Chapter 58 – Finding the Secret Daddy for My Baby Novel

Filed to story: Finding the Secret Daddy for My Baby Novel >>

Elliot was presently seated by her hospital bed. Taking in the bump on her forehead and her pale face, he consoled her by saying, “Don’t worry, you’ll just have to stay here for a couple of days for observation purposes.”

“Elliot, what were you doing with Anastasia? Were you both going out for work or something?” Hayley asked as she lay demurely in bed, feigning curiosity.

He shook his head. “I was going to bring her to the Presgrave Residence to meet my grandmother.”

Hayley was in shock as she asked, “Why do you want her to meet your grandmother?”

“I was kidnapped once when I was only a child, and it was Anastasia’s mother who sacrificed her life to save mine. My grandma’s been waiting to repay the deed ever since,” Elliot explained frankly.

“What? You were the kid Anastasia’s mother saved back in the day? Anastasia and I were classmates throughout elementary and high school. I heard about how her mother had died while on duty, but I didn’t think you were the person she saved. Her mother was a selfless woman,” Hayley pointed out with admiration. “I’ve always looked up to her mother.”

“Did something happen between you and Anastasia?” Elliot asked curiously. He could tell that Anastasia harbored enmity toward Hayley to the extent that her hatred for the latter was unmistakable.

Hayley had long since thought of an answer, and she lied with a sigh, “Anastasia came to save me once when I was being taken advantage of, but in the end, she ended up getting assaulted instead. She’s been holding it against me ever since.”

“Assaulted?” He blanched at this, wondering if Hayley was perhaps referring to some other kind of assault.

“Yes. Some gigolo ended up violating her. It was because of me that she had to suffer something as horrible as that,” Hayley went on to say as tears of guilt glistened in her eyes. She buried her face in her hands and muttered in anguish, “I could never make it up to her, not even if I were to spend the rest of my life trying to atone for my faults.”

Elliot felt his heart leap to his throat. Anastasia was assaulted by a man before this? “Are you sure she was…” The words died on his tongue as he fixed his gaze on Hayley, unwilling to accept what he had just heard.

Hayley’s tears streamed down her face as she nodded firmly and said, “Yes, her chastity had been cruelly taken away from her that night against her own will. That was her first time and I… She was assaulted because of me, and I can’t ever make it up to her. She’s hated me since that horrific ordeal, and I deserve it. I deserve to be loathed by her for the rest of this lifetime.”

Just as she was saying this, Hayley thought darkly, I just need to let Elliot know that Anastasia isn’t some virtuous and pure lady. Now, regardless of how pretty she is, she will forever be tainted goods to him!

Elliot, on the other hand, felt as if he was caught in the aftershock of an earthquake. He was so stunned that his handsome features seemed frozen in place, and his eyes were wide as he contemplated what he had just learned.

“It’s only right that she hates me. There is nothing I can do to atone for this sin of mine, Elliot. I know that I had the same experience as she did, but I was lucky enough that you were willing to take responsibility for it. I can’t say the same for Anastasia, though; she met a scoundrel who slept with her and abandoned her as soon as the deed was over.”

“Does that mean the kid belongs to that gigolo?” Elliot pressed in a low voice, his fist clenching where it rested atop his knee. I can’t believe she went through something like that.

“I have no idea. She left for abroad after that day and we lost contact with each other,” Hayley said slowly while shaking her head. Then, she looked up nervously at Elliot and urged tearfully, “Elliot, you have to promise me not to ask Anastasia about this. I don’t want you to prod into the scars of her past, okay? Besides, if she finds out that I was the one who told you all about what happened to her, she’ll only hate me more.”

Elliot knew that going through something as horrific as this was traumatizing for any woman. As such, he nodded and said in a fit of compassion, “I promise I won’t mention a word about this to her.”

Burying her face in her hands, Hayley began to sob and snivel again, though she was actually smirking into her palms with the corners of her lips tipped up villainously. Now that Elliot knows of your dark past, would he still want someone as tainted as you, Anastasia?

Presently, Elliot reached out to pat Hayley’s shoulder. “There, now—stop crying and get some rest. I’ll be going back to the office.”

“Don’t go, Elliot.” Hayley grabbed the hem of his shirt and eyed him piteously. “Can’t you stay with me for a while longer?”

He had only just risen from his seat, but now that Hayley had asked him to stay, he did as told and sat down once more. This made him think of that fateful night from five years ago, when he had been so out of his own mind that he ravished Hayley like a monster. He could still hear her sobs from that night like haunted, disembodied tunes in the back of his mind, and he could still feel the way she struggled to break free from under him. And yet, he never stopped, merely pinning her down so that he could have his ruthless ways with her.

“That night… It was my first time as well, Elliot,” Hayley mumbled shyly as she looked up at him with her pretty eyes.

He nodded and said gently, “I know.” He had known, indeed, for he had noticed the drops of blood on the couch when he woke up after the brutal deed. The thought of this only made him want to compensate her more.

“Elliot, I… I want to keep being your woman,” she added boldly, abandoning all subtlety as she confessed her feelings for him.