Sweet and Spicy [COMPLETED]

Secrets Revealed (pt. 2)

"You hoped I would... remember you?" Kaya looked down to her hands in her lap. Twiddled her fingers as if that were a spell to fix everything. "But I've never met you before. Have I?"

Ransom inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. Reached into his inner jacket pocket to produce his phone. Though he hesitated, Kaya waited. Because she wanted to trust him. She wanted to know why he suddenly behaved like this. 

As though he had made up his mind, Ransom opened the screen, spun the device, and held it out to Kaya. "The recent calls." 

It was Kaya's turn to hesitate. If she looked, if she learned... what conclusion would she come to? Would it change everything? Even her feelings?

Still, Kaya had lived with lies her whole life. She had no intention of overlooking them now. 

Kaya glanced down at the screen, then did a double-take. "Why... why do you have this number?" 

"Why do you think I have that number?" And Ransom held his breath. 

Kaya stared at the digits she had memorized in her pre-teen years. The ones that she only recently mounted the courage to dial. Logically, what reason would Ransom have to receive a call from that phone? He would have been... what? Late teens? Twenty, at most. 

"You..." Kaya tore her gaze from the phone screen to study Ransom's face. Dark eyes. Eyes that she should have recognized long ago. Eyes that should have been familiar, had she been thinking straight. "You're his nephew?" 

Ransom's wry smile seemed tense. "You would have discovered it tomorrow, even if I didn't tell you." 

"But... all this time..." Kaya tried to wrap her brain around it. If Ransom was that man's nephew, did that mean... "You knew? Everything?"

"The man your mother trusted so much... he is my uncle by marriage. Jade's father." 

"Jade knows too?" Kaya dropped Ransom's phone onto the table and buried her head in her hands. 

How humiliating. Just when she thought that those closest to her might be her new beginning, she found them tied to her past. How long had they known? And how much?

"You shouldn't blame Jade. She doesn't know your story." 

"Then why is she helping me?" 

"She only knows that I..." Ransom pulled his lip between his teeth. His voice dropped to a near-whisper. "That I've only thought of you for a very long time." 

"What?" 

Ransom cleared his throat. "Jade is aware of my feelings toward you, which is why she pushed us together. I've always had a hunch that she put my shirt on you on purpose. I can't prove it, that's all." 

It made sense, now that she thought about it. Jade usually had a plan. Why wouldn't she have started something like this on purpose? In Jade's mind, as long as it ended well, any means necessary were applicable to make it happen. 

Strangely, Kaya found herself angrier at Jade than at Ransom. Instead, she had questions to ask Ransom. Many, many questions. 

She looked up, through her fingers. "You've known everything the whole time?" 

Slowly, Ransom nodded. "Most of it. Since I was with my uncle originally." 

"Apparently I don't remember as much as I thought I did." Kaya dropped her head again. 

Ransom bent beside Kaya, his hands reaching out to tug hers away from her face. "If you don't remember, you can ask me. I remember it all. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

He had a point. He could probably answer every question that Kaya had. But what to ask first?