Hot Driver - S01 E72

Story 14 hours ago

Hot Driver - S01 E72

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 72

A Road – Same Evening

Alice stood frozen beneath the streetlight, trembling from head to toe, watching disbelief crash across Mrs. Hale’s face in real time.

“Alice.” Mrs. Hale’s voice came out strangled. “Tell me I’m imagining this. Tell me you’re not who I think you are.”

Mr. Hale’s car door opened next, and he crossed to his wife’s side, his own face draining the moment he registered who stood in front of them.

“You,” he said, low and dangerous. “You were her nurse. Twenty-eight years ago.”

Alice’s legs nearly gave out beneath her. There was nowhere left to run, no lie left sharp enough to slide past this.

“I need you to understand,” she started, voice shaking violently, “it wasn’t— I didn’t plan any of it—”

“EXPLAIN,” Mrs. Hale said, the word tearing out of her.

Alice’s breath came in short, panicked gasps as the words finally, after twenty-eight years, forced their way out of her.

“You had a boy,” she said. “Not a girl. The scans said girl, but you birthed a boy. You were still unconscious, you never even saw him properly before—” she stopped, swallowing hard. “I took him. I flew here, to Creston, with him. I thought I could raise him myself, I really did, but I couldn’t find work, I could barely feed myself, and—” her voice cracked entirely, “—I took him. To an orphanage. I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry—”

The slap came before she finished the sentence.

Mr. Hale’s palm connected with her cheek, the sound cracking sharp through the empty road, her head snapping sideways from the force of it.

Mrs. Hale had both hands pressed over her mouth now, sobbing, her whole body shaking.

“There’s more,” Alice said, voice barely above a whisper now, blood welling faintly at the corner of her lip. “A year later, I met a man. One night together, nothing more. I got pregnant. He gave me money, more than I knew what to do with, and I went abroad to have the baby. A girl, this time. After she finished school, she wanted to come back to Creston for university, and I let her.” Alice’s hands twisted together, guilt and exhaustion bleeding through every word now. “I started modeling around then. I had the body for it. I got rich. I hid her from her father — I didn’t want her disappointing him, and he was never the kind of man who deserved to know her anyway. He fu— he slept around. He was never going to be responsible for anything.”

“Where is my son,” Mr. Hale cut in, voice hard as stone, entirely uninterested in the rest of her confession. “Where is he now.”

“I don’t know,” Alice said, tears streaming freely now. “I went back to the orphanage years later. He’d already been adopted by then. I never found out by who.”

Sirens cut through the night before anyone could say another word, red and blue lights washing across the road as two police cars pulled up, having clearly been alerted already.

Officers moved in quickly, cuffing Alice’s wrists behind her back as she sobbed, offering no resistance at all.

As they led her toward the car, Mrs. Hale crossed the distance in three furious strides and slapped her hard across the face — the second strike of the night — before stepping back, chest heaving, tears streaming down her own cheeks.

“Twenty-eight years,” she said, voice breaking entirely. “You took twenty-eight years from us.”

Alice said nothing. There was nothing left to say. She was loaded into the back of the police car and driven away, leaving the Hales standing alone on the empty road.

Hope Orphanage.

The name echoed through Mr. Hale’s mind, over and over, as he guided his sobbing wife back toward their own car.

“Driver,” he said, voice tight with barely restrained urgency. “Find Hope Orphanage. Now.”

By morning, the story of Alice’s crime had already exploded across every news outlet in the city.

An Exclusive Restaurant – Night

Ivory had bought out the entire venue for the evening — every table empty, every chair pushed back except for the single one set beautifully in the center of the room, draped in soft candlelight, roses trailing delicately along the length of the table. Soft music drifted from hidden speakers, and the low golden lighting made the whole space feel like something suspended outside of time entirely.

They sat across from each other, plates of rich, expertly prepared delicacies spread between them, and Duane leaned across the table to feed her a bite, wiping a stray crumb from the corner of her mouth before stealing a kiss in its place.

“You keep doing that,” Ivory said, laughing softly.

“Doing what?”

“Kissing me every time you feed me.”

“I’m addicted,” he said, entirely unrepentant, offering her another bite.

She took it, chewing slowly, watching him across the candlelight. “I love you,” she said quietly, the words slipping free easier now than they had the first time.

He didn’t answer with words. He simply leaned in and kissed her again, longer this time, before offering her another bite from his own plate.

She fed him in turn, and he ate with his eyes half-closed, an expression so unfairly seductive that Ivory found herself staring far longer than the moment strictly warranted.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she said, flustered.

He only chuckled, taking another bite directly from her fingers, lips grazing her skin as he did, before pulling back to lick the last traces of sauce from her fingertips slowly.

Ivory’s breath caught. A smile broke across her face, dimples flashing at both corners of her mouth.

Duane’s gaze caught on them instantly, something soft and helpless overtaking his expression. He reached up and traced one gently with his thumb.

“These,” he murmured. “I could look at these all day.”

Once the meal was finished, Ivory rose slowly from her seat, plucking a single rose from the table’s centerpiece and holding it delicately between her teeth as she rounded the table toward him, hips swaying with deliberate, unhurried confidence.

She sank down, crawling the short distance between them, and hooked one leg deliberately over his shoulder, giving him an unmistakable, unguarded view of her ūndîes.

Duane’s composure cracked entirely.

He caught her by the waist, lowering her back against the table in one smooth motion, plates and cutlery scattering to the floor around them, forgotten entirely.

“My addiction,” he groaned against her mouth, the words barely audible before his lips found hers again, hungrier this time.

Her dress gave easily beneath his hands, and the rest of the evening unfolded slowly, softly, the candlelight burning low around them until only quiet murmurs remained in the empty restaurant — her name, his name, and little else.