that would make me despise him, it only made me love him more.

  I only wished that he could have known her, could have felt her embrace, could have watched her with his wide eyes and curl his grubby little hands around hers.

  I gave him as much love as I could to make up for it, knowing that she was watching over us. I took time off work for him and made sure that I had as much a hand in raising him as the nanny I had hired to help me.

  She was a kind, older woman and she understood how the loss of my wife made it difficult for me sometimes. She was good with Gavin and he loved her dearly, but she was also taking tomorrow off.

  Gavin had been begging me, ever since he learned what it was, to take him to Disney World. We lived close, in a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, so I had decided that his fourth birthday would be a good time to take him. I wanted it to just be our day, so tomorrow morning I would be driving him to the happiest place on earth.

  Outside, Gavin let out a happy scream as his nanny caught him up in her arms, pressing kisses all over his forehead. She set him down and he turned to look at me, giving me a wide smile and making a motion as if to blow me kisses with his hands.

  I grinned, standing up from my seat in the armchair by the window and headed out to the front lawn so that I could wrap him in my arms. He giggled as I tickled him, bringing him down to the grass.

  He rolled around, trying to avoid me, but I caught him up again and pressed him close to my body in a hug.

  He set his hands on my shoulders and pressed back from me for a moment.

  “We’re going to Disney tomorrow!” he said with a toothy grin.

  “Yes we are, my little prince,” I said, giving him a little raspberry. His screams were delighted as he squirmed. “Are you excited?”

  “Yes! Yes!” he said, clapping his hands together. “Disney! Disney!”

  I laughed. “Good.”

  That night I dismissed his nanny early and helped him get ready for bed myself. As I helped him into his mickey mouse footie pajamas, Gavin squirmed around to look at me.

  “Will you tell me a story?” he asked.

  “What kind of story do you want?” I zipped up the front and led him to his bathroom so that we could brush his teeth.

  Before I started, he said. “About Mama.”

  “You want a story about Mama?”

  He nodded and let me start brushing.

  I hadn’t expected that particular request. He liked stories about mice who talked, about dragons, and sometimes about princesses or astronauts, but he hadn’t asked about his mom before. Perhaps he was just getting to the age where he understood that there was someone missing in his life.

  I had always told him that the beautiful woman in his pictures was his Mama, so maybe that was also it.

  I finished and helped him rinse before picking him up and carrying him to his bed. I pulled the covers back and set him down then pulled them up around him and made sure they were snug.

  He looked at me with wide brown eyes. His Mama’s eyes.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you a story about your Mama,” I said finally.

  “Yay!” He squirmed deeper into the nest of blankets.

  “Once there lived a very beautiful woman. She was beautiful and kind enough to be a princess, but she wasn’t born one. She loved every animal, big and small, and one day she wanted to have a little kid, just like you.” I tweaked his nose and he giggled.

  “But she couldn’t do that until she had found her prince.”

  “That’s you?”

  “Yes, that’s me. The first time I saw your Mama she was sitting in the garden with a bird in her lap and she was painting pretty pictures of the flowers around her. It was love at first sight.

  “Your Mama was very good at painting. In fact, while she was carrying you, she made those for you,” I pointed to the paintings that were hung up all around Gavin’s room. There were flowers and little animals and fantasy landscapes and scenes.

  “I like them,” he said very matter of factly.

  “I know, I do too. I know she would have loved you.”

  Gavin sighed. “When will I see her?”

  He still didn’t quite understand the concept of mortality. I knew he was expecting her to pop out someday, looking exactly as she did in her pictures. But that was never going to happen.

  “Someday,” I said, not wanting to explain death to him tonight. The fact that it would be four years tomorrow was beginning to hit me hard. “Someday you will.”

  The next morning we got up early to beat the traffic. Disney World was only about a two and a half-hour drive from us, but I didn’t want to be sitting stalled on the freeway for any time at all.

  This also meant that Gavin was still very sle
epy, so he would probably sleep through most of the drive. He was just at that age where he got bored easily but had a difficult time entertaining himself, especially when he was cooped up in a car seat in the back of the car.

  My driver had offered his services for the day so I could just sit with my son and keep him entertained, but I wanted this day to be just us. I wanted to show Gavin how much I cared about him, how much I wanted to be there for him, even if it wasn’t something he could really understand just yet.

  I strapped Gavin into his car seat and double-checked that I had packed everything we might need for the day. I set his favorite toys in the cupholder of his car seat so that he had something to play with if he ended up being awake for any part of the drive.

  I double-checked that the car seat was properly secured once again, then made sure that his straps weren’t loose and they were buckled right. Safety was always my number one priority, especially when my son was in the car with me. I couldn’t bear anything happening to him.

  I got into the driver’s seat, fastened my seat belt, and turned the key. The engine hummed to life beneath me—a gentle sound like the snoring of a baby dragon.

  “Let’s go,” I muttered to myself, pulling out of the driveway and onto the small residential street.

  Things were quiet at this hour in the morning and the freeways weren’t crowded. I had had my coffee for the morning, so I was wide awake and humming along to the songs on the radio.

  I was a good driver, always safe, always cautious. And usually, I could see disaster before it struck.

  But that morning, God was not on my side.

  I didn’t see the car speeding along, coming up fast behind me. They must have not seen me either, until it was too late, for they rammed into the back of my car, sending me spinning. I tried to keep control, but the world was blurring around me. We were hit again, by another car, and the force was enough to topple the car over.

  My ears were ringing loud, and my heart was beating fast inside my chest. Time seemed to slow as honks sounded around us and there was the distant song of sirens. An ambulance was coming, one had to be.

  Was I alive?

  I looked at my hands. Blood was rushing to my head, as I was suspended upside down in my seat. The airbag had absorbed a lot of force and kept me mostly safe, but I knew that the adrenaline would numb any pain.

  Then, I knew something was wrong.

  There was no other sound in the car but my own heavy breathing when there should have been something else.

  I craned my neck, looked around, and my whole world felt as if it was dissolving.

  Gavin was still held in place by the car seat, but he wasn’t moving or making a sound. He was covered in blood and it looked as if his fragile little neck had snapped.

  I wanted to scream, wanted to do anything, say anything, but nothing came out.

  My hands scrambled to unbuckle myself and I wriggled my way out of the seatbelt to crawl into the back of the upturned car, praying, hoping, that I was wrong. That God was still merciful. That he would hear my prayers.

  “Gavin, Gavin, my baby boy,” I said, bringing up a hand to his cheek. It was cold and sticky with blood.

  My hands trembling, I unstrapped him from the seat and then forced open the side door of the car. I crawled out, him in my arms, looking to anyone around us who might be able to do something, who might be able to tell me that they could still save my baby boy.

  The ambulance was arriving then, but I knew enough from the horrified faces around me that there was nothing to be done.

  Gavin was dead and I couldn’t do anything about it but scream at the heavens for God’s cruelty in taking him from me.

  Chapter Two

  Vincent

  One Year Later…

  “Sir, why don’t you just take a few days off instead?” my assistant, Genevieve said, earning a glare from me.

  I was trying to brainstorm ideas with her for how I could honor the first anniversary of the death of my son...and the fifth of my wife for that matter.

  “You’ve been working hard since then. I think the best thing you could do in his memory would be to take some time for yourself.”

  “You know I don’t want to do that.” I shuffled through some more of the papers on my desk, needing to keep my hands occupied.

  “I know. But I also know that it would be good for you. You haven’t even processed things properly yet.”

  Genevieve was many years my senior and had worked with my parents before they died when I was young, so I trusted her. Some might even say that my relationship with her was one of son and mother. She had always been there for me and I knew she was wise, but this was one thing I did not want to budge on. I was going to honor my son and I would do it how I saw fit.

  “There’s no discussing this. I just need your help ironing out the details.”

  She sighed. “Sir….”

  “There are no buts in this matter, Genevieve. I’ve already decided what I want to do.”

  “Alright then. Why don’t you lay it out for me?”

  “I want to take some underprivileged children, let’s say some in foster care or something like that, on a trip to Disney World.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise sir? There are lots of other places you could go.”

  I knew what she was thinking. I had lost Gavin on the way to Disney World. Traveling that distance again, or even going to that place he had wanted to visit so badly, might bring up grief and memories that I didn’t want to deal with.

  But Gavin had wanted to go to Disney World on his birthday and I hadn’t been able to give him that. The least I could do would be to give that to other children in his memory.

  “Yes. I’m taking them to Disney World.”

  “And you’re going with them?”

  “Yes.”

  I knew that look. She couldn’t believe that this was what I had decided to do, but she also knew that there was nothing else she could do about it.

  “Alright.”

  She began to type things into her laptop, presumably doing research on who we should contact about this.

  “Sir.”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a school nearby that’s known for serving kids in the foster care system. They have a specialized art program, so they attract a lot of foster families. Currently, they have a class of about twenty—all different ages. Should I contact them?”

  That sounded pretty good. If the kids all already knew each other, they would have a lot more fun on our little excursion. And this way would be a lot easier because we were going through a school to set up the trip, not the foster system itself.

  “Yes, please do.” I stood from my desk and began to pack papers into my bag. It was nearing the end of the work day, but I planned on taking things home with me.

  “Sir….” Genevieve reached for me as if to provide comfort, but I sidestepped her hand.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but you really shouldn’t worry about me like that. It’s not your job.”

  “It may not be, but I can’t help it. Don’t take work home, not tonight. Give yourself some time.”

  I gave her a sad look. “You know I can’t do that. Who knows what thoughts might enter my mind if I didn’t have something to occupy myself with.”

  The truth was, the thoughts still came. The memories were ever-present, as were the regrets and the desire to turn back the hands of time. But work numbed it. Work dulled the pain. And even a year later, it still didn’t feel like I could face things full force.

  Because this time, I didn’t have anyone to comfort me. I had no more remnants of my family left. It felt as if God had forsaken me.

  “Sometimes it’s important that those thoughts come, so you can move past them.”

  “Genevieve, you know nothing of my grief. So don’t try to tell me how to cope with it.”

  “But sir, I do….” Her words trailed off as I brushed past her, work laptop and more paperwork in my briefca
se. I was heading home. I couldn’t deal with this anymore. Who was she to judge how I should live my life? Deal with my losses?

  I trusted that she would take care of the arrangements for the trip I wanted her to plan, so all that was left for me was to drown myself in my work.

  My home had never felt the same after Gavin had died.

  It was like all of the light that had once filled the place left with him.

  I fired his nanny. I couldn’t bear to see the face of the woman who had helped raise him. I also fired a good deal of my staff. I kept on the minimal required to upkeep the place. A couple of gardeners. Some maids. One cook. And a driver on occasion.

  So the house became as empty as it felt.

  I never went in Gavin’s old room. In fact, I closed off quite a few of the guest rooms in the mansion. They were only touched by the maids once a month to dust and clean the furniture.

  I took my work with me to my study. I had texted the cook to tell him to leave my dinner for me in there. I really didn’t feel like having to see anyone at the moment. I needed to be alone.

  The study was a dark room. Or, at least, it had become that way. A year ago, I would have spread wide the drapes to let in light and turned on the overhead lights. But now they were kept firmly shut and I worked from the light of a lamp at my desk.

  The furniture was all dark wood and the carpet was a fine wine red. The light of the lamp was tinted red by a matching shade and there were black and white photographs decorating the walls.